BWS CHAMPIONSHIP SAM RAYBURN

I would love to be me telling you I was $200,000 richer and headed to the Bassmaster Classic next year after winning the BWS Championship but unfortunately, I wasnt even close!  My Texas trip was a disaster from the get go and I spent most of the drive down and the first two days I was there working on my Suburban.  I sprung a transfer case leak just outside of Little Rock, AR and luckily caught it in time to keep from doing any major damage.  It did however cut into an already abbreviated practice period and I ended up getting only 10 hours of practice on a lake that is huge and not very easy to navigate due to random standing timber scattered around as far out as 60 ft deep.

With very limited practice time I decided to pick an area of the lake and cover it as fast as possible.  I found a few stretches of grass I got multiple bites in and the only deep place I found was by accident when I stood on the front deck of my Triton looking for grass and a huge school of Gizzard Shad came up under my boat.  I fan casted a 6XD in the area and caught a couple of 3lbers.  I figured out pretty quickly the kind of grass I needed to look for so I decided to start the tournament on my deep place and then run through the grass stretches Id found.  If and when I got a limit, Id spend the rest of day one looking for more areas with the right ingredients.

SAM RAYBURN TOURNAMENT DAY 1:  I headed straight to my deep place the first morning and wouldnt you know it, there was a boat sitting pretty close to where I wanted to be.  It was a long point and he was on the opposite side of where I wanted to sit but he was basically throwing at the same place I wanted too.  I decided to idle in and see how close Id have to get to him in order to fish and I realized it was my buddy Scott Mansfield.  I couldnt believe wed found the same spot but I ask him if I could fish in there and he said he didnt mind so we fished within yelling distance of each other for about an hour.  I never caught a fish and Scott boated a couple of decent keepers so I left.  When I reached my first Hydrilla mat I didnt know what to expect since Id fished it so fast in practice.  I got bites on my first two flips and missed them both but that let me know there were a lot of fish around.  Well, two hours later and four passes up and down the stretch, Id had over 20 bites and had two keepers in the boat!  I missed them and lost them every possible way you can imagine and finally made a pass without a bite so I left.  I went to my next stretch which was more sparse coontail scattered around some lily pads and I had gotten eight bites there in practice fishing wide open so I thought if I slowed down I could surely scrounge up a few more keepers.  I spent an hour in there and only got three bites.  One was a short fish that got wrapped around a pad stem and came off and the other was a 2.75lber that came off in mid air when I tried to swing it in the boat!  I landed the other one believe it or not but it was just a 14 keeper.  I ran back to my first grass stretch but it had been picked apart by several other guys by the time I got back and I never got any bites.  I finished up the day on the deep place I started on and scrounged up another 14er on the 6XD but that was it. I weighed in 4 fish for a whopping 6.73lbs.

SAM RAYBURN TOURNAMENT DAY 2:  I decided to start on the grass on day 2 which was about 20 miles north of take off. The wind cut loose that day and we were greeted with 5 foot swells when we came out of the marina which is nothing for my Triton 21 HP but it did make fishing a little tougher.

I reached my Hydrilla mat and had picked it apart for about an hour and had two bites which…you guessed it, I missed!  I decided to scrap everything and just go look for new water and I found a perfect looking stretch of Hydrilla and started punching through it with my Rage Craw.  I caught a 2lber and lost one about 3lbs two flips later but that was it.  I ran to a pocket in a creek loaded with grass and put my Motor Guide on high and made as many flips as possible until I ran out of grass.  I missed four bites, caught a 2.5lber and a short fish and that was it.  I finished up the day on my deep place and caught a 2.75lber on a 6 XD. I weighed in 3 that day for 6.99lbs.

SAM RAYBURN TOURNAMENT DAY 3:  I knew I needed about 16lbs to make a check and salvage my tournament and I knew that was doable flipping the Hydrilla but I also knew Id have to fish perfectly and not lose 90% of my bites like Id been doing so well the first two days. I decided to start where Id been starting and work my way back down the lake.  I was 1 for 2 on my first stretch and boated a 2.75lber but lost one about that same size. Not a good start.  I ran to another stretch and didnt get any bites but I fished further back into the creek than the previous days.  I caught a small keeper and a 3.5lber back there and of course I missed a bite or two.  That told me I may need to fish further back on my other stretches so I finished out the day doing that.  I scrounged up one more decent keeper before time ran out.  That was my best day but I had about 10 or 11lbs with those 4, not nearly enough to get in check range so I pitched em back and put it on the trailer.

SUMMARY: Man, what a way to end the season.  I was pumped over this tournament and couldnt wait to get to Rayburn.  It was bad enough I barely got to practice but to lose all of those fish on the first day was tough to stomach.  Oh well, things happen and it wouldve taken a miracle for me to make a run at winning as the locals dominated the top of the leader board and it took 86lbs over 4 days to win it.

Overall it was a pretty successful season.  My guide business really picked up this year and Ive already booked a few trips for 2013.  As far as tournament results, I managed top 10s in exactly 50% of my tournaments and checks in 57% of them.  Those numbers were down a little from last year but, I had two wins this year which more than makes up for missing a couple of checks.  I also accomplished another goal and that was winning the Angler of the Year in the BWS and I finished 3^rd in the AOY race in the BFLs which is my best finish to date in that division.  I also recently found out that I was the leading Triton Gold money winner for the entire Bassmaster Weekend Series and Triton is going to use my photo in the Triton Gold ads for 2013 which will be great exposure for my sponsors, so that was very good news. 

The only thing I would change would be the championships and regionals these past two months.  I had several shots at winning a boat or a really big paycheck and things just didnt work out.  I had the best practice of the year in a couple of the team championships on KY Lake and something always went wrong, be it the weather or mechanical issues or something that I couldnt control.  Unfortunately thats part of the game, a big part of it.

BWS REGIONAL CHICKAMAUGA

After my last two days of practice I didn't know what to expect.  I really wasn't sure if I could catch a keeper. My only hope was that the places I found on Monday, which were loaded with fish that day, had enough still hanging around that I could coax a few into biting.  I've already qualified for the National Championship since I won the points championship in the KY division so I really had nothing to lose in this tournament but I desperately want to win a boat which I've never done and this was a free shot at accomplishing just that.

I started day 1 where I caught the 6lber in practice and after 30 minutes never had a bite.  I ran to where I'd caught a 3lber and never had a bite.  At 9:30 I rolled into a little pocket that was packed with fish on Monday and finally caught a 15"er on my Rage Craw.  A few minutes later I caught a 3lber on my swim jig and a little later got another bite flipping.  When I set the hook on the fish my bait flew back at me and my heavy wire flippin hook was straightened out!  That was a bad deal because I've swung 7lbers in the boat with that same hook and not bent them so I know that had to be the kind I was looking for.  I made a couple passes without a bite and made a move.  After another hour without a bite I decided to return to the area I'd had my 3 bites in.  When I pulled in one of my buddies, Brian Brown, was fishing my stretch.  I fell in behind him and watched him catch two 3lbers which was hard to stomach because I knew how tough it was to get a bite.  Brian eventually left and I spent the rest of the day picking apart every sprig of Hydrilla in the area and managed 3 more keepers.  I weighed in 14.14lbs and was in 8th place going into day 2.

I made up my mind to camp out in the 30 yard stretch where I caught all of my fish on day 1 and immediately caught two short fish.  After 2.5 hours working back and forth I finally caught a 17" keeper.  After another hour without a bite I couldn't stand it any longer and made a move.  I fished a few new places and a few I'd fished in practice that looked promising and never had a bite so I returned to my starting spot and finished the day.  I never caught another keeper the rest of the day and weighed in 2.83lbs.  Amazingly, I only dropped to 14th place and still cashed a check.  I knew if I only dropped 6 places after weighing in 1 keeper it had to be tough on everyone.  I looked at the stats and there were only 4 limits of bass weighed in out of 129 boats!  That was the 2nd toughest day of fishing I can remember ever having.  My buddy Brian Brown who I shared some water with had one of those limits and weighed in 17.20lbs and finished in 4th place. Good job Brian!

I'm headed to Pickwick for the BFL regional so maybe I will have a better showing in that one, but the word on the street is Pickwick is fishing as tough as nails right now.  I will probably take the hero or zero approach and fish Wilson or Bay Springs.  I'll definitely give them a look in practice.

BWS REGIONAL CHICKAMAUGA PRACTICE

Practice started out great when I caught a 4 and a 6lber in the first 20 minutes.  They were on a specific type of grass line and the next two similar places I fished produced several keepers in the 3 to 5lb range. We ended the day with over 20lbs of bass and I was feeling pretty good about my flippin, swim jig and spinnerbait pattern.

