What do Bill Wilcox, Harold Allen, Dicky Newberry & Todd Castedine have in common?

What they have in common is they have probably won more money on Sam Rayburn than most fishermen have won in their entire careers. Maybe even more than Robbie Rose stole in his. But for 2010 what they have in common is they are yet to cash a check at Sam Rayburn.
And before you go thinking that they you could do better, forget it. Sam Rayburn is just tough right now! When these guys don't catch em you can be sure that luck is playing as big a factor as skill in the early part of 2010. The results of the early season tournaments say so as well. Bass-N-Bucks is won with four fish. http://www.bassnbucks.com/StandingsJan-16th Bass Champs has no 20lb bag and second place is a four fish bag. http://www.basschamps.com/basschamps/results.cfm?tournament_id=93&type=team&yearSelected=2010 That sure does not say that a fisherman is on quality fish and really catching them. It says that they got some amount of lucky to catch the fish they did.
Sam Rayburn is suffering from exactly what the rest of Texas is suffering from, COLD! The air that covered East Texas two weeks ago was the coldest in near 13 years. The water temp on Wednesday Jan. 6Th was 47 to 49 degrees and stayed that low or lower through Sunday Jan. 16, 2010. The Bass-N-Bucks tournament was one of the coldest water temps starts on record. Fishing was slow and a lot of the best East Texas fisherman struggled to 3 or 4 bites all day.
The Bass Champs tourney did follow a week of warming weather but it was just not enough to bring the females into the grass. The buck males did make it to shallow water and provided many 9lb bags. But the big females remained just out of reach for most fishermen. I spoke with several of the competitors and many had chunked rattletraps all day and almost none had more than 5 or 6 bites.
The cold has just been the winner this spring. Current water temps as of today are ranging between 52 & 55 degrees and another COLD front is headed in this Wednesday, just in time for the Media Bass Super Teams Event.
Mother Nature is having her day, but you can bet that the big names will start to figure this lake out soon and watch for em to be cashing checks in Media and FLW the week following.