After a long break, we are headed back to Beaver Lake for Yuengling Light Lager Stage 5 Presented by YETI. I haven’t been there since 2017, but it’s a place I spent a lot of days during my time on the FLW Tour, when we went there about every year. I’ve had some success there, too, including finishing as the runner-up twice.

I’m excited about this one because the turkeys are going to be gobbling, everything’s going to be blooming, and the fish are going to be biting. I think you’re going to see a lot of things coming into play, and there will be plenty of different ways to catch them in this tournament.

What to expect from the fishery

It’s good to have another event in my home state, and I love fishing these types of lakes this time of year. Beaver Lake isn’t a close one to me; it’s a good ways over there. My daughter goes to school right near there at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, but I don’t bring my boat over when I go to see her, and normally this is the time of year when she’s coming home.

I’ve spent a lot more time on Bull Shoals and Norfork in recent years, but the Ozarks is the Ozarks. All those lakes fish pretty similar. This is about the latest in the year I like to be on those lakes, though, because soon, the recreational traffic will get pretty busy. Winter through spring is the perfect time to be there – about right now.

I think it’s going to be a good tournament and should be pretty similar to what we saw from REDCREST just up the way on Table Rock, with fish in all phases of the spawn. One difference is that I think the spotted bass will be the dominant species on Beaver, especially with the lower minimum weight. It probably has a better spotted bass population overall than at Table Rock.

Even with that, I do think there will still be a lot of fish that are just short of that 1-pound, 8-ounce mark. These spotted bass don’t get as big as they do on herring lakes; they’re all threadfin shad eaters, and there’s a lot of stripers and crappie competing for that same food. The X-factor is whether someone can find some of those bigger smallmouth somewhere offshore.

Leaning on my experience

One of the things I’m most excited about with this tournament is that it’s on a lake I’m very familiar with. I know which areas of the lake have traditionally produced a slightly better quality of fish. That should help speed things up for me when we start practice.

After going to Beaver so many times, I also feel like I’ve seen the lake in all different conditions. Some years it’s been at flood pool, and I’ve also seen it low. There were times when it was gin clear and times when it was muddy, and I’ve also seen the habitat and know where the cedars are, which should all help point me in the right direction.

Those two things, water clarity and level, are always the big players that tell you whether you need to take a left out of Prairie Creek or a right. I’m interested to see how it fishes, because I’ve heard that in recent years, it’s been fishing better than ever. But no matter how the fishing is, I’m chomping at the bit to go back to a place where I have so much history.