I usually enjoy the four seasons. Changing weather often makes fishing better and it is less boring. But going through all four seasons and worse last week at Lake Eufaula was a bit much.
I went down to Lake Point State Park last Tuesday and set up my slide in pickup camper. The weather was very warm when I went to bed and I knew storms were possible.
At 5:00 AM someone pounded on my camper and woke me. I thought they said the power was out, but my fan was still running so I turned over to go back to sleep. Then a car horn started blowing, making me look at my phone – there was a Tornado Warning for the campground on it I had not heard!
I joined all the other campers in the cement block bath house for the next hour!
The rest of Wednesday was decent, with some light showers but little wind. I was able to get out on the lake and look around some. I joined the 196 other bass boats on the water, a Fishers of Men National Championship tournament was scheduled for Thursday through Saturday. It was a big deal, first and second places in the tournament would win fully rigged bass boats worth either $80,000 or $60,000, depending on place.
Thursday was a nice spring like day, warm weather and sun. I again looked around, watching the many boats with teams fishing the first day of the tournament. Most were easing around the shoreline, casting various baits to grassbeds.
When I went to my favorite small creek I was happy to see just two boats in it fishing, but while I idled around about six other boats ran in, fished a few minutes, then left. I knew by the start of our tournament Saturday the poor fish would be beat to death, seeing every lure carried by Berry’s Sporting Goods and then some.
Friday the wind was up a little and the misty rain made me sit at my camper and watch the tournament fishermen go round and round in the creek out from the campground. Weather guessers were saying 20+ MPH winds for Saturday. Most lakes are dangerous with those kinds of winds, and Eufuala is one of the worse.
Fishers of Men announced they were canceling the third day of their tournament due to dangerous conditions. And the Bass Fisherman’s League canceled their big tournament on Oconee for the same reason.
Potato Creek did not cancel, but when Tom Tanner and I idled to the ramp for our set 7:00 blast off, we were told the executive committee delayed our start by 30 minutes. So for 30 minutes Tom and I sat in our boats as the cold wind got about five miles per hour stronger and the temperature dropped another two degrees while everybody else sat in their warm trucks in the parking lot.