Story by Justin Brouillard | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
The inaugural NPFL Epic Baits Championship is here in Del Rio, Texas, where the top 26 pros from the 2023 Progressive Angler of the Year Standings will compete for three days on Lake Amistad for over $200,000 in total purse and the $100,000 first-place check.
The challenging conditions at Lake Amistad, with the water level over 60 feet below normal, are creating an unfamiliar playing field for anglers, where prior knowledge of the lake is unhelpful.
Nick Brown has spent a ton of time on Amistad and has never once seen the lake this low or fishing this bad. Most of his rolodex full of waypoints would put him 30 feet out of the water on dry land, which leaves little cover for the fish to try and pull up and spawn.
Brown knows how quickly things can change, and with stable water conditions, warming weather, and an off day Wednesday, anything is possible when he launches for day one this morning.
“I checked a lot of stuff in practice and did not find any spawners,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there are not some, but I was expecting this event to be full-blown sight fishing and it just isn’t going to be. I will keep it honest, but I think they are staging right now.”
Jesse Wise enjoyed a third-place finish in the AOY race in 2023, earning over $46,500 for his efforts. He also noticed the stable water and is hoping the big fish show up for the anglers here on day one.
“Our last day of practice was fishing better, I thought,” he said. “I feel like you won’t see many on bed; I think they probably spawn deeper anyway, but the buck bass are up and biting, and whoever wins this deal will need two big bites a day I think. It’s a much different fishery than I have ever been on, and I believe it will fish small. There is a 3 or 4-mile stretch with a lot of anglers.”
The hottest man in the NPFL right now is Will Harkins. His efforts to close out the 2023 season with two close calls at winning earned him second place overall to Todd Goade in the AOY, and he started 2024 off with a victory just a few weeks ago at Lake Logan Martin.
Harkins is a self-proclaimed “offshore finesse angler” but has shown that his game is much stronger than that. At Lake Logan Martin, he was targeting shallow pre-spawn bass with a crankbait and likely will be fishing shallow again this week.
“I dabbled offshore here a little bit but the temperatures are up there but the fish are definitely shallow,” he said. “I am going to be rotating through a bunch of different bites but these fish will eat just about anything it seems.”
Like the others, Harkins knows how important a few better-quality bites are on Amistad and says moving around might be the best way to make it happen.
“You really need to cover a ton of water I think; the bigger fish are moving up, and new ones are moving in each day,” he added. “I think you just need to be where they are and keep moving. This place is wild and chuck full of bass.”
With the majority of the field fishing shallow, Keith Carson spent his one practice day fishing offshore and caught bass using his electronics. The 2021 Angler of the Year has been learning to fish offshore with forward-facing sonar, and with the payout structure this week, he is using the opportunity to fish fresh water and get away from the bank.
“It is a very deep lake, and the water temperature is warm up shallow, but it’s much colder 20 to 40 feet down,” he said. “Some fish might be behind, and I am hoping I can get the offshore deal going. I did get one big bite (on Tuesday) but I don’t have a lot to go off of; I am going to give it a try. I think I can catch a limit fishing off the bank but it won’t be easy.”
Weather Watch
The anglers take off this morning with overcast skies and temperatures in the low 70s. As day one progresses, a stray thunderstorm is likely and temperatures will climb into the mid-80s before giving way to partly cloudy skies later in the afternoon.
How to Watch
Tune in daily from March 7 through 9 to watch daily action from Lake Amistad with Live Coverage here and on the FREE PHYX TV App.
Follow along and watch the daily LIVE Leaderboard, LIVE Blog, and on-the-water photo galleries and blogs of the anglers on Lake Amistad.
Under the Go Live Tab, choose LIVE Broadcast or check out the real-time leaderboard on the Weigh Live Tracker with estimated weights entered by the anglers on the water and join us for the LIVE Weigh-ins, here!
And be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, & Twitter.
Event Information, here.
