{"id":64562,"date":"2016-08-10T13:11:13","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T13:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpms.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/hot-weather-could-heighten-the-challenge-at\/"},"modified":"2016-08-10T13:11:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T13:11:13","slug":"hot-weather-could-heighten-the-challenge-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/hot-weather-could-heighten-the-challenge-at\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot weather could heighten the challenge at Saturday’s Sanford Lake Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hot weather could heighten the challenge at Saturday’s Sanford Lake Open<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSummertime,\u201d goes the song written by George Gershwin<\/a>, \u201cand the livin\u2019 is easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not the bass fishing, at least not this year.<\/p>\n

And that will just heighten the challenge faced by competitors in Saturday\u2019s Sanford Lake Open, one of two team tournaments held each year by the Sanford Lake Bass Club<\/a>, the other earlier in summer on Wixom Lake.<\/p>\n

For this weekend, \u201cI expect the fishing will be tough, with the hot weather we\u2019ve had lately,\u201d said Gary Yarbrough<\/a> of the local club, in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the lakes around here are 80 degrees-plus, and that\u2019s not normal for Sanford and the other Tittabawassee River system lakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hot weather, Yarbrough said, \u201cmakes bass less active. They don\u2019t feed as much as when it\u2019s fall and they\u2019re packing on weight for winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty to thirty boats, all or nearly all of them bearing two anglers and paying $100 each, will spend Saturday in search of largemouth and smallmouth bass, with the team weighing in the heaviest catch of up to five bass pocketing $1,000. Other cash prizes will be determined by the number of boats. Contestants also often enter a biggest-bass side pot.<\/p>\n

Despite the likely challenging conditions, Yarbrough said, \u201cSomebody will catch a lot of fish. Somebody always does. You come in with nothing, and there\u2019s always some (team) that comes with a big bag,\u201d \u2014 the containers used to transport fish to the weigh-in station, from which they\u2019re hustled back to the lake for release.<\/p>\n

For some bass, it might be a repeat trip. The lake\u2019s that popular with tournament organizers and anglers.<\/p>\n

The DNR\u2019s new online bass tournament registry shows 10 tournaments on Sanford Lake between mid-June and mid-September. Most are club contests, and a few are \u201copen\u201d events such as Saturday\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Both largemouth and smallmouth bass can be entered in Saturday\u2019s tournament, provided they\u2019re at least the state-minimum 14 inches long. Anglers with five fish in the livewell can swap a just-caught fish for a smaller keeper, but must do it immediately. There\u2019s a quarter-pound penalty for any fish that comes dead to the weigh-in station.<\/p>\n

Only artificial baits, not live bait, can be used. No trolling. Casting or spinning gear only, with rods eight feet or shorter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot weather could heighten the challenge at Saturday’s Sanford Lake Open \u201cSummertime,\u201d goes the song written by George Gershwin, \u201cand the livin\u2019 is easy.\u201d But not the bass fishing, at least not this year. And that will just heighten the challenge faced by competitors in Saturday\u2019s Sanford Lake Open, one of two team tournaments held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,360,454,516],"class_list":["post-64562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bass","tag-bass-fishing","tag-bassfirst","tag-outdoorsfirst","post_format-post-format-link"],"acf":[],"youtube_video":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outdoorsfirst.com\/bass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}