2013 Recap

Its hard to believe another season has come to a close. They seem to go by faster every year. 2013 definitely had it's ups and downs. I didn't fish quite as many tournaments this year as I did in 2012 but it wasn't by choice. I had mechanical issues and a bout with the flu in the first part of the season that caused me to miss several tournaments I was planning on fishing. My stats were similar to 2012. I managed checks in 9 out of 12 draw tournaments for a 75% average with two wins. In 2012 I fished 19 draw events and cashed checks in 63% of them and also managed two wins. I fished a few more team events this season and was able to earn money in 7 out of 11 of them with one win. In 2012 I only entered 7 team events and cashed checks in 4 of them with no wins. In this entry Id like to talk about while on paper this season looked very similar to 2012 and not all that spectacular, it was actually one of the best seasons I've ever had.

FEBRUARY: February is usually the month I kick everything off. For the past several years I've spent a lot of time at Guntersville that month and fish as many as four draw tournaments while I'm there and also do a few guide trips. I had all intentions of starting 2013 the same way but had vehicle issues and a few minor mechanical issues with my boat that cut my trip short and I spent February making sure everything was ready for March.

MARCH: March has always been my favorite month to fish on any lake. I learned how to bass fish in the winter of 1998 and I've always been very comfortable fishing in cold weather and early pre spawn conditions. Once I moved up and started fishing BFL's and BWS events I was always very successful in the month of March and felt like I would always make a check and be a threat to win. I saw conditions on KY Lake in 2012 I'd never seen that early in the year and when I hit the lake the first time the surface water temp was already 60 degrees! The fish were in more of an April pattern which happens to be my least favorite month to fish and I had the worst finish I could remember having in a March tournament in my first BFL that year with a 48th place showing. I bounced back the following week with a 6th in the BWS but there was a lot of luck involved. I caught two big ones just running around throwing a Red Eye shad and wasn't actually dialed in to what the fish were doing. 


This past March was back to normal, cold and windy and I was ready to get back on track. When my first BFL rolled around I had a decent practice and I really had a good game plan for catching the right kind of fish to win. When the scales closed that day, I had weighed in three fish for 9lbs. That's the first time I haven't been able to catch a limit of fish in a tournament since I started fishing full time in 2009. I was pretty let down over the deal but the key words here were "I had a good game plan for catching the right kind of fish to win." 

The BWS was two weeks later and I had a chance to bounce back and that's when the flu bug bit and I had to drop out of the tournament. I did fish a couple of team events at the end of the month and we finished 2nd and 3rd in those so I had a little momentum heading into April. 

March was not what I had hoped but I'll say it again, the first big tournament I entered in 2013, I felt like I could win if everything went right, it just didn't go my way. I never felt like I was on the fish to win in 2012, even in the two tournaments I won. So that was definitely a good feeling even though the final result was one of the worst showings I've had on KY Lake in several years.

APRIL: This has always been the toughest month for me unless the water hits the bushes early in the month. I lose track of the fish when they're in that in between stage and once the water hits the bushes its like they're everywhere. The water never hit the bushes in 2012 and I was lost the entire month. I didn't fish a lot in early April this season because I spent two weeks in Captains School. While I was in school, I watched the water rise from the class room and as soon as it hit the bushes, it was on! I had some of the best days of flipping I've ever experienced on KY Lake. 

We had a BFL April 20th and I was very confident going into the tournament. The water was unfortunately falling daily and I ended up struggling to catch the big ones and only weighed in 15lbs but managed a check. 

The BWS was the following weekend and the water was on the rise. Once again, I felt like I could win if I executed perfectly and while I caught so many fish my hands were bleeding at the end of the day, I lost a critical fish that would have put me close to the top and I had to settle for 5th place with 22lbs of fish. So two months into the season, I'd fished three draw tournaments and felt like I had a shot to win all three. That's all I can ask for going into a tournament, to feel like I know where the winning fish live.