Tuesday was like we were on a different lake and after several hours of trying to duplicate my day 1 pattern we hadn't had a sniff.  I finally pulled out an umbrella rig loaded down with 5.5" Shadalicious and caught a 5.5lber on my 3rd cast on a bluff end.  I thought I was on to something but after another hour of running that pattern I never had another bite.  We finally caught a couple other small keepers that day but it was brutally slow.

Wednesday started out strong and I caught a 3lber in the first 15 minutes throwing a Tour Grade swim jig around scattered hydrilla but my next bite was a catfish and it went down hill from there.  I fished several more grass lines and scrounged up one more small keeper and then spent the rest of the day scanning ledges and although there were a ton of shad on the river ledge, I never found any bass. 

My confidence was quickly dwindling along with the bite and I rested up today and prepped tackle for tomorrow.

Renegade Classic Barkley Lake

The Renegade Classic is an interesting format in that the full field (269 boats) fish Thursday and Friday and then the top 50 after two days start at 0 on Saturday in a one day shootout for a new Nitro Z8. Historically about 16lbs for two days makes the cut but with the grass bloom we've had on KY Lake this year 2lbers seem to be more prevalent so we were shooting for 11 or 12lbs a day to feel good about making the cut.

I spent 3 days practicing for this one and my partner practiced about a week.  About all I figured out in practice was that the 3+ lb fish I'd been on were gone and I never figured out a way to catch anything over 2.75lbs. I did hook a good smallmouth off of a stump one day but it jumped in the boat, hit the front deck, came unhooked and flew out the other side of the boat.   It looked to be about a 4.5lber as it went skidding by. I also relocated a couple of deep schools that were readily choking down a 6XD and thought they were just small keepers I thought we probably could catch enough to make the cut pretty quickly out of them without having to burn too much fuel.  My partner had a decent day or two in the 15-17lb range during his practice session but it was inconsistent.

We headed to my deep schools in the Blood River area on Thursday morning and Mike caught two small keepers immediately.  I was feeling pretty good about getting a quick limit and then spending the rest of the day practicing.  The was the last bite we had fishing deep after two hours of rotating between my two spots.  I decided to run to Paris to a shcool of grass fish I'd been fishing for three weeks but they weren't the quality I was catching out of the school I did so well in my last two tournaments on.  We rolled up at 10am and at 10:15 we were culling!  They were smoking the 7/16oz Baby Burner and I even caught one pushing 4lbs which really surprised me.  I couldn't stand being that close to the place that had been so good to me the past few weeks without giving it a look.  I'd checked it three times in practice without a bite but I still had to make a pass down the stretch.  As I made my way through there I noticed a boil up on top of the bar so when I reached the end of the stretch without a bite I headed up on top and fan cast a Sexy Dawg.  I hit a wolf pack and we caugth several in a row in the 2.75lb range and culled up a few ounces.  We headed back north and checked some places but never found anything. We weighed in 13.82lbs and were in 14th after day one.

Day two we headed straight for the Paris spot and I was surprised when the first bite I got was a 4lber. We put a limit in the boat in no time that weighed about 15lbs, more than enough to get us to the last day.  With seven hours to kill we just went around fishing and caught 3lbers every where we went.  We finally headed back and weighed in a couple hours early with 16.69lbs and made the cut in 4th place.

Day three was post frontal with a 25 mph NE wind.  They also took an hour of  fishing time away and made us weigh in at 2pm which made it tough on us guys running to Paris and even further south.  We got to our starting spot hoping to catch a quick limit and then go hunt the big girls.  We had two 3lbers a 2.75 and a 2lber in the boat in the first 10 minutes and then it was over. We made several passes through the area without another bite. I finally fished another 300 yards down the grass line and picked up another small keeper which gave us a limit.  On the rough ride up there the bolts in Mike's trolling motor mount had gotten loose and after a couple of hours of fighting the waves on the trolling motor, the nuts had backed completely off and we were about to lose the entire thing.  I called Larry Odom at Blue and Gray Marine and he headed to Paris Landing with the tools we needed to make the repairs.  We beat Larry to Paris and while we were waiting on him I caught a 3lber out of a brush pile on a football jig and culled one of our tiny keepers.  It took us a good hour to get the trolling motor repaired which made an already short day even shorter.  Mike and I discussed what we should do, stay close and try to upgrade by ounces or make another 15 mile run south and lose another 30 minutes of fishing time and go for the kill.  We made the run south to where Mike had caught a couple of big fish in practice knowing that was our only chance to catch enough to win the boat.  We never got another bite the rest of the day.  We weighed in 12.82lbs and finished 9th overall.  It took 16lbs to win the boat and we had caught that in 10 minutes on day 2.  Oh well, thats fishing.  Now I head to Chickamauga for the BWS Regional and another shot at a new boat!

BWS DIVISIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

I didn't find much in practice but I did find out the stretch I finished 3rd in the BFL on last weekend had a fresh crop of largemouth on it and they were readily chasing down my Baby Burner spinnerbait.  The plan was to catch as much as I could there as quickly as I could and then go flip Hydrilla and maybe hit a deep stump or 2 and try and upgrade.

Day 1 was working to perfection.  It took me 17 minutes to catch 15lbs and then I made a 12 mile run south to the Hydrilla. After an hour and a half I hadn't had a bite so I eased back north hitting a couple of deep places along the way which failed to produce.  I caught a few keepers that wouldn't help on some other places similar to my primary area.  I decided to spend the last 30 minutes on the goods and I finally got a brown fish to eat!  It was my biggest fish of the day, a 4.31lber that culled a 2.5lber.  I weighed in 17.04 and was in 2nd place.

Day 2 was a little bit tougher and after 10 minutes I hadn't had a bite which was unusual. I finally hooked up and a 6lb class largemouth jumped right by the boat and threw my swim jig!  Not the way you want to start the day but that's part of the game.  It took me until 9 am to get a limit that weighed about 14lbs and one of them was just a 2lber.  I kept seeing that big largemouth coming unbuttoned in my mind and couldn't help but have a sick feeling.  Finally at 11 am, I decided to change gears and I ran and threw a football jig on some stumps and caught a 4lber.  I returned to my primary spot to finish the day and caught several more keepers but none would cull.  I just knew that big fish was going to cost me the tournament but I always say when it's your time it's your time and the day 1 leader struggled on day 2 and I ended up winning the tournament by more than 3lbs. 

More importantly, I overcame a horrible 32nd place finish in May and ended the season tied for the point's championship with my good friend David Gnewikow.  I ended up winning the point's on a tie breaker because I had 91lbs for the season and David only had 88lbs.  The point's champion receives free entry's into next years tournaments, an automatic berth into the National championship and a free set of the best batteries on the planet, Odyssey's!


I've been very blessed the past few tournaments and hopefully I can keep it rolling into the regionals and championships coming up in October.

LBL BFL SUPER TOURNAMENT

I didn't have much going on in September other than the BFL and BWS 2 day tournaments.  I usually try to stay off the water until 2 or 3 days right before the tournament but I was chomping to get out and see what the grass fish were doing so I hit the water 8 days before the BFL.  I found a stretch of grass that was chalk full of bass and the biggest of the bunch were SMALLMOUTH!  I don't catch a lot of smallies so I was bouncing off the walls wondering if they'd hang around long enough for me to exploit them in the BFL.

The fish stayed put but they changed colors on me and I weighed in 31lbs 5oz worth of largemouth that all fell victim to a 7/16oz Strike King Baby Burner spinnerbait or a 3/8oz Tour Grade Swimming Jig tipped with a pearl Rage Craw.  I caught a ton of fish but only had one smallmouth and it was a 17 3/4" beauty but unfortunately they have to be 18" in the BFL's so I had to let her swim away.  I managed a 3rd place finish and finished the year in 3rd place in the point's standings.

Fishing with the Parents round 3

My parents were more pumped up over me catching some fish out of the grass than I was and headed straight to the lake two days after my BWS win.  We fished about 6 hours on Tuesday and the football field size mat I'd found practicing for the BWS that didn't produce a single bite during my tournament was on FIRE!  We didn't catch anything over 3.5lbs but they had a blast catching 2.5 to 3.5lbers on Sexy frogs.  My mom had at least 30 blow ups and boated around 20 of them on her frog and my dad and I flipped, spinnerbaited and frogged up 20 or 30 more.  Another awesome day on the water with my two favorite fishing partners! I'm truly blessed.

