Boyd Duckett – Day Before Classic

TULSA, Okla. – Well, the Bassmaster Classic kicks off tomorrow morning, and we’re going to be shoving off in 22-degree weather. So what’s that going to be like? Well, right now the bottom of the boat is an ice skating rink.

There’s no two ways around this. When you’re fishing in the kind of weather we’ll be fishing in tomorrow, it’s hard to physically function. It’s literally hard to fish. It’s hard to cast.

I imagine a lot of guys in the field are re-thinking the world right now, since it’s been cold – super cold – for several days now. A lot of the guys that have been fishing in the backs of the creeks, well, their minds are whirling because the water is now going to be getting down into the 30’s. The fish that you had in the backs of the creeks are gone now. So patterns have changed.

Now, maybe it will only take 14 or 15 pounds to do well. Honestly, I don’t know. But somebody always figures it out.

I probably need to change strategy, because the area that I thought in practice was good enough to win on is probably going to get blown out.

I was asked whether today this weather changes who I believe the favorites are. Well, no, not really. There’s a reason they’re favorites.

But what this weather could do is improve the odds of anybody that you might consider local to Grand Lake. Under normal conditions, there is no great advantage to local anglers. You put these guys on stable water and let them practice long enough, the local advantage goes away.

This, however, is not going to be stable water.

The only true advantage a local has is better history and stronger knowledge in changing conditions. When I won the Classic at Lay Lake, I caught fish in places where there were no bites in practice – none. But when the conditions changed, I relied on some knowledge I had. I knew there was a good chance that fish would be moving there.

So knowing where to drive your boat is helpful. And tomorrow, maybe some of the guys with more experience here will have an advantage. They might drive right to a spot where it might take the rest of us all day to find.