MAY: This is the month my guide business started booming and the water kept rising. The water got several feet above summer pool and I knew exactly where the fish were going. Heading into our May BWS I checked all of the places I knew they were headed to on Wednesday and Thursday. They're usually on the 6XD when they get there and even though I caught about 21lbs. on Wednesday, I just wasn't seeing the numbers I was expecting. I went out and cranked the same type places on Thursday and never caught a fish. I headed to the bushes later that day and flipped up 26lbs in a half hour and I knew I was on the winning pattern. The fish made a huge move Thursday night and my old buddy David Gnewikow found them on the same places I'd eliminated on Wednesday and Thursday and won the tournament on a 6XD while I struggled to catch 18lbs and finished 14th. Once again, I didn't close the deal but I knew where the winning fish were and where they went, I just didn't adjust quickly enough.

JUNE and JULY: I fished a bunch of tournaments and did a ton of guiding these two months. I earned checks in all of them but only won once. I had a BFL and a BWS during this time that I really felt like I had a shot at but the weather got me in the BFL and the fish shrunk a little on me in the BWS. I finished 12th in that BFL and 7th in the BWS. Its kind of funny because the lone win I got in this stretch was the Sportsmen's Digest Team Trail I fished with David, and I probably had less confidence we could win that one as anything I fished that month, but when you get around David G, his confidence is contagious and we ended up pulling it off.

AUGUST: I only had one tournament in August but I was guiding several days a week and there were still schools everywhere out deep. The school fish were getting harder to catch because they had been beaten on all summer but I figured out a way to catch them and the day I figured it out, it was like June all over again. I caught a ton of fish and some good ones. I caught them so good in fact I decided to make a long run from Barkley State Park back around within sight of Paris Landing. The sun never showed itself that day and for whatever reason I couldn't get the bigger fish to cooperate and I ended up finishing in 4th place. Once again though, I felt like I could win going into the event and that's more than I could say for all of 2012.

SEPTEMBER: I could talk forever about September. It was unbelievable and I was able to take a couple of small pieces of the puzzle I found in 2012 and put it together for some of the best fishing I've ever experienced a year later. I had a two day BWS and a two day BFL within a few weeks of each other and I had the best game plan to win both of them as I've probably ever had. I had deep fish, in between fish and dirt shallow fish and I utilized all of them and ended up winning both events by over 10 lbs. I've been fortunate enough to win several BWS events but this was only my second BFL win and it was really special to me because I've come so close several times. It was truly a blessed month of fishing that I'll never forget.

OCTOBER: Things slowed down for me in October. I spent a week at Guntersville, a lake I'm very fond of, for the BFL Regional. I had a decent practice but a terrible tournament and I just never found that pattern or area that I'd been finding more often than not earlier in the year where I felt like I could really make a run at it. I returned home and started preparing for the Carl Perkins tournament and once again had an unbelievable practice. I felt even better about our chances to win that one than I did the two events I won in September and after two frustrating days where we watched giant after giant do everything but get hooked on our Sexy Dawgs, the wind was slowly being sucked out of my sails. I fished the Sportsmen's Digest Classic and the Solo Cup later that month and finished 9th in the Classic and 4th in the Cup but I basically just went fishing and tried to figure it out on the fly. I was definitely ready for a break when October wound down.

SUMMARY: Hopefully this breakdown of the season gives you an idea of why I said it was one of the best seasons I've ever had. The results weren't great, I've had better overall results in several years in the past. The big key this year was how many times I felt like I could win going into the tournament. In a normal year I may feel like I'm on the winning fish a few tournaments out of the year. It seemed like every tournament this year I figured a little something out that gave me the confidence I needed think I could get the W. I know this may not make since because if you don't win you don't win no matter how good your practice was. For me mentally though, it was huge going into these tournaments knowing I'd done everything I could do leading in to give me a shot at winning especially after last year when it just seemed like I never figured it out in practice. I've always said the day I quit learning will be the day I quit fishing and after last year I was beginning to wonder if I had maxed out on what I was going to learn. I think I learned more this year than I've ever learned in a season and that goes a long way towards my outlook for 2014. 