BWS #4 August 18th

I only had one tournament in August and I was looking forward to a break from tournament fishing. I had several guide trips during early August and we mostly fished the offshore schools I've been fishing all summer.  We had decent numbers with about 30 keepers a day and our best 5 were in the 16-18lb. range.  My parents came up for a couple days and wanted to catch some on the Sexy Frog so after busting a few out of a couple of deep schools we headed to a stretch of Hydrilla. My mom had several blow ups on her frog but didn't hook any, my dad caught a few on a Burner spinnerbait and I caught 8 bass on 8 flips to one clump of grass on a Rage Craw but none of them were over 3lbs.  I didn't realize it at the time but that little stretch of grass would prove to be a valuable find when my BWS tournament rolled around August 18th. 

I spent 2.5 days practicing for the BWS one of which I dedicated entirely to grass fishing.  I found one area loaded with fish but they were in a grass mat about the size of a football field and I could only catch them when they came up schooling and the odds of them coming up with in casting distance were slim.  After several unproductive hours I decided to check the stretch I'd fished with my parents.  The stretch was still loaded with keeper size fish up to 3lbs and I expanded my search a little bit and flipped up a 7lber a little further down from where the keepers were hanging out.  My other day and a half wasn't that productive other than verifying a few schools were still in tact and I planned on spending the majority of my tournament hours on the offshore schools. 

At 10am on tournament day I only had 1 small keeper fishing off shore so I decided to check my stretch of Hydrilla.  In an hour and a half I flipped up a limit with a 5lber in the mix and headed back north to finish out the day on ledge fish.  The ledge fish weren't cooperating and I only caught a couple of small keepers and had one in the 4lb range follow my Shadalicious back to the boat but didn't commit.  I weighed in 16.51lbs of Hydrilla bass and was hoping that would keep me inside the top 10.  As the weigh in started winding down several of my fellow fishermen started congratulating me but I wasn't sure why.  I walked over to the stage and to my surprise my 16.51lbs had held up and won the tournament! 

It's not often that 16lbs will win a tournament on KY Lake but I guess when it's your time it's your time and I'll take a win any time I can get one because they are hard to come by.  Fortunately we had 67 boats so the $7000 Triton Gold Money was up for grabs and that will come in handy as I have some traveling to do in October with the Regionals and Championships coming up.

LBL BFL #4 JULY 21

I found a new school in practice that I didn't think anyone had found. I caught a 4lber and a 6lber there the day I found them but it was a small school.  I stopped there this morning and they were nowhere to be found.  I headed on south and stopped on my only other school no one has been on and fished for over an hour and scrounged up two small keepers.  I finally got on another school after watching a boat fish them for an hour and a half but the fish were sitting about 50 yards from where that guy had been fishing.  I quickly caught a limit of 2.5lbers and decided to fish shallow bars and humps for a big bite the rest of the day.  I managed a 3lber off of one place and at 12:30 I popped a 6lber.  I ran back north to my starting spot in hopes they would be there and they were.  I knew with each big bite I'd move way up in the standings and I knew there were big fish in this school.  The fish were on the bottom in 21ft of water and I immediately caught a 2.5lber on a Strike King Bottom Dweller. I just knew I was about to be on but I never caught anything that would cull.  I weighed in 16lbs 4oz and finished 9th and my 6lber was good enough for big fish of the day.  This also moved me up ot 4th in the points so it looks like I'll be going to Pickwick in October for the regional.

Lady Bass Anglers Association KY Lake

I'm well past the half way point of my tournament season and it's unfortunately been a dismal 7 months.  It's been plagued by lost fish, close calls, people beating me to places I need to fish, equipment malfunctions, weather malfunctions and not one but TWO tooth aches that hindered my performance!  While some of these are uncontrollable variables that we all have to deal with, it's gotten me in such a funk mentally that I've reached a point where I know I'm not going to win because something is sure to go wrong.  We know how important confidence is in fishing and mine is all but gone!  The number of boats on the water and the amount of tournaments going on every weekend have made it nearly impossible to put a solid game plan together and I've had to make decisions on the fly and so far I've zigged when I should've zagged. 

I've managed 8 top 10's and 10 checks out of 18 tournaments but a large part of my income is based on tournament winnings and with all of the contingency money (Triton Gold, Boat U.S., Power Pole Captain's Cash, etc.) riding on a 1st place finish, the difference in 1st and 2nd is 10 grand or more.  Unfortunately the WIN has evaded me all season and my overwhelming desire to win has all but taken the "FUN" out of tournament fishing for me and I've considered taking a break from it.  I love the guiding part of my business, watching people get excited over catching fish has been the only thing keeping me going.

I'm not one of those people that just loves to be on the water, I just love to fish.  When the opportunity arose to drive the camera boat in the Lady Bass Anglers Association event on KY Lake I was a little hesitant.  If I'm not casting, catching or searching for fish, I'd rather be doing something else, so I wasn't real enthused about watching other people fish for 2 days but it was a chance to make a little money so I decided to do it. 

It ended up being just what the Dr. ordered and one of the few good decisions I've made this season!  It started with my being introduced to the "camera man" Larry Morris.  Larry is an outdoor writer, photographer, bait maker (River Runner Baits) and fisherman from Virginia who does the photography and PR for the LBAA .  Larry and I  got to know each other quite well the past 2 days.  Every once in awhile you meet someone who has a lot of the same views, beliefs and interests as you and Larry was one of those people.  We really hit it off and have already talked about working together in the future.

When we hit the water Thursday morning I was trying to get mentally prepared to spend a day on the lake without a fishing rod my hand which is something I've never experienced.  A couple of the lady's stopped close to the launch and we shot some pics of them and saw a few fish being caught which was pretty cool.  I kept my distance from the first two so we didn't bother them while they were working.

Our 3rd stop was the legendary Emily Shaffer.  When we pulled up to Emily she started trolling towards us and casting at my boat.  I was afraid I'd gotten too close and interfered but she was actually wanting us to come closer so we could get some pics of a couple of nice smallmouth she'd just caught! It surprised me that she would take the time to do that and it was very gracious of her.  I've known of Emily forever but had never met her and after just 20 minutes with her we were cutting up like we'd known each other for years.  She was very personable and I learned quickly why she's been as successful in the industry as she has. 

The 4th stop was Lisa Johnson and her co-angler Kim Giddens.  We actually ran into them twice that day and Lisa had a smile on her face the entire time.  Lisa had one rod on the deck and said she was going to do what she liked to do, have fun and that's all that mattered. She was cool, calm and collected and I was truly inspired by her attitude and the way she handled herself.  She rode that  attitude to the day 1 lead with 16lbs.

I can't break down every single angler we watched, but long story short, they were all great in every way.  Not only in their fishing ability but more importantly their attitudes.  They were out there working hard, catching fish and every one of them taught me how to do something I've somehow forgotten.....to  HAVE FUN! 

I would've never dreamed I would've gotten so much out of 2 days on the water not making a cast or turning my electronics on.  I'd like to thank my new friend Larry Morris just for being the kind of person he his, the LBAA for the opportunity to help them out and most of all the lady anglers for treating me like I was one of the family and especially their outlook on the sport.  It was refreshing, inspiring and it couldn't have come at a better time!

THANKS!


LISA JOHNSON, "THE INSPIRATION" Photo courtesy of Larry Morris

KY LAKE JULY 10, 2012 SCOTT AND DAVID

I had an awesome trip today with my friend Scott Thompson and his dad David.  Scott wanted to give his dad a ledge fishing trip for Fathers Day because he had never had chance to fish offshore and we worked hard to make it a trip David would remember.  It was a slow go for the most part as the cloudy skies,while comfortable for us, had the deep water fish scattered and on the move chasing shad most of the day.  We did manage a head on collision with a few river ledge schools and made the most of what we had to work with.  We ended up with about 30 keepers including a 4.5lber and a couple handfuls of 3 to 3.5lbers.  Scott's dad popped a nice 6lb largemouth just to remind us who this trip was about! Nice job David! 

The fish were as picky as I've seen them in a while and it seemed like every school had a different bait preference.  One school wouldn't flinch unless you slow rolled a 3/4oz. Strike King Pro Model Spinnerbait, another school would smoke a 4" Sexy Spoon but wouldn't touch the 5" and the next school was just the opposite.  We hit another school that were on a Shadalicious diet and of course the football jig/ Rage craw did it's share of damage throughout the day.

Great day on the water with two great guys! Enjoyed it guys, thanks!

BASSMASTER WEEKEND SERIES #3

I spent some time in the grass on south KY in practice and it was horrible for me.  I decided to stay with the schools and shallow stump fish in the tournament.  The stump fish didn't cooperate but I managed 14.77lbs out of the schools and finished 12th.  I only had one good bite all day and it was a 5lber that ate a Strike King Shadalicious on my first cast on my last stop of the day.  I've got to figure out a way to catch the bigger fish.  I thought the grass would be the answer but it's so inconsistent, there has to be a better way.  I've got some ideas and some time before my next BFL July 21st so maybe I can come up with something.

