It's official: Clear Lake will be the site of the 2023 Best Bass Tournament (BBT) Trail's Tournament of Champions. The lake was announced after all regions had completed at least three events. Tournament Director Randy Pringle believes things are shaping up to provide some excellent fishing for the qualified teams that will be fishing out of Lakeport on October 13th and 14th.
Why Fish Clear Lake?
The T.O.C. location is always a mystery before the season begins and Pringle has a reason for that. It helps to level the playing field and allows them to spread the event around from year to year, having held it on the Delta, Don Pedro, and a Melones/Pedro combination in recent years.
"Not announcing it before the season helps level the playing field and you don't get 'cherry pickers' coming out of the woodwork only because it's on their home lake," he said. "This makes it fair for everyone and nobody has an edge because they know the lake better. We can spread it around, as long as the lake is big enough to hand over 100 boats. Next year, it will be somewhere else and we will keep moving it around."
How to qualify
This year, approximately 130 anglers qualified for the event and nearly all of them will be in Lakeport, with around 120 boats expected. To qualify, they had to do one of two things.
"There are two different ways to qualify and one is to fish seven events to qualify automatically," he said. "Each region has six events, so you'd have to fish at least one outside your region, making them better anglers fishing by fishing some different waters. This also shows support of the organization and lets those anglers qualify."
The other way is through the points in a single division, as long as the teams fish at least four of the six events. The points are calculated based on five events, so anglers can miss an event for life circumstances or drop their lowest event. Then, anglers are ranked against other teams fishing at least four events and the top 40 percent out of five events will qualify.
"This keeps teams in it, even if they have to miss an event for a wedding, death, or something else in their lives," Pringle said of the dropped event. "Anglers have lives outside of fishing and this keeps people in contention and not dropping out the rest of the year because they had to miss one. We also don't call down the list to fill the field. If you qualify, you can go fish the T.O.C."
Next year will be the same way to get into the T.O.C. Pringle will again be running the six statewide divisions. They include the Northern, Central, Mother Lode, Coastal, Delta/Wine, and SoCal regions. The season typically runs from January or February into August, with fair entry fees and solid paybacks.
What to expect from Clear Lake
The last BBT visit to Clear Lake was in late August, as Northern Region had an event there and Mark McCord and Dustin Tacker won it with 24.96 lbs and seven other teams caught over 20 pounds. The next day, the Delta/Wine Region fished the lake and thirteen teams cracked the 20-pound mark. Danny Riportella and Ron Orbaker, with 23.69 lbs, won it. Pringle expects similar weights and good fishing for the teams during the T.O.C.
"About 60 percent of the teams did really well in those events and the rest of the field struggled, which I expect again this tournament," he said. "Clear Lake is a giant fishery, but fishes small and picking the right areas are very important. It's a natural lake, so finding the areas with the best green grass will be key. The lake always has a lot of blue algae in the summer and hopefully that will be gone by the time we get there."
While checking in with tackle stores in the community recently, he learned that the bite is improving and should get even better when the tournament kicks off.
"Both stores I talked to said that the reaction bait bite has been picking up and should only get better with cooler weather," he said. "Clear Lake is a phenomenal fishery with plenty of three-pounders, but also an abundance of 5 to 7-pound fish, so the weights should be good for the anglers."
It was another excellent year for the BBT and their anglers throughout California. Soon, it will be time to crown the winners at the T.O.C., and the good news is that Clear Lake is fishing well and should provide the anglers with a fun bite and a great venue to fish this annual championship event.
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