In recent weeks Lake Eufaula has seen tournament pressure from some of the best pros in the sport. It was time for the best teams in the southeast to take their turn at the lake when the Alabama Bass Trail South Division converged here last weekend. Going against the norm the team of Shane Powell and Tim Fox did things a little different to win with 26.22 pounds. Shane and Tim went against the grain and started the morning out deep. Fox reported that they started fishing a roadbed, and were surprised they had the whole location to themselves.
The roadbed is a well known community area that extends for a couple miles, but they located a stretch that produced 19 pounds really quickly for them. Fox said they noticed in practice the fish were feeding out deep early. Making the decision to go deep when a good majority of the field went shallow early was unique. Timing proved to be a deciding factor because they returned later in the morning to check the roadbed again, but it didn’t produce a bite.
Once the sun got up, the bite died down on the roadbed. They then moved to their second spot. This time they fished out a little deeper to the ledges. They used a 10XD and upgraded a few times. Powell said there were still large schools of fish there, and they had the areas completely to themselves because most competitors were still fishing shallow. At the end of the day they switched up and moved shallow. Using a white ½ oz War Eagle spinnerbait they targeted shallow water brush piles.
"We could see shad busting the surface on the top of the brush piles," Powell reported. "With it being so hot the key was to use a smaller bait and get down in the brush pile. The fish didn’t want a big bait and those two fish in the last hour really catapulted us up to the top."
All together they caught about 40-50 fish. They avoided the traffic by reversing the usual tournament pattern and fishing opposite of the rest of the field. When they showed up in their areas the fish were active, no one was there, and they could really fish the way they wanted to. Their key baits were a Strike King black and blue Pro Model Jig with a Rage Craw Menace; a Strike King Natural shad 10Xd Crankbait and a War Eagle ½ oz white spinnerbait with willow leaf blades and a Big Bites white grub as a trailer.
Steve Graziano and Greg Hall finished 2nd with 23.96 pounds. Graziano reported that they started early on one of the biggest community holes on the lake called the Potty Hole and also fished his name-sake hole “The Graz Hole" but that was not where they caught their fish. They caught most of their keepers in about 20 feet of water by fishing natural lake structure. Graziano said the key for them was hard bottom like a shell bed. He said he is “not a brush pile fisherman and prefers to fish the way he did today.”
Greg Hall said that typically this time of year the bush pile bite is fading away, but this year has not been the typical year and everything has been trending later. Graziano said he felt his areas got better because they dropped the water about 6 inches during the tournament. They caught most of their fish later in the morning using an "unnamed dark heavy shaky head and a homemade Brush Puppy jig.” Steve is a local guide on the lake.
It took 22.71 for third place. The team of Kenny Smith and Rj Thompson found a stretch on the main lake that was holding fish early and they put together a good limit before 8am. Kenny described the area as a “main lake shallow bank with grass.” The key stretch was a few hundred yards long apparently holding bluegills. They spent most of their day flipping that area with a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver in Green Pumpkin color. RJ said he also “caught one of their bigger fish on a brim color Dirty Jigs swim jig with a Skinny Dipper Trailer.”