As always, thanks to all of my sponsors; Odoms Blue and Gray Marine, Triton Boats, Mercury Marine, Strike King Lure Company, All Pro Rods, Lowrance Electronics, TH Marine, Strike Force fish attractant, The Cabin Bait and Tackle, Rod Glove, Power Pole, Seaguar, Abu Garcia, my friends and family for their support and most of all the good Lord for allowing me to have another successful season living the dream. Hope you all have a very merry Christmas and I look forward to 2014.

Strike King Series 1 Weekday Solo Event #2 Oct. 29, 2013

I didnt practice for this one, I just figured I'd fish the same way I fished the rest of October and see what happened. Would you believe I started on the nightmare hole and lost a 5lber in the first ten minutes of the day! Ha, its almost comical at this point. I mixed in some deep and shallow and managed a 5lber on the Sexy Dawg and had a couple of good ones miss it. My deep fish were scattered but I did hit a stretch that produced several 3lbers. It was a pretty tough day overall for me, I think I caught nine keepers on the day but once again, I love fishing during the week so you'll never hear me complain. I weighed in 17.96lbs and finished in 4th place. Congrats to KVT Kevin Tidwell for dropping 22+ on us to take home the win.

Sportsmen's Digest Pro Team Trail Classic

DAY 1: KY Lake was off limits for the week leading up to this one so everybody started even on Friday. My trusty team partner David Gnewikow decided to go on vacation so I had to fend for myself against some of the best teams on the Lake. My plan was to spend day one running through everything I'd been fishing the past month both shallow and deep from Danville to Blood River until I saw enough to dial into what I should focus on for day two. My first stop was what I now call the nightmare hole where Woodside and I had such bad luck in the Carl Perkins. A few twitches into the day a 2.5lber exploded on my Sexy Dawg and had every hook in its face! That was a big relief because that told me, they were eating. 20 minutes later a 5lber did a flip over my bait and never touched it! I hit one more top water spot after that without a bite and decided I couldn't stomach another day of what I'd seen the week before so I pulled out the Shadalicous and headed out deep. My first school produced a small keeper and a 3lber or two and I moved on. My second school only produced three bites but they were a 3.5, a 4 and a 5lber. That gave me the confidence to spend some time looking out deep. Something told me to check some places I catch them in the winter on the umbrella rig and the first one I scanned had a few fish on it. I rigged up a TN legal Titanium rig with Swimmin' Caffeine shads and a big Shadalicious in the middle. I fired it out on the school and caught two on my first cast, one was a small keeper and one was 3lbs and culled. I looked at another place and saw a few on it and I caught 8 or 10 3lbers there. I was culling up by ounces but I felt like I was heading in the right direction. I checked some really deep places, saw a few bass and caught a couple of 4lbers! I eventually made my way all the way north of Blood River and had marked fish on 10 or 12 places that I catch really big ones on in the winter. Time finally ran out and I weighed in 19.76lbs and was in 4th place heading into day two but I really felt like the big ones were heading my way and the front coming through the next day could only help my cause.

PTT CLASSIC OCT. 19th DAY 2: This will be short and sweet! Just when you think your one step ahead of those little green suckers they do what they do best, disappear! After catching over 60 keepers on day one I caught 6, that's right SIX keepers on day two and only three came on the umbrella rig. I didn't have a keeper in the boat until 1:30 and all I could think about was dropping a goose egg on KY Lake! I caught a small keeper on the Sexy Dawg, a small keeper on a worm and a 4lber on a football jig with five minutes left in the day. I weighed in 13.61lbs and finished 9th overall.

SUMMARY: I really liked this format with no practice. It makes it interesting trying to figure it out on the fly and at about 2pm on Friday, I thought I'd unlocked the magic pattern! I can't complain, tournament fishing is a bit like gambling and I went all in on the deep fish and the guys that stayed shallow caught them and caught them good. Congrats to a couple of my favorite people, Billy and Bill Shcroeder who won by almost 5lbs with 45lbs of top water fish!

