well, last weeknd the weather was in the mid 70's, the water was warming to the 50 degree mark and the fish were moving up and killing cranks. yesterday it snowed an inch, the water dropped to 47 and i caught a few on cranks in 8-10 feet, but not like the previous weekend.  now its in the 20's at night high 40's this week and rain most of the week.  i have a tourney saturday and am skeptical as to what will happen. my gut says the fish will move deeper, but i have never seen this kind of significant swing. has anybody been in this situation? usually the fish are really gettin fired up now, but im afraid we might be in for a long and cold fish a thon saturday. 

Where's your tourney at? I've been doing pretty well on slow rolling spinnerbaits and swim jigs in deeper water (10-15ft.) in the lakes around the Northern part of the state. Smallmouths are coming tight off the bank on the river because of the heavy current.

I'm not from your area but based on your previous action with crankbaits I think I would continue with that in a slightly different approach. I would give a try to a crankbait I could fish a little deeper and a little slower. In other words throw a medium to deep running jerkbait and slow it down . They might just come up and inhale it. Won't take long to find out. If the water is still cold and the weather is still regressed I'd be draggin a football jig on some cover or structure a little deeper than they were the other day. 

Well if you have a week of consistent weather that's at least a good thing.  Even if the weather is crap.

I would run a search pattern with a slow moving crankbait or spinnerbait.  Then when you get bit, slow way down and fish the area hard with a shakey head or wacky rig senko.  Something nice and slow and easy prey. 

Odds are where there's one fish there's more and they should be stacked in an area waiting to move up as opposed to free roaming.

Once you have a few good areas, keep cycling through as the fish will be active on and off through the day.

Sounds like you won the tournament while pre fishing. When I pre fish for a tournament I try not to sore mouth my fish or in most cases use the same lure I intend to use in the tournament while pre fishing. I don't want to make the fish I located to get turned off by my own fishing pressure. You can still catch them on crankbaits but you need to use something different. This means a different action, speed, size, rattle, presentation or different lure all together like a wood crank instead of plastic or suspending model instead of floating. It is that difference in vibration pattern or how your using that bait that will pick up those fish.

I was in the same situation about 3 weeks ago.  I found fish, but I had to move to incoming creeks, or move out to deeper clearer water on the main lake.  Most fish came on jerkbaits with pauses up to 30 seconds or so.

no i didnt win the tourney yet lol, that was sunday i was catching em, the tourney is this coming saturday.  i am going to go again this thursday to check things out.  thanks for your help, its 54 today, but rain/snow tomorrow with a high of 40 and its not supposed to get above 44 until tourney time. i figure at best the water will be the same temp(46-48) come saturday so ima slow the crank and follow with a jig or shaky. last year i won the event on a jerkbait but i just dont think they are on it full blown but i willl try it some.  its killing me, last year the water was 55 and we absolutely crushed em on the JB. oh well, it will be a great learning experience