Guide Trip/BWS Practice

I had a guide trip today which also turned out to be pretty good practice for my upcoming BWS tournament this weekend.  It was an awesome day to be on the water.  Not too hot, no wind and surprisingly no boats!  I got to fish every place I wanted to hit and every one of them had a big school willing to bite sitting on it.  I found two new schools too and we caught some 3lb chunks out of them with a few 4.5lbers mixed in.  We had 22lbs on our best 5 and caught about 40 keepers. 

I'd had intentions of fishing hydrilla on the south end of the lake this weekend but today makes me want to give the deep fish another shot.  I did check a few shallow places that produced a 4 and a 4.5lber so that was a good sign. I know it won't be as good on Saturday as it was today with no current and more traffic, but I'll just have to see what I find down south in practice before I decide how to spend my tournament.

Barkley Renegade Team Tournament

I fished the Renegade out of Barkley State Park today with Mike Story.  We headed south on Barkley and though I havn't been there since May, I can usually catch a decent limit shallow.  After 3 hours, we'd caught about 5 fish and only one of them was a keeper.  We didn't have anything located on the river so we just headed north and fished every place we'd ever caught a fish before.  We managed to scrounge up 3 pretty good fish in the 4lb range but our other 2 were just 16"ers.  We weighed in 15.87lbs and finished 7th just out of check range.

LBL BFL #3 Practice and Tournament

I had intentions of putting in three hard days of practice for my 3rd LBL BFL of the year.  I hit the water on Wednesday and decided to spend the day looking for schools on more subtle places.  Apparently everyone that owns a bass boat knows how to ledge fish now days and most of the river ledge schools have been found and have been getting beaten on pretty badly.  Schools that I could catch 25 to 50 fish out of a few weeks ago won't sit still long enough now to catch more than 5 or 10 out of them and to get a quality bite is almost impossible.  The day started out good and I found 4 schools on places I've never seen them and a couple of schools on old places but the fish had just gotten there.  I had about 19lbs pretty quickly just catching enough to check the quality of fish in them.  Unfortunately at about 3pm I had some serious pain set in in a tooth that ended up being an abscess!  I got off the water and started on pain medicine and antibiotics and spent the rest of the week in bed.

I was hoping my meds would've kicked in by Saturday morning but that wasn't the case.  I headed to the Paris area from KY Dam Village in serious pain only to find a boat or two on all but one of the places I'd found on Wednesday.  I caught a limit off an old place and culled all of them on a new place but only had 16.5" fish.  I hit a few shallow bars with no luck and by 10am I was hurting so bad I didn't feel like running around checking stuff anymore.  I got on place and sit for a long time trying to get my co angler a limit.  He never got his 5th fish but he did have one pushing 4lbs which was almost twice the size of anything I had in the box.  I made a tooth jarring ride back and weighed in a little early so I could get back on my pain meds and rest.  I had 11lbs 9oz and finished 42nd. 

This definitely wasn't how I'd hoped to spend my June tournament.  I'd been looking forward to this one for a while.  Good news is I have an appointment to have my tooth problem taken care of next week and it can't get here soon enough!

I'm not sure what I need to do to find some fish nobody else is on.  I really thought I had some subtle places I'd have to myself going into this one but it seems everybody knows where all of the fish are.  You'd think on a 150,000 acres of water you could find a place nobody else has found but I only have one so far and a boat watched me catch one there today so I'm sure that place is history. 

HULMES SPORTING GOODS OPEN TOURNAMENT

My good buddy Dr. David Gnewikow and I decided to jump into the Hulmes Open this weekend since we didn't have any other things going on for a change.

I hadn't been on the lake much other than a couple of electronics courses I'd done so I spent Friday in the Paris to 68 bridge stretch and G fished the Jville to Danville stretch.  I didn't do much fishing but did drive over a few schools to make sure they were where they needed to be.  I was hoping David would find some of those giant grass fish that have been showing up at weigh ins lately but unfortunately it didn't happen.

We fished a few deep schools in the tournament and caught two of our biggest fish off of shallow bars. We had 20.17lbs and finished 3rd.

We had a good day on the water and caught a bunch of fish but came up a few pounds shy of the win.  My friend Kenny Louden won the tournament with 24lbs.

Triton Owners Tournament

I was unfortunately ineligible to fish the TOT because I paid or should I say donated $4000 to fish the FLW Tour Open on Guntersville last fall (aka The Paul Elias Open).  The TOT has a rule where if you pay over $1500 to fish a tournament within the past two years your ineligible to fish.  I ended up working at the tournament for Triton and Odom's Blue and Gray Marine and got to see a lot of old friends and made a few new friends as well.

My Electronics course business was booming last week and I had three trips a day some days which was a good thing.

Larry and Verna Odom had introduced me to a good friend of theirs, Mark Westbrook, earlier in the week and he had just bought a new Humminbird 1198.  I helped Mark get his unit dialed in a few days before the tournament and I had dinner with him and the Odom's several nights.  Mark was a great guy and ended up winning the draw boat after the 2nd day weigh in which was really cool.

Rusty Rust and Pat Anderson won the tournament with 48lbs and some change and my buddy Scott Mansfield took Big Bass honors with a 10.38lb freak!

It was a good week and another successful TOT put on by Triton and Randy Sullivan and his Bassmaster Weekend Series crew.

WOUNDED WARRIOR TOURNAMENT

What an awesome week! I got to spend two days straight blastin' 'em with my parents and then today I had the opportunity to take a soldier, Tyler Schaffer, fishing in the Wounded Warrior Tournament out of Paris Landing on KY Lake.  Tyler was 21 years old and awarded a Purple Heart when he and his team were hit by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.  He was a great guy and though he does do some recreational fishing, this was his first time on a big lake in a bass tournament.  He wasn't familiar with baitcasting reels so I rigged him up a couple of ABU Garcia Veritas spinning rods with a shaky head and a 5xd crankbait.  Our first stop was loaded with fish and we caught at least 50 keepers out of the school.  Tyler was matching me fish for fish and even caught two on one cast which he'd never done before and he was pretty stoked over that.  After an hour of catching 2 to 3lb fish, I asked Tyler if he wanted to keep catching a bunch of fish or if he wanted to try and win and without hesitation, he replied "Let's win this thing"!  I told him we would have to fish a little differently to target bigger bass and it wouldn't be as fast and furious as it had started out.  I made a run to a deep water school and scanned the area with my Humminbird.  I saw a small group of fish and immediately fired a Sexy Spoon into them.  I had two swipe at it but miss and then on my third rip a 5lber engulfed the spoon!  I netted the fish and culled one of our 3lbers.  We fished for awhile longer but couldn't trigger any more bites so I made a move.  I ran through several schools and we each caught a few 2 to 3lb fish but none that would help.  When I reached my most southern school I didn't see them on my electronics.  I hated to run that far and not even make a cast so I decided to make a few throws for the heck of it.  As soon as my 6XD hit the water, I didn't make three turns of the reel handle and a 4.75lber choked it.  We could only weigh in 3 fish in this tournament and I had a feeling we needed another fish in the 4 to 5lb class to have a shot at the win.  It was only a 6 hour tournament and time was running out.  I ran back north of Paris Bridge to a place where I've caught some key fish in the past and they were stacked.  We caught 'em on every cast for the last 30 minutes and I hung at least ten 3 to 3.5lbers on the balance beam but none would cull our smallest fish which weighed 3lbs 9oz.  We ended up weighing in 12.88lbs and finished 2^nd just a little more than a half pound shy of the win.
I wanted to win this thing badly but to have a guy like Tyler say on stage that he'd had the best time he'd ever had in his life was worth more than any win in any bass tournament ever could be.  For those that didn't get involved with this event this year, you really need to check it out next year, it was a great experience. 


I've posted a link to a Channel 2 News clip and interview with my partner below.


www.wkrn.com/category/175880/video-landing-page?clipId=7305055&topVideoCatNo=128407&autoSt

FISHIN WITH THE PARENTS DAY 2

We got on the water at 11 am today and I immediately noticed the current wasn't running which had me concerned because I knew my parents were expecting another 100 fish day.  The first couple places I looked at were void of life.  I finally scanned a ledge that had a few lingering around.  I caught a 5.25 and a 4lber on a 6XD but they weren't interested in my mom and dad's spoon offerings. I ran around a little and finally found a stock pile of em and it was on again.  Long story short we hit three big schools today and we caught em and caught em and caught em and then caught em some more. At 5pm my mom said she couldn't believe what she was about to say but she was actually tired of catching bass!  Now that's what I wanted to hear.  I made one more stop on the way in and we finished the day with my dad catching a 3.5lber, my mom had a 4.25lber and I caught a 3.5lb largemouth and a 20lb striper on one cast on an umbrella rig loaded down with Shadalicious swimbaits! 