Carl Perkins Classic Practice and Tournament

While I was grueling it out on Gville, a few guys I had helped out back home were sending me pics of GIANTS they were catching off of some of the places I'd showed them on the Sexy Dawg! I was ready to get back on KY Lake and get in on some of the action. My partner Kevin Woodside knows his way around New Johnsonville as good as anyone so he spent a couple days on that end of the pond and I spent a couple in the Danville and Paris area. Kevin informed me that the grass bite was not happening and while I wasn't getting many bites on the north end, the ones I got were definitely the right kind! We decided to make the 75 mile run north of Paris from Perryville the first day and see what happened.

DAY 1: After a chilly 75 mile run we pulled in on our first stop and it didn't take long for the action to get under way. In the first 45 minutes we had blow up after blow up on our Sexy Dawgs which was good news. The bad news was after watching 4 to 6lb fish blow our baits out of the water, jump over them, roll behind them, eat them and then pull off for 45 minutes, we had one 4lb smallmouth in the live well when we left. I thought that if we changed areas the fish may cooperate a little better but as soon as we hit the sweet spot on our second stop a 5lber jumped over my bait and never touched it! Kevin finally connected on a couple of keepers but they were just 2.5lbers. To make a long story short, when we got ready to make our voyage back to Perryville, wed' had no less than 25 blow ups and we had three fish in the boat! We pulled out our Shadalicious swimbaits and stopped on a deep school on the way back and caught a couple of 3lbers to fill our limit and then we headed to the ramp. We weighed in a very disappointing 14.61lbs but fortunate for us, the majority of the 167 boat field had struggled and we were still in the hunt going into day two.

DAY 2: After all of the action we'd seen on day one we knew we were around the right fish so we decided to make the long run north again. We started on the same place and I'd like to say they were choking it on day two but after an hour we had 9 blow ups and had another lone 4lb smallmouth in the boat! We made a short run to a stump row that I hadn't fished in awhile and a few casts in a 4lber jumped over my Sexy Dawg. A few casts later I walked it over a stump and a GIANT rolled up under it but didn't take it. At that point I was starting to think we were on an episode of PUNK'D! I'd never seen so many good fish hit a bait with that many hooks and not get hooked. After a couple of dry runs on some stretches we'd gotten bit on the first day we decided to change gears and hit the deep fish a little earlier. I went to a school we didn't have time to hit the first day and they were loaded! We caught 3 to 3.5 lbers cast after cast until we finally exhausted the school. I told Kevin I was out of ideas and turned the boat over to him for the rest of the day. We headed to some of his holes down south that have been good to him in the past and with about ten minutes to go we FINALLY caught a 5.5lber on a Sexy Dawg, it was a miracle! It did come unhooked as soon as it hit the net but hey, it was in the boat. We weighed in 18.69lbs on day two and finished 7th overall.

SUMMARY: This tournament moved into first place as the most frustrating tournament I've ever fished. 7 grand in Triton Gold money was on the line and the best of the best fishermen from the south end of the lake were competing. I really wanted to win it for the $$ and the prestige. The worse part of it all is that it only took 36lbs for two days to win and I really believe we were on enough deep fish that were willing to eat that we could've caught that much if we'd fished deep the entire tournament. Then again, when you turn 170 boats loose in the land of the giants, you don't expect only 36lbs to win, so you can't really look at it that way. We did what we thought we needed to do to win and we were around the fish to win, we'll just have to chalk this one up to the fact that it wasn't meant to be. Congrats to my buddy Keith Himes and his partner for figuring out how to put 36lbs worth of stingy top water fish in the boat and claim the win.

