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.
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