Another awesome day with my two favorite people in the world, I'm truly blessed!

FISHIN WITH THE PARENTS DAY 1

I was fortunate enough to get to spend the day on the water with my parents.  They love to fish and taught me to love to fish when I was two years old.  Unfortunately, we don't get to fish together nearly as much as we should.  When they get a chance to go i'm usually practicing for a tournament and as soon as we catch a good one or two, I'll pull us off of the place. I called my mom during Everstart practice last week and told her they had to get up here after the tournament because I knew during the week with the current running and no fishing pressure we could catch no telling how many fish.

They showed up at 3pm today and we hit the lake.  The first school I drove over were picture perfect on my Humminbird and I dropped a buoy out to give them a target. My mom has never thrown a Sexy Spoon and was reluctant to try it. I assured her, it was simple and I made a cast towards the buoy.  I explained to her to make sure it hit bottom, which it did. Then I told her to just lift it up quickly, which I did. Then I showed her how I follow the bait back to the bottom with the rod tip and then....I set the hook and let her reel in a 3.5lber. I handed my dad a spoon and I grabbed a 6XD and it was on.  For the next 30 minutes we caught doubles and triples and I was running around lipping, unhooking, weighing and photographing fish like a chicken with it's head cut off!  It was awesome! When we exhausted that school we had caught about 50 fish and our best five weighed 19lbs.  The only negative thing about the hole deal is I struggled mightily to get 4lb bites in the everstart and we had two over 4lbs and one over 5lbs on our first stop.

We hit three more schools today and caught 20 to 30 fish out of each of them and most of them were chunky little 3lbers but we did get another 4lber or two.

KY LAKE EVERSTART DAY 2

UGGGGH! FRUSTRATING DAY!  I had forgotten how cut throat this sport was until about 8:00 this morning.  I stopped on my starting place where I caught 14lbs on 5 cast yesterday and I caught 14.5lbs there this morning in about 10 casts.  The difference was yesterday I had all 17"ers there, today I had two 16"ers, two 17"ers and a 5lber!  Don't think I wasn't feeling good about things knowing I had all day to build on that 5lber. That's when I started running my same rotation as yesterday and every place I stopped had boats on it that were in the vicinity yesterday while I was catching fish!  Even the topwater place, where nobody in there right mind would fish, had six boats Power Poled down on it.  I hate to sound like one of those guys that's crying about people steeling their holes but this was blatantly obvious.  I only fished five schools yesterday and they were all north of Paris.  I decided to run south of Paris and check some places and the fish weren't on the few I got to check.  Most of those places had guys practicing for the big open tournament out of Paris tomorrow on them.  I ran back north and a couple of my places had opened up but the fish were spread out and suspended because they'd been fished and the ones I caught were just small keepers.  I ran back by my topwater spot and only one guy was left but he was netting a fish and hi fiving his co angler when I pulled up!  All I could think about was that he probably caught that toad I'd seen following my bait yesterday.  I ran to my starting place hoping that I could at least get some of those 17"ers to bite but only short fish were there in the afternoon.  I finished the day on one of my shallow places where I'd caught about six 3lbers yesterday that wouldn't help.  I only got two bites there today but one of them was the one I was looking for.  With 20 minutes left in the day I hooked one on a jig on the end of a long cast.  She jumped waaaaaaaaaaaaay out there and I knew it was a pretty good fish.  I got it a little closer to the boat and she jumped again and I knew it was at least a 4lber.  Then I got her almost to the net and she jumped again and I knew it was at least a 5lber.....and then my jig popped out of her mouth!

I weighed in the first five fish I caught this morning for 14lbs 8oz and finished 13th.  I missed the cut by less than 2lbs which I could've made up with that big one I lost at the end of the day.  Oh well, I know I wasn't on the winning fish, but I sure wish I was fishing tomorrow!

Good luck to all of my buddies that are in the top 10.

KY LAKE EVERSTART DAY 1

I have never in my life caught so many fish and not had a big one! I caught no less than 100 keepers today and weighed in 16lbs 1oz.  And to let you know how much time I spent in the floor of my Triton with the balance beam out, I had 14lbs in 5 casts on my first stop this morning!  My hands are a bloody pulp from unhooking and handling fish all day, but it was a blast.  The good news is, I figured with 16lbs I'd be somewhere in the 30's but I'm actually in 14th place only 4oz out of the top 10 cut. 

My plan almost worked to perfection but my shallow ledge fish moved even shallower and I didn't figure it out until about noon.  I was fishing a ledge sitting in 10ft casting a jig about a mile up onto the bar when I noticed a big shad fly out of the water another 50 yards past the end of my cast.  I dug a Strike King Sexy Dawg out of my rod locker and headed that direction.  When I made it up there I began fan casting around and a 2.5lber crushed my Sexy Dawg! As I reeled it to the boat I noticed about 25 more bass swarming it.  Most of these fish were 2.5 to 3lbers but right in the middle of the pack was a sure 'nuff GIANT swimming with them.  I stopped reeling hoping that another fish would get on the other end of my Dawg and the little one I had hooked jumped and threw my Dawg!  When my bait hit the water, that 7lber along with the rest of the pack made a bee line for it.  I just knew that big one was gonna smoke it and that's when out of no where, a 14"er zipped in, grabbed my bait and took it out of the school!  It was a heartbreaker for sure but at the same time I couldn't help but laugh when that little dude flew in there amongst those bigger fish and stole their meal!  I dropped my Power Poles and caught 8 fish between 2.5 and 3lbs on top but never got the big one.....She will definitely get a look tomorrow!

Kentucky Lake Everstart Practice

Well, I decided to dedicate my entire practice to ledge fishing on KY Lake.  I had thought that Barkley may be a player for me but after last weekend I threw that out the window.

I spent three days scanning ledges from New Johnsonville to Moors Resort and located 28 shcools of bass anywhere from 6ft deep down to 26ft.  My best baits have of course been the Strike King 6XD and the Sexy Spoon.  Unfortunately out of all of these schools, a 4lber is a big one out of them and they average between 2.75 and 3lbs so I think I should be able to catch 14lbs a day pretty easily.  Knowing my luck it will take 14.5lbs a day to get a check!!!

I also found a shallow ledge pattern that's producing some better fish similar to how I fish in the late summer/early fall.  I caught two over 5lbs doing this one day and another 5lber the second day on the same type stuff.  Bad thing about fishing this way is you never know how many bites you may get, maybe 10 or maybe 0, but when you get bit there's a good bet it's a 4 plus pounder.

I plan on running my schools until I get 14 or 15lbs and then finishing out the day slow dragging a jig on the shallow bars and try to get a few big bites.  I figure out of 28 schools, half of them will have a boat on them and half of the remaining half will be gone.  So I'm going into it assuming I only have 7 shcools of fish. 

KY WEST BWS #2 BARKLEY LAKE

Wow, I had a brutal day today.  I started on a bank about 15 miles south of Barkley State Park that's usually got some fish on it.  I flipped up a small keeper and lost a 3lber on a Strike King Rodent.  I left there and headed south with intentions of hitting my deep river fish on my way to the slough I've been flipping the past few weeks.  All five schools had a boat sitting on them so I kept on running south. I made it to my slough and picked it apart with a rodent and when the dust settled, I had two more small keepers and another lost 3lber.  I headed back north a little early so I could hit my schools if they were open but only one of them was.  I scanned over the ledge and the bass were thick in 28ft of water.  I couldn't get my crankbait to them but I did catch about a dozen keepers on a football jig.  When I left that school I had a limit of 2lbers and never upgraded the rest of the day.  I wieghed in 9.63lbs after an 8oz dead fish penalty which occured while I was standing in the bag line for an hour after I'd trailered my boat.  I finished a very disappointing 33rd place out of 79 boats.

I was really hoping to make a run at the points championship in this division and I was in 6th place coming in to this tournament but I probably blew my chance at that.  I narrowly won the points in 2010 and never finished worse than 10th.  So it will take a miracle to win it now.  I thought that I could possibly actually get to fish a few of my schools in this one since we launched so far north but apparently there are open tournaments out of Dover every weekend now.  Back in the day me and my buddies struggled to find any tournaments to fish on south Barkley and now it seems like they have two or three a day! 

Oh well, sometimes you just don't get it done and this was one of those days.