BFL Regional Lake Guntersville Oct. 3-5, 2013

DAY 1: I started on a stretch of Hydrilla on the main lake where I never caught a fish in practice but I saw a few big ones chasing big Gizzard shad there. I started down the grass line with a white Strike King Tour Grade Swimming jig with a pearl Rage Tail Menace trailer. On about my 5th cast one smoked it and my rod loaded up! The fish wasn't putting up much of a fight and when it neared the boat I saw why, it was a 16" Crappie! I spent a few more minutes there without a bite and headed to my first creek spot. I've caught fish on this particular place in the past and I'm not sure what holds them there but they are always within a few yards either way of my waypoint. I slowly worked my way around the grass dropping my Power Poles every few feet and picking the area apart. I caught several really small fish and then I heard my co anglers drag slip and he let out a grunt! I turned around and he had a 5lber doing summersaults behind the boat. We spent another 45 minutes in the area and all I could come up with were a few short fish. I headed to my next creek spot and immediately caught a couple short fish. A few casts later I reeled my jig in and a 3lber was right on its trail! The fish went under the boat and I dropped my jig and felt a tick! I hooked the bass and it shot straight up and came unbuttoned! I left there and hit some flipping stretches and after not getting a bite on my first stretch I caught a 5lber on my 3rd flip on my next stop! A few flips later another one popped my Rodent but came off before I could pull it through the mat. The next few hours were brutally slow and the next thing I knew I had about an hour left to fish and only had the one 5lber. I decided to head back down lake to my deep fish and hopefully fill out my limit. I had two bites on each of my two deep schools and only hooked one of them which was a small 15 keeper. I weighed in two fish for 6lbs 12oz.


DAY 2: I knew I needed at least a low 20lb bag to make the cut and I figured the best way to accomplish that was to flip for five bites all day. During a two hour fog delay I was talking with my co angler and he was a limit of fish away from making the cut so I decided to hit my two deep schools right off the bat in order to give him a shot at catching that limit. As soon as I got lined up on my waypoint, I caught a 4lber on a football jig. My next cast I caught a 3lber, my next cast I had a keeper jump off and my next cast I set the hook and came back with no trailer but then it was over. I headed to my next deep spot and never got a bite and then pulled out my All Pro Flippin stick and headed to the mats. I caught a keeper on my first stop and my co angler caught 2 keepers. I made several passes down the grass line and had a couple more bites but didnt hook up. The next few hours were slow and the few bites I got pulled off before I could pull them through the mat. With time running out I headed back down lake and gave my two deep holes one last shot. I caught a solid keeper off the first one and lost a 5lb class fish on the other one but those were the only two bites I had. I had four fish that would've weighed around 12lbs and pitched them back since they would've put me nowhere near the check cut.

SUMMARY: I think my past experience on Guntersville killed me in this one. Historically early fall tournaments arent won in the most obvious grass mats on the lake but this one was dominated that way. Looking at the standings none of the locals did very well and while I dont live on Gville, I have put my time in there. I did have the bites to make a run at the top 12 cut but when your fishing that thick Hydrilla your going to lose some fish and I wasn't around near enough fish to make up for the mishaps I had during the tournament.

BFL Regional Lake Guntersville Practice

The Lake had been off limits prior to practice but I had talked to my good friend and Guntersville legend Ed Gettys just before off limits. He told me the only thing I thought I needed to hear and that was that the swim jig bite was on in the deep Hydrilla which was the same pattern I used to finish 2nd in the 2010 BWS National Championship. I spent the first day of practice running old swim jig holes and at the end of the day I'd found that bites were hard to come by and the ones I got were in the creeks and not out on the main lake flats where I really like to fish. I was also catching a lot of yearling bass with the occasional 3 or 4lber mixed in which was not what I was looking for. In 2010 when I'd catch a 3 or 4lber it would have an entire school following it up and that wasn't happening this go round.

I spent day 2 flipping Hydrilla and milfoil and while I had a dozen bites or so, there was really no pattern to it and I didn't get to see what size fish I was dealing with because I didn't want to be seen by other fishermen.

I spent day 3 looking out deep and as usual in the fall on Lake G, I found the same 2 schools I find every year. They were right where they were supposed to be and I didn't set the hook on any of those either but I've fished them for so many years now I pretty much know what to expect size wise.

