Home-lake advantage

In many sports, playing on a home field or court in front of a hometown crowd provides a distinct advantage.

Local anglers competing in the Stren Series Championship bass tournament that gets under way Thursday on Pickwick and Wilson lakes hope to parlay their knowledge of the reservoirs and the opportunity to compete in front of family and friends into a home-field advantage.

"It's going to be great getting to stay at home and fish on one of my home lakes," said Jonathan Newton of Rogersville. "It's been a long season and I've done a lot of traveling. It's good to be back home."

Newton will compete in the professional angler division of the tournament that runs through Saturday. The pros will be paired with a co-angler during the tournament. The professional will operate the boat with the co-angler fishing from the rear deck.

Newton expects plenty of large bass to be caught from both lakes.

"The fall is a great time to be fishing around here," he said. "The bass are schooling and feeding heavy as they try to fatten up for the winter. If you find a school busting minnows on the surface, sometimes you can catch a fish on every cast. Other times the bass will be real finicky and will not bite anything that doesn't look exactly like the minnows they are feeding on. When they get in one of those moods, you can hit them right on top of the head with a bait and if it doesn't look just right, they won't bite it."

Newton expects plenty of fish to be caught from schools of bass found feeding near the surface, but said the tournament will likely be won by an angler who finds big fish is deeper water.

"Whoever wins is probably going to have to do something different from everybody else," he said.

Nathan Zahan, of Muscle Shoals, who will compete in the co-angler division echoed Newton's predictions.

"Everybody is going to catch a lot of schooling fish, but the fish you will need to win are going to come off offshore humps in deep water," he said.

Zahan said while many of the bass being caught from the schools of fish feeding near the surface are in the 1-to-2 pounds range, anglers cannot ignore any school they find attacking minnows.

"You might catch a dozen little fish and on the next cast reel in a 4-pounder. The school fish are going to be a big factor in the tournament, but I don't think you can win it just with schooling bass."

As a co-angler, Zahan will be at the mercy of the pro-anglers he is paired with in the tournament. The professional will choose the lake where they fish. Zahan has been practicing on both lakes to prepare for whichever his professional partners may select.

Newton is going to focus his tournament preparations on Wilson Lake.

"I'm a little more comfortable on Wilson than I am on Pickwick, plus with the largemouth fish being as good as it is on Pickwick now, I'm hoping most of the tournament anglers will stay on Pickwick and Wilson be less crowded. If I can fish the spots I want to on Wilson and not have to battle a crowd of other anglers for them, I think I can do pretty good."

Other local anglers in the tournament include Robert Boyd, of Russellville, and Andrew Bacon, of Florence, in the professional division.

The tournament features more than 300 of the top anglers in the Stren Series, which is operated by Kentucky-based FLW Outdoors.

Thursday and Friday's weigh-ins begin at 3 p.m. at McFarland Park. Saturday's weigh-in begins at 4 p.m. at Wal-Mart in Florence. Admission is free.

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@TimesDaily.com.