BWS KY WEST DIVISION PRACTICE

I spent Wednesday on south Barkley checking everything that was working last weekend and the shad spawn pattern was dead.  My deep schools were still hanging around and I located another school or two but with no current on the weekend I knew those wouldn't be very dependable. A couple of my buddies had found my best flipping area and were fishing the USA Bassin Classic on Thursday and Friday so I stayed away from that in practice because I didn't want to disturb any fish that might help them win a new boat.  I caught a limit running around checking new water but nothing to write home about.

Thursday, I headed north on Barkley to the Little River area and did a ton of side imaging on the main lake but never found anything that looked promising.  I fished a few places and caught a few fish but had only three keepers at the end of the day. My buddies had 18lbs in there tournament that day and a couple of them came from the area I had been fishing the past couple weeks so that let me know there were a few fish left in that area.

I spent a few hours in Little River before the meeting today and it was horrible. I didn't find anything deep and the shallow stuff I used to fish back in the day only had inches of water on it.  I talked to my friends tonight and they had 22lbs today and finished 3rd in the USA Bassin deal and won a boat which was good news. The bad news was that my area they were fishing has dried up and they caught there fish elsewhere.  I've decided to head south tomorrow and hope my schools cooperate and then go flip the area anyway and hopefully scrounge up a left over female or two.

MUSIC CITY BFL LAKE BARKLEY

We didn't have much of a turn out with only 64 boats but all it takes is a 60 boat field for the $7000 Triton Gold money to be in effect so I wasn't complaining. I had the best practice I've had since February and felt good about my chances to finally seal the deal in one of these things. I was boat 62 and made a short run to the very back of a creek to gamble on the shad spawn bite. A friend of mine had caught 25lbs off of this bank the previous weekend which made it an easy choice of where to spend my morning. Apparently my buddy cleaned them out because after an hour and a half and two passes up and down the bank, I had one small keeper. I headed out of the creek and down the river to hit my schools. I was a little concerned about the river fish because the water was stagnant and it was still fairly early in the morning. There was a boat sitting dead on my first school so I headed to the next one. It was open and my Humminbird showed a pile of fish close to the bottom in 16ft of water which is exactly what I wanted to see. I started winding my 6XD through the school and caught two short fish on my first two casts. I knew it was about to get dirty but after 15 minutes, I never caught another bass, just a few white bass. I packed it up and headed further north to my next school which, of course, had a boat sitting dead on it. I ran into the creek where my spinnerbait banks were and the first two I came to had boats on them. I was getting a little concerned about having a place to fish but luckily had scouted out several banks that had the right ingredients in practice and one of them was open. I dropped the trolling motor and started down the bank with a spinnerbait. I immediately notice shad swimming with my spinnerbait which was a very important part of my pattern. I was catching a fish every few casts and when I reached the end of the good stretch, I’d added two small keepers and a 4lber to my creel. The bank across from me had big ones on it in practice but there was a boat working it back and forth. I finally headed that way and just fell in behind him. I eased down the bank and caught a 3lber right behind the other boat which gave me a limit but that’s the only keeper I caught there. I headed to another stretch and caught a very small keeper and some short fish off of it. I ran back towards the mouth of the creek and my other two banks were then void of other fishermen so I pulled in and started fishing. The shad were still courting my spinnerbait and the wind was picking up which were good signs and I pretty quickly popped a 2.5lber. I cut across to the other side of the pocket to where I’d caught a 6lber in practice but there were no shad and I never had a sniff off of that stretch. I ran back across to make one more pass down the other side and caught a 15.5”er that culled a 15”er on my first pass. I turned and fished my way back out the same bank and I told my co angler I was going to make one more cast and I caught a 4lber on that cast. I obviously had to make a few more casts after that but they were unproductive. I noticed the fish I caught early were just loading up on my spinnerbait but those last two hit it like a freight train so that made me think they were getting more active and I should run back through all of my stuff. Unfortunately, everything I’d fished and wanted to fish had boats all over it so I decided to head back south, check my schools and eventually finish out the day flipping. All three of my schools had boats on them so I just kept my Mercury wound out and headed south of Dover to a slough. I had about 15lbs and it was 12:00 which gave me a little more than two hours to work the area over and get a couple of big bites. I slowly flipped my way to the back of the slough picking apart every piece of cover. I caught eight keepers during that time but only one helped my cause and it was just a 3lber. I weighed in 16lbs 8oz and finished in 5th place.

After a phenomenal practice, I really felt like a had a good shot at winning this tournament but I had told myself if I didn't at least make the top 5 then something bad was wrong. The funny thing is, as good as Barkley was fishing for me and a lot of other people I talked to, I thought Id need at least 20lbs to make that top 5. Even though I achieved one of my goals I was still disappointed with the fishing overall. It only took 19lbs to win and I thought it was going to take that to make the top 10. I talked to the guys that were sitting on the schools I'd found and one of them had 14lbs and the other only had three keepers. Any one of those schools wouldve produced at least 18lbs earlier in the week in just a few minutes. I'm not sure why the bite got so tough, probably a combination of the pressure all of the good places were getting and the lack of water movement didnt help the deep bite at all. When the day is done a top 5 is a top 5 but I was really pumped up thinking this was going to be one of those slugfest's where everybody catches them good but that wasn't the case at all. A positive note was that my game plan worked to perfection other than the fact that I didn't get to hit my deep stuff and my 4 to 6lbers turned into 2 to 4lbers. Barkley is still a nice change from massive KY Lake and I'm looking forward to fishing a BWS over there next weekend.

MUSIC CITY BFL BARKLEY PRACTICE

This one is launching out of Dover which is unusual but it makes my decision to stay on Barkley a little easier. I figured out last weekend I need to find more places because the water is so low my old areas just don't have enough cover in the water to last an eight hour tournament especially if I have to share them.

I launched at Dover on Wednesday and headed to the back of a creek. I started fishing a rip rap bank and noticed a few shad following my bait in. That let me know the shad spawn was still going on and even though it was too late that day to be a factor, I needed to look for a shad spawn pattern the next morning. I ran around looking at different creeks and looking for banks with good cover, I fished some and caught several 3lbers along the way. I decided to run north and look at some stuff up there and on the way I stopped and side imaged a creek mouth. As soon as I hit the 16ft zone I started seeing bass! It was a giant school so I shut down and fired a 6XD out behind the boat and caught a 4.5lber on my first cast. I wanted to see if they were all good ones so I made another cast and caught a 2.5lber. I caught several more decent keepers and then another 4lber so I left. That had me pumped up and I totally forgot about flipping and spent the rest of the day scanning for schools. I only found two more schools the rest of the day but I caught a 4lber or two out of both of them. I ended the day with about 21lbs.

I got on the water at daylight Thursday morning and started covering water looking for shad spawn activity without much luck. Finally, at 9:00, I found the shad spawn but it was dying off. I caught a bunch of small fish but a lone 3lber was the only decent one I caught. I wasn’t sure if I was too late or there just weren’t any big ones on that particular bank so I just moved on. I headed north to scan some more river ledge stuff and only found one small school of small fish. I did scan the schools I found on Wednesday and they were all still intact but I didn’t bother them. I headed into a creek and started fishing a bank leading into a pocket. I caught a small keeper on a spinnerbait and then caught a 4.5lber a few casts later. The bank didn’t look like much where I caught the fish but further down looked awesome. I thought I was going to hit the mother lode but once I got to the good looking stretch, I never had a bite. I fished around the pocket and out the other side and when I got to the deepest part of the bank, I caught a 6lber. I ran around looking for similar banks and was able to catch another 4lber and a 5.5lber on the same type banks. I ended the day with 23lbs on my best five fish. That gave me a spinnerbait pattern, a flipping pattern and three deep schools plus the option of fishing the shad spawn early in the morning. I knew I had more stuff to fish than I could fish in a day so I spent today prepping tackle.

