Team Toyota’s Terry “Big Show” Scroggins and his longtime roommate Britt Myers have 38-years of combined pro angling experience, but neither of them recall a weekend on the road full of life-threatening weather like they faced this past weekend during practice for Major League Fishing’s Millertech Stage Four of the Bass Pro Tour event at Lake Eufaula, OK.
“Neither of us had ever been to Eufaula, Oklahoma in our lives, and the first day of practice on this 108,000-acre lake was full of 20-mph winds, waves that were 3-feet tall, and a trip to the tornado shelter that night,” says Scroggins.
Not exactly the kind of weather the local chamber of commerce hoped would greet their pro angling guests, but it’s late April, it’s Oklahoma, and tornadoes are unfortunately a challenging part of life around here each spring.
“Around midnight after the first day of practice, our cell phones started going crazy with tornado alerts, so we jumped in my Tundra and joined about 15 local residents in the tornado shelter,” says Myers.
That was a rough night. Nobody was hurt. No Toyota Tundras or high-performance bass boats were damaged, but the weather was far from playing nice. Roughly 17 hours later, several anglers captured cell phone video footage of a tornado hanging over the lake as they wrapped up Sunday’s practice.
“Guys were calling each other, saying to run for shelter. It was nuts. And sure enough, before long, we were all running back to this tornado shelter again,” says Myers.
Scroggins says he’s seen terrible storms on Table Rock, MO, and a tornado that once crossed the opposite end of where he was fishing on Guntersville, AL, but never has he been summoned to a tornado shelter twice in one weekend.
“We’re dealing with a lot right now on Eufaula. First off, most of us have never fished here, but on top of that, we’ve been in a tornado shelter twice while the water got crazy muddy and rose 4-feet. But as much as anything, you’ve had to get a grip on when it’s time to run for cover,” smiles Scroggins, shaking his head.
Now that’s a variable nobody, including some of America’s top pro anglers, want to make a habit of trying to figure out.
Surely the weather and the fishing will stabilize far better by the event’s conclusion on Sunday, and more than anything, that Scroggins and Myers won’t find themselves back in the tornado shelter for the third time.