Lake Guntersville FLW Tour

Jay Yelas – Practice Recap
Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Jay Yelas – Day 1 Practice
Sunday, January 29, 2017

When the schedule was announced, I was glad we were going somewhere else to start the season, but today when I was out there, I was like ‘I wish I was in Florida.’ It was cold and windy and cloudy. They’re getting the coldest weather of the winter now. This is the earliest I’ve been here. I’ve never been here in January. I’ve fished tournaments here in mid to late February, but this is setting up as a winter time tournament. It’ll be different because there will be several ways to catch ‘em. I always enjoy that going to the same venue at a different time of the year.

The air temp was 35 this morning and 45 when I pulled the boat out at dark. The water was in 45- to 49-degree range. I’d read where the water had been in the 50s recently but I think that’s because they’ve had a pretty mild winter up until the last couple of weeks.

My roommate, Scott Canterbury, practiced before cutoff and he said he’d never seen it as clear as it was, but it really dirtied up with that storm that came through. Right now, it looks like normal Guntersville to me. It’s not a mud hole, but it’s pretty normal clarity.

Today, I fished the upper part of the lake. I hadn’t been up there in 20 years so I went way up the river and looked at a lot of different stuff. I noticed there’s a lot of eelgrass in here now. It never used to be here until a couple years ago.

I caught several fish, but mostly short fish, which is odd for winter because if you get a bite when it’s cold, it’s usually a good one.