To be sure, it was a novelty the first time (back in 1983) B.A.S.S. launched a tournament in La Crosse. And almost 30 years later, it was a novelty again as they returned to these waters; however, the city has now largely settled into a routine with a Bassmasters event being held here four times in the last seven years.
The one caveat for this weekend's event relates to heavy rains in the recent past, which will have the great river living up to its alter-ego – The Big Muddy. In addition to fishing chocolate milk, the river is slated to rise about a foot per day during the tournament and the current will increase 4-6x greater than normal which is going to backlash the majority of river patterns that would otherwise produce good fish. Consequently, the most consistent (normal) fishing will be the gravy train below the spillway (that Ott DeFoe won the last event with) or lower pool backwaters (which will remain the least affected by rising and muddy waters). Of course, plenty of other patterns could develop like off channel wing/closing dams, tributary railroad bridges, or something that is completely off of my radar.
The bottom line is this should be a very interesting tournament (at least for us river bass types), and I’m excited to see how everything develops.