I'm not real sure what to expect going into day 1 because I've set the hook on so few fish in practice, but I'm pretty sure a decent limit each day will make the top 12 cut to Saturday and I feel like 17 or 18lbs a day will win. I feel pretty good about catching a limit each day but I think I'll need to luck up and get a couple of big bites each day to make a run at the win.

LBL BFL #5 Day 2 Sept. 22, 2013

I had to make a tough decision this morning. I left the biggest school I've ever seen biting on day yesterday and regretted not spending more time there. The bad thing was there were some pirates waiting outside the marina to follow me and see where I was fishing and that place was too special to give away, even for14 grand. I decided to do the same thing I did yesterday and start on my back up place. We started strong and my co angler caught a 5lber about 10 minutes into the day. A few casts later one blew mine up and about a 5lb smallmouth erupted from the water! I fought her all the way to the boat and she came unbuttoned! I shook it off, fired another cast out and caught a 15" keeper and that was all she wrote for my back up place. I ran and fished where I won the BWS and another place where I caught some big ones in practice and nothing! I headed back to where I started and made two passes without a bite and then I started to panic a little. Once again I was faced with the question to gamble it all on the mother lode and just hope they'd cooperate or try to scrounge out a limit before I went to them. I had a school close by that I guide on all the time but they were by far the worst school I have and I've never caught a fish much over 2.5lbs out of them. I realized I had such a big lead over 3rd place that a limit of 2lbers would at least secure me 2nd place. I decided to stop on them on my way to the mother lode. I scanned over them and they were loaded! I started catching 14" fish on every cast and I was beginning to think it just wasn't meant to be and then I popped a solid keeper. My next cast I caught a 3lber which was a giant for this school. My very next cast my bait never made it to the bottom when a 5lber smoked it. I knew I still had work to do, but when you start catching 5lbers off of places they don't live you get a pretty good feeling that its your time to win. I stopped on one more school on my way to the giants and caught two more 3 to 3.5lbers which gave me about 18lbs and a few hours to work my giants over real good. I pulled up and started down the bar and nothing ever happened. I left at 2:00 on the nose without a bite. Everything I caught today came out of 18ft of water. I weighed in 18lbs 4oz and ended up winning the by over 10lbs. We also had a enough boats for the full Triton Gold Bonus of $7000 plus $1500 from Mercury/MotorGuide, $250 from Toyota Bonus Bucks and $150 from Boat U.S. Weigh to Win. After bonuses I took home over $14000! Not bad for a couple days of fishing!

SUMMARY: Its been a couple years since I was as dialed in to what the big fish were doing as I was over the past few weeks. By the end of my BFL practice I could almost call my shot. This BFL win is really special to me because I'd only won one BFL tournament before this back in 2009. I've been very close to winning several since then but always come up a little short. I honestly don't think I could've caught the weights I caught in these two tournaments without a few very important pieces of equipment. Everything played a roll, my Triton/Mercury had to get me there and back in some brutal conditions and my Sexy Dawg had to do its thing, but without my Power Poles to hold me right on the juice in that rough water, it would've been very tough to have fished as efficiently as I did. Another very important component was my 7' All Pro medium heavy cranking rod. I've been using the All Pro Blaster big crank bait rods for several years because I believe its the best big crankbait rod on the market. I recently started using All Pro Rods exclusively and it couldn't have come at a better time. This rod isn't specifically designed for top water fishing but its the perfect rod for big walking baits! I walked that Sexy Dawg about 10000 miles the past few weeks and I never once had to lay it down due to fatigue. If you throw a lot of walking baits you know it can be grueling to stay with it all day and this rod takes a lot of the work out of it because it has the perfect action. Teamed up with an Abu Garcia Revo STX reel and 60lb Seaguar Kanzen braid, I can throw it a mile and I've caught giants from the end of my cast to right by the boat and only lost two fish out of probably 100 that I've hooked. If you like walking that Sexy Dawg you better give this rod a try, it'll make your job a lot easier.

