3
WHY THE SHALLOW BITE STUNK
Save for Wesley Strader, no one in the top 10 benefitted much from the shallow bite at Murray, which is a stark departure from the two previous Cups that were held in the month of August on the lake.
Pros weighed in with several theories on why that was, and the consensus is that a brief cool-down during practice, coupled with heavy rains, retarded the water temperature’ s climb to traditional peak August levels and oxygenated the water offshore to the point that bass simply didn’ t have to leave. In previous years, the shallows were more attractive because offshore surface waters heated up, and wave action along the shore oxygenated the water there, attracting bait and bass.
Gagliardi also believes the bass were somewhat fooled into thinking it was fall, which is when the cane pile bite is usually best at Murray. Certainly, bass don’ t reason in such a way, but the notion that their seasonal movements were thrown off by the unseasonal conditions has merit. And with the offshore bite being so strong, pros simply had no reason to go play the bank-running game to try and catch one here and one there over vast swaths of water when they could target specific spots where their electronics showed them there were fish.
5
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOLERS
The term“ schoolers” was tossed around quite a bit at Murray, typically to refer to bass that were breaking the surface, but not every fish that was deemed a schooler was engaged in the same type of activity. Some came up simultaneously in groups to chase blueback herring, or even shad in some parts of the lake, in typical schooling form. Others came up a fish or two at a time at random when an unfortunate baitfish fled to the surface. And then there was the staggered-but-consistent morning schooling activity that Atkins, Cobb and Fox dialed in on for some of their better catches.
During periods of more consistent surface activity, some pros found it more effective to not cast unless fish were visible up top, in order to be ready to fire out at just the right moment. Otherwise, the time it took to wind in a bait that was already in the water might have caused them to miss the window of opportunity.
Though Atkins primarily kept his bait in the water, Fox adjusted on the final day and worked the wait-andcast program. Top-10 finishers Anthony Gagliardi and Aaron Britt did the same almost exclusively.
Aaron Britt
Andy Morgan
4
THE RUN-AND-GUN CANE PILE GAME
One of the more interesting aspects of the cane pile program is that, while the fish will group together on cane, most pros only caught a fish or two at a time from each spot and then had to leave the spot to rest or wait awhile for the fish to set back up. It seemed that when one fish attacked a topwater walked over the cane, the rest of the bass came with it – literally following the action and being pulled away from the cover.
Atkins and third-place finisher Brandon Cobb recognized what was happening and adopted a blitzing run-and-gun strategy, where they made a few casts at each spot and then buzzed on to the next one. Even when they caught a fish, Atkins and Cobb didn’ t stick around too long, save for a period early in the mornings when they both targeted schoolers breaking in their best areas.
Eventually, after a spot had rested, the pros cycled back through again. For Cobb, who led the tournament after two days, a large crowd of spectator boats chasing him on day three might have scattered and spooked his fish, preventing the bass from returning to the cane as they otherwise would have and throwing off his timing.
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