PREVIEW: No Hurry for Huron
MLF Select anglers get another crack at the Great Lake
With another calm day in the forecast on day three of the 2017 Bass Pro Shops Challenge Select in Alpena, Mich., Major League Fishing officials have decided to take competition back out onto the waters of Lake Huron’s Thunder Bay.
As the convoy pulls into City Marina on the shores of Huron, several anglers are caught off guard, including Randy Howell of Springville, Ala., who fished in the first MLF Cup held in Alpena in 2014.
“I’m really surprised they’re doing this, mostly because those other smaller lakes around here are so dang good,” Howell said. “Why would they want to come out here on the big water when they got such good fishing on those small lakes?”
“Plus they sent us the info on how to watch all the shows from the last time we were here,” Howell laughed. “I spent hours watching those shows on those other lakes and now I’m on Huron – go figure.”
The silver lining for Howell is that due to the previous MLF event that he fished in Alpena, he actually logged a couple of hours on Huron and caught a few smallmouth.
“The last time we were here, we had a sponsor fishing event here on Huron,” Howell said. “I took a couple of the guys from Livingston Lures out there for a few hours. It was pretty rough so we didn’t venture far out there, but we caught some dandy smallmouth, so I know they live out there. I might even go see if I can find a coupe of those places to start on this morning.”
Ott Defoe of Knoxville, Tenn., was a little taken aback with the notion of launching on Huron as well.
“Yes, I’m a little surprised they would put us out here in these 18-foot boats,” he commented. “But it makes sense given that the forecast is calling for very light winds – I guess it’s a chance to fish some new water so they went for it.”
Defoe, however, is not intoned by the allure of giant smallmouths and “mother loads” in the big lake and was in no hurry for Huron.
“I’m probably just going to start right in here,” he whispered, nodding at the surrounding marina. “One thing I know about these fish up here is they usually don’t bite early – they’re late risers. So, in my mind, there is no sense in rushing to get out there to try to find smallmouth in that low light. I’ll just stay in here, see if I can post a few keepers on the scoretracker and see if anyone else lights it up out there.”
Casey Ashley of Donalds, S.C., also offered some thoughts on smallmouth being easier to catch when the sun is up higher.
“I think it does help them bite better, but mostly the light helps me see better,” Ashley explained. “I can see the light spots and dark spots to throw at. I can find those places where sand and rock mix. Any vegetation like cabbage is identifiable from a long way off. You can’t see any of those critical details when it’s dark in the morning.”
Kurt Dove of Del Rio, Texas, calls the perfect mix of smallmouth cover in the Great Lakes “scrabble.”
“Scrabble bottom is anywhere you have a shoal, point, hump or high spot with sand, rock and gravel all mixed together,” he explained. “It forms sort of a light and dark patchy bottom that we call scrabble and smallmouth love it for ambushing prey.”
“The only problem with trying to find scrabble is it’s something you need light to see. It’s much easier to find it say from 10 o’clock on, so I don’t know how much good it does to go out there first thing. But if you got on them early out there, you could have this thing sewed up by second period.”