LBL BFL #2 TOURNAMENT BARKLEY LAKE

Saturday morning I headed south out of Kuttawa harbor to my first stop 30 miles away. Upon my arrival I noticed one of my friends and competitor’s, Mike McDonald, was already in the area. He wasn’t on the bank I wanted to fish but he was working his way towards it. I idled to the bank but didn’t start as far down as I would’ve liked so I wouldn’t crowd Mike. I started picking every piece of cover apart with a Rodent. I fished for a few minutes and hadn’t drawn a strike when I noticed small bass flashing just below the surface. I knew then that the shad were spawning and I needed to switch to a reaction bait. I grabbed a KVD 1.5 and caught four short fish on my next four casts off of one piece of wood. Once I thought I’d cleaned that piece out I moved on to the next one and my co angler threw a spinnerbait on the same piece of wood and caught a 3.5lber! I immediately picked up a black and blue Pure Poison and quickly caught a 3lber. Just as I thought it was about to get good, another one of my competitor’s rolled into the creek and started fishing about 25 yards ahead of me. By that time, Mike had made his way to the bank I was on and that made three of us about 25 yards apart on a 100 yard stretch of bank. We were all three catching fish but the rest of mine were short but the guy that cut in front of me was steadily catching keepers. I finished out the stretch slowly following the other boat but never caught anymore keepers. I had another stretch in the same creek I wanted to fish so at 9:30 I headed that way. When I got within sight of the pocket, I saw Mike working his way down the stretch I wanted to fish. Not wanting to move in on him for the second time, I decided to totally change gears. I headed to the river and made another 30 mile run south of Dover. I knew if I ran that far I may have some company but it wouldn’t be anyone I was fishing against. I pulled into a slough and started flipping any piece of wood I could find with a black and blue Rodent. My co caught two short fish right off the bat on a spinnerbait and then it seemed like we went forever without a bite. It was 11am, I was 65 miles away from the ramp and was starting to think what a bad decision I’d made staying on Barkley. I finally caught a short fish off of a piece of wood and then things started picking up. The next piece I flipped on, my line swam off, I set the hook and drug a 4.5lber over the first of several limbs on the tree. I got her to the next limb and she got hung up and came unbuttoned. In the next 15 minutes I caught several short fish, a bowfin, a 3.5 and a 4lb largemouth but then went on another 45 minute dry spell. I fished about a half mile back into the slough and was running out of targets in enough water to house a fish. Just as I was getting to the last few pieces of good cover, I felt a thump! I set the hook, called for the net and a 5lber rolled to the surface! That gave me four fish and all I could think about was the 4.5lber I’d lost and how I wasn’t going to have time to catch a limit. I needed to head back at 1:30 and I had one more slough I wanted to hit. It was 12:45 and just as I was about to pack it up and head to my other stretch, I popped a little 16”er which gave me a limit that I was proud to have. I left there and hit my other slough along with a few quick stops on the way back to weigh-in but only caught one small keeper and some short fish the rest of the day. I weighed in 17lbs even and finished in 8th place.

I love fishing Barkley and should probably make the run over there more than I do. I’ve managed top 10’s in the past several tournaments I’ve fished on Barkley but though I’ve had the fish hooked to have a couple of giant stringers there I’ve never actually caught a really big stringer over there which makes me think I can’t win unless I go to KY Lake. It only took 21lbs to win and if I could’ve landed that fish I lost I would’ve been flirting with a 20lb bag. It was a grind to catch what I caught and a little stressful but I was very pleased to make the top 10. That good finish moved me up to 13th from 48th in the points and hopefully the next three tournaments won’t be as tough as these first two were and I can stay in the top 40.

LBL BFL #2 BARKLEY PRACTICE

This is my second LBL division FLW BFL of the season and I really need to do well. The regional will be on Pickwick Lake and only the top 40 in points will be invited. I’ve kind of taken making the top 40 for granted before both because I’ve never been able to attend a regional due to other obligations and because making the top 40 has never been an issue as long as I fished all five events. With my less than stellar 48th place finish in March and my history of poor finishes in April, I was a little concerned about my point’s situation.

As I've mentioned, I havn't fished but a couple days since my last March tournament and the only thing I had to go on was what a couple of friends had told me. My buddy Zack Parker had been on KY Lake and found a school of ledge fish. Though it was strange to me that they were out there so early, it still had me chomping to go out and search for more off shore schools. My Triton had been sitting for three weeks and when I got to the water on Wednesday morning I had no power to my engine or any of my electronics. After a couple hours of digging around checking all of my wiring, I decided to take it to Odom’s Blue and Gray Marine. They checked my voltage on my Odyssey battery and it was as dead as a hammer. I was surprised because those Odyssey’s are by far the best batteries I’ve ever used and I run three graphs and leave my pumps on manual all day and have never had any loss of power. That’s when they informed me that I’d left my power on for three weeks and that had been slowly draining my battery. I took it home, plugged in my onboard charger and added an additional portable charger to give it a little boost.

Meanwhile, Zack was on his way to Paris because he had a small issue with his boat that he was going to have Blue and Gray look at Thursday morning and then he was going to start practicing for the BFL. He arrived a couple hours before dark and asked me to go out with him and check the school he’d found. We idled over the school and they were stacked in 16ft of water. He asked me if I wanted to catch some of them and I told him they were his fish so it was up to him. Well, we Sexy spooned and 6XD’d up about 30 of them in the next 15 minutes that would’ve weighed about 18lbs! I asked him why we caught so many two days before a tournament and he assured me there were plenty down there and that we weren’t going to put a dent in ‘em. After we exhausted his school, he turned the boat over to me and I scanned a few of my best river ledges. Everything was void of life but we went ahead and fished one of them for the heck of it. There wasn’t a school there but in a 20 yard stretch of ledge we caught a couple of 2.5lbers and a 4lber which was surprising as they usually don’t show up on this particular spot until July.

By Friday morning my battery was juiced up and as good as new and I headed to Paris Landing. I scanned ledges for a couple of hours and wasn’t finding anything. I finally fished some of the ledges and was able to catch a couple of 2.5lbers off of most of them but never found any groups of fish. At 10am Zack called me and said the small issue with his boat was more serious than he thought and he wasn’t going to be able to fish the BFL. He told me if I’d let him practice with me then I could fish his school during the BFL if I needed them so I picked him up and we headed back out. I had a bad feeling about the school he’d found because he’d caught them there twice but each time it was late in the day. We scanned the area at 10:30a.m. and they were nowhere to be found. We still fished the area just to see if there were any stragglers but never had a bite. We side imaged and fished everything I could think of and though we caught a couple of fish off of a lot of places, none of them were over 3lbs and none of them were schooled up. On our way back to the ramp around 6:30 we decided to verify if his school was indeed an “evening” school. I made two passes with my Humminbird and like clockwork there was a stack of them. Since we hadn’t located any other schools I’d already made up my mind to fish Barkley during the tournament so we did the only thing we could do and that was pull out a spoon and a 6XD and catch as many as we could!

 I didn’t practice on Barkley because I fish the same areas every time I fish over there. I knew I was going to flip and throw a Strike King Pure Poison no matter what and with the water three feet below pool, I knew where and what the fish should be set up on. I spent Friday getting my KY tackle out of my boat and replacing it with Rodents, Pure Poison’s, spinnerbaits and KVD square billed crankbaits.

Jet-A-Marine Tournament

Well, instead of running 75 miles on KY Lake, I took my Triton/Mercury on a 65 mile excursion south on Lake Barkley!  I have never fished Barkley with the water this low and even though I knew there wouldn't be a lot of cover in the water, I was still shocked to see there was NO cover in the water!  I have a few little sloughs that have big laydowns on the banks and I thought at least some of the limbs would have some water on them but I was mistaken. Once I ran around in Dover for an hour or so and couldn't find anything to fish, we headed back north towards the KY state line and managed to catch a couple of keepers on some deep creek banks but they weren't much to talk about.  At about 1pm I was scratching my head and Jeremy suggested we fish some river stuff.  Seemed like a good idea to me unfortunately I've never fished river stuff on Barkley and didn't really know where to begin.  We ran down the river and pulled up on a ledge at the mouth of a creek because it looked like as good a place as any to make some casts.  I fired a 3/4oz. Redeye Shad out and when I reeled it in it had not one, but TWO 3lb largmouth attached to it! It was apparent we'd picked a pretty good place and I proceeded to catch a 3lber on my next several casts.  Jeremy being the great guy he is, sit in the floor of my Triton and culled fish until the flurry had ended and by the time he got to fish, the school was exhausted!  I felt bad about it but I guess that's part of buddy tournaments.  We spent the rest of the day fishing similar stuff but never upgraded.  We weighed in 14lbs 13oz and finished 47th out of 300 plus boats and earned a very small check.  It was a fun day fishing with a good friend and when it was all said and done I was glad I signed up for it.  Congrats to my buddies Troy and Todd Hollowell on winning the tournament with 23lbs.

