The bass in Lake Havasu are in between the winter and spring mode right now, said veteran tournament angler Roy Hawk, but the full moon next week should speed up the process and send more fish shallow just in time for the Rayovac FLW Series Western Division opener on the lake next Thursday through Saturday.

“The full moon is coming on Feb. 3, right on tournament time. I don’t think we will see any real good bedding then, but we should see some males getting up there in a false spawn. But I do think a lot of fish will come shallow around the full moon, especially with the warming trend.”

The bass are just staging to move up and several rare winter rains this week combined with a warming trend next week could push the fish up and scatter them out by tournament time, he said.

“If you went out fishing today it would be spotty,” said Hawk who lives a mile from the Havasu shoreline. “You might go hours without a bite, and then when you get on them you can catch them. When the water warms up those schools will break up and it will be better fishing for everybody.”

Hawk said Havasu is like a split fishery. Up the river fishing is current oriented with little backwater ponds with reeds, grass and some wood. Down in the main lake fishing is centered around man-made structure – brushpiles put out by anglers and big plastic habitat boxes stationed in the lake by the state fisheries agency.

“A lot of the same type lures are used in both places – jigs, Senkos, crankbaits, spinnerbaits. I liked cranking so in a tournament like this I will have an array of different crankbaits tied on, then I can adapt to whatever is going on – and that could change by the hour.”

Hawk, who fishes full-time, has won nearly $400,000 in FLW Outdoors tournaments. He finished second in the points standings in the Western Division last year. In recent tournaments on Lake Havasu he finished 13tgh in January 2014 and 18^th in February 2012.

“The fish in Lake Havasu are really healthy,” he said. “In the last 10 years or so this lake has come from being a terrible fishery to being one of the best in the United States.”

Up to 300 pros and co-anglers will take to the water for the first stop of 2015 in the Western Division next week. Pros will fish for a top award of $40,000 plus a Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard if Ranger Cup guidelines are met. Co-anglers will cast for a top award consisting of a Ranger Z117 with 90-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard and $5,000 if Ranger Cup guidelines are met.

The Rayovac FLW Series consists of five divisions – Central, Northern, Southeast, Texas and Western. Each division consists of three tournaments and competitors will be vying for valuable points in each division that could earn them the opportunity to fish in the Rayovac FLW Series Championship. The 2015 Rayovac FLW Series Championship will be held Oct. 29-31 on the Ohio River in Paducah, Ky.

The Western Division will move to the California Delta for the second tournament May 7 and then to Clear Lake Sept. 24 for the final division qualifier.

 

FLW Rayovac Series

Feb 5-7, 2015

Lake Havasu

Lake Havasu State Park – Windsor Beach Access

www.flwoutdoors.com