Jet-A-Marine Tournament Practice

I decided to try and stay off of the water for a few weeks and hopefully snap out of this funk i'm in and be greeted by big 'ol hungry largemouth when I return before my next BFL tournament April 21st.  I've been pretty successful in my efforts not to fish but my buddy Jeremy Estes, owner of Strike Force fish attractant, called me needing a partner for the Jet-A-Marine tournament.  I tried to decline but he was dead set on fishing it and his original partner was having boat trouble.  Jeremy's a good guy and produces the finest fish attractant I've ever smelled and it has put some extra money in my pocket on numerous occasions, so I finally gave in.  I had no clue what the fish were doing other than a report that some big stringers had been caught in New Johnsonville on topwater so Jeremy and I headed to Jville on Friday to see if we could figure something out.  We fished all of the old stuff I used to catch 'em on and didn't have any luck.  We did get on a mess of fish with the new Strike King Sexy Dawg, but none were over 3lbs. I've never seen fish go after a topwater like they did that Sexy Dawg!  If that thing was long enough to house six sets of treble hooks, I think we could've caught six at a time on it, it was crazy!  We went and looked for some spawning fish but never saw anything on the banks. We did catch several 2 to 3lbers and Jeremy popped a 5.5lber just casting around spawing areas with Rodents.  We had around 16lbs on the day and decided that wasn't worth making the 75 mile run so we decided to just go fish Barkley for the heck of it on tournament day.

MUSIC CITY BFL KY LAKE TOURNAMENT

I headed south to one of the humps I’d caught a couple 3lbers on in practice and started dredging it with a Series 5. I caught a fish off of both ends of the hump just like in practice but instead of 3lbers they were just small keepers. I cranked a couple other humps and fished all of the places I fished the last weekend and didn’t get a single bite. I finally went into a creek to flip some stake beds and I didn’t even get bit doing that. As I was trolling from one bed to another I almost trolled right into a stump in about a foot of water. I dropped a Strike King tube down on the stump and caught a 2.5lber. I finally figured out that the stake beds were in 2ft of water which apparently was too deep! I got on the inside of the beds and dropped my Power Poles. I caught a 2.5lber off of every little dark spot I could see on the bottom. It was amazing how shallow the fish were and that I couldn’t actually see the fish. After I cleaned that area out I made a run to the east side of the lake to a marina with clear water to look for some spawners. I saw several fish on beds in the marina but the water was so clear they were super spooky. I went to the back of the creek and started flipping the dark spots and it was just like the other creek. Every dark spot in a foot or less of water had a 2.5lber on it. I cleaned those out and headed back to the creek where I’d started hoping that maybe I could catch some females on the dark spots once I’d taken the males away but it never happened. I caught about 30 keepers on the day and never had one much over 2.5lbs. I weighed in 11lbs 11oz. and finished 34th.

 It's been a frustrating crazy March! When I saw the schedule for this year I was foaming at the mouth because March has been so good to me and I cashed one check out of three tries. That just goes to show you never know what to expect in this game from year to year or day to day for that matter. I’ve never seen stable 65 degree water in March until this year and I can tell you one thing, I don't like it! I’ll take the more normal mid 40 water temps any day over this. On the bright side, I would like to see the Hydrilla come back and the low water, sunny skies and warm weather shouldn’t do anything but help that cause. Now maybe if I can survive April, things will start looking up!

MUSIC CITY BFL KY LAKE PRACTICE

The fishing got tougher on me as the water warmed. I ran around for a few days before this one and not only were the places I had been catching fish on not producing, I wasn’t finding anything new. The only fish over 3lbs I caught in practice were cranking shallow humps out in front of spawning coves with a Strike King Series 5, but they were few and far between. The water was already 70 degrees in places and I spent a half day looking for beds but never saw any sign of spawning activity. I’ve been lost on KY Lake before but this has to be the most I’ve ever struggled trying to catch a fish over 3lbs. I've decided to stay close to Paris Landing where we're launching from and just junk fish and hope for the best.

LBL BFL #1

 I planned on fishing the Redeye Shad all day but when I passed by the point where I’d caught the 9lber last week, I couldn’t resist. I spent about 30 minutes there and never had a bite. I stopped on the school of 2lbers where I’d finished my limit in the BWS and  quickly cranked up a limit of small keepers. Once I got a limit, I headed south of Paris to a creek that’s a refuge area and had been off limits up until the weekend of this tournament. There were a pile of fish on a point at the mouth of the creek and I was able to cull all of my 2lbers with a little better sized fish, but not much better. Once we exhausted that school, I headed further south to a little slough where I’ve caught them pretty good in April on my Redeye Shad. It didn’t take long and I hooked a decent fish in the 3lb range on my Redeye. The fish made a run towards the back of the boat and I used its momentum to swing it into the boat. Just as the fish left the water, my co angler was pulling his Arig out of the water and a 4lber ate his rig! I’m pretty sure that 4lber had followed my fish to the boat and led her right to my co angler’s bait! Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes so I made a quick cull and went back to chunking my Redeye Shad. I fished a little further into the slough and something hit my Redeye so hard, it knocked slack in my line. When I finally caught up to it, a 6lb class fish came to the surface and spit my bait right back at me! That was a very tough break but I shook it off and kept on fishing. I caught a few more small keepers in the slough and decided to fish back out to where those bigger bites had come from. I’d gotten so shallow my Motorguide was in the mud and I made the mistake of stomping the foot pedal to force it to turn. That’s when my bad luck got worse and the steering cable snapped. The good news was I had a spare trolling motor, but the bad news was it was in my Suburban in Benton, KY! It was only 10:30 but I knew the rest of my day was shot so I tried to make the best of it and I idled back out to where I’d lost the big one and let what little wind there was blow us through the area and drop my Power Poles if we hit a hot spot. We drifted through the area with no luck so I idled to another stretch and made a drift through there. I didn’t make it far and just as my Redeye Shad got within sight, an absolute tank rolled up and engulfed it! I didn’t have much line out so I eased back on the fish and kept her hooked for two head shakes and she came unbuttoned! That was the final nail in the coffin! I’d lost two 6lb+ sized fish and my trolling motor in 45 minutes. I ran back north to where I’d caught my Redeye fish in the BWS and drifted around out there for the rest of the day but never caught anything that would help. I weighed in a measly 13lbs 5oz and finished in 48th place.

LBL BFL #1 Practice

I spent a few days this week practicing for the first LBL BFL tournament.  I spent a day on the north end of the lake, a day in the mid section and a day on the south end.  I'm catching a ton of fish but not the right size. I've tried everthing I can think of but can't seem to figure out how to catch the big fish. I'm just going to go fishing during the tournament and cover a lot of water with the Redeye Shad and hope to stumble on to something.

KY BWS

Man, fishing was a little tougher than I was hoping.  I started where I caught the 3lber yesterday and when I fished that place in Dec. we had 21lbs in about 10 minutes.  Unfortunately, I caught a 17"er there and that was it.  I headed to where I caught my 9lber and as soon as I got to the waypoint, one smoked my Shadalicious!  I was hoping it was going to be another giant but it was only a 4.5lber!  Don't get me wrong, I was pleased to have a 4+ but the last fish I rolled up on this spot was a BIGGUN!  I ran to one of my little schools of 2lbers and finished my limit and then it was a slow go until about noon.  I finally pulled my trusty Redeye Shad out and just went fishing and managed a 5lber and culled a few more times but just by ounces.  I ended up with 17.38lbs which surprisingly was good enough for 6th place and the highest finishing Triton Gold money and the Boat US bonus money......I love contingency programs!!!!

BACK ON KY FINALLY!

I've been under the weather for a few days since I came home from Gville but finally made my way to KY and gotta day of practice in before my first Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament tomorrow.  The weather has been unseasonably warm and the water is 60 degrees already!  I immediately ran to a couple of places that were slammed full of fish over the winter and started chunkin my Arig loaded with Shadalicious swimbaits.  The first place I hit I caught a 3lber and left.  My next stop was empty but my 3rd stop produced a 9lb even largemouth which is my personal best KY fish.  I thought I had  something going but I never caught another fish over 2.75lbs the rest of the day though I did catch plenty that size.  Oh well, I wish I could've gotten some more practice in but I'm going to scramble around and try and make something happen tomorrow.

MUSIC CITY BFL GUNTERSVILLE

I didn't fish much this week due mostly to 35mph winds almost every day and the fact I was still frustrated after having the best practice ever last week and bombing in the tournament.  I fished about three hours Tuesday and had 3 bites. My old buddy Aaron Meritt came down Wednesday and he wanted to catch some fish.  We tried the pattern that failed me last weekend and it was going strong.  We had over 20lbs in an hour and ended the day with about 24lbs.

I decided to just go fishing in the BFL and make my decisions on the fly.  My first stop was exactly where I fished last Saturday and by 9am I had 24lbs.  The wind got pretty bad and muddied everything up and the bite slowed considerably.  I did catch several more keepers during the day but none would cull.  I finished 3rd and missed out on my 7 grand Triton Gold money by 12 oz. which was a little hard to stomach.  I was a little shocked that it only took 24-11 to win since it's taken 30+ the past two weekends but I guess even the Alabama rig isn't fool proof which was refreshing to see.