LBL BFL #5 Day 1 Sept. 21, 2013

Well, the weather let me let me down! After a night of torrential down pours we were greeted with a nice 20mph North wind as we launched from KY Dam Marina this morning. Most people would think I'm crazy to pass by the best school I've ever seen but those fish were not going to get found and it was late in the day when I found them so I wanted to be there about that same time today. I decided to start on the giant school of 3 to 4lbers and luckily they were somewhat protected from the wind behind rip rap. The action started immediately when one blew my bait out of the water on my first cast. I caught a 3lber on my next cast and a 3.5lber on my third cast. I was pretty sure I was about to have a pretty good sack to start the day in the first few minutes and for whatever reason a school of 13" fish moved in and took the place over. I spent over an hour there and never caught another keeper. I left and headed to the place I'd caught them in the BWS and it had 4 footers rolling over the top of it and I knew then I had a decision to make. I knew that most of my top water holes were going to be blown out and it was so rough I couldn't run a lot of different places. I had my giant school of giants on the back burner but the catch was, if I got to them and they didn't wanna play, I didn't have anything to fall back on. I really wanted a limit before I went to them because I had to make it to tommorrow. I decided to give the deep fish an hour and then head to the promise land. My first deep stop produced a 2.5lber and I lost another keeper and that was it. My next stop produced nothing but 14"ers and my third stop was covered up with boats. At 11:00am I told myself that I'd planned on living and dying with the Sexy Dawg and thats what I was going to do so I headed north to the mother lode! As I made my way back north I glanced over at where I'd started the day and there wasn't a boat in sight. It was 11:15 and I still felt like that place had 20lb potential. I decided to make a quick pass through the sweet stretch before I totally committed myself to my giant school of giants. It seemed like the right move when I pulled in and caught a 3.5lber on my third cast which finally gave me a limit and took a little pressure off. I worked my way down the bar and picked up another 3lber. It was 11:45 and I knew I had to leave at noon. Just before I pulled the plug I saw a shad blow out of the water and I caught another 3lb class fish. That gave me somewhere around 16lbs and an hour and half to see what I'd been missing on my giant school of giants. I pulled up to the bar at 12:15 and started 25 yards shy of my waypoint. I was extremely lucky this place was tucked in behind an island because the wind was roaring. I was a little nervous about what was about to go down, would they still be there, would they be giants, would I be able to land them, did I have time to get back, everything you can imagine was running through my head and then BOOM! A monster blew it out of the water right by the boat! I looked down and there were about twenty 5 to 7lbers swarming around my Triton like sharks! I made a short pitch to them and a 5.5lber choked it! I fired out another cast and the school followed my bait in. I sat there working my bait in place and a 6.25lber slurped it up! The school must have scattered after that because I went awhile without bite but with about 20 minutes to go I made a long cast and all I could see were big green sides slashing at my bait and a 6.5lber smoked it. I really thought I was about to easily break 30lbs but when I finally had to head back, I hadn't caught another fish. I weighed in 25lbs 5oz and have a little over a 3lb lead heading into tomorrow. The wind is supposed to laydown overnight so maybe I can fish a few more places and bust 30 tomorrow!

LBL BFL #5 Practice

Monday I tried a few of the jig places I'd fished in the BWS and it wasnt happening.  My deep fish were still cooperating but 17lbs was about as good as I could do out there on a good day and while I never went to my best Sexy Dawg spot, I did spend some time throwing it on my guide trips last week and caught several keepers up to 3lbs. I really spent some time thinking about how my best top water place was set up and decided to spend most of my practice looking for similar places. After really studying my top water area from the BWS I had thought of about 20 places that might fit the pattern.  The first one I hit was a slow go but before I left I caught a 5lber.  I paid close attention to where that fish was sitting and tried to look for the same type deal on my next few stops.  My next few places were unproductive but the fifth one was the one!  It had all of the ingredients, shallow water close to deep, stumps and most importantly, GIANT SHAD!  I covered a good portion of the bar without a bite and all of a sudden one knocked my bait 2 feet in the air.  I kept the bait moving and another took a swipe at it. Just before it got to the boat a 4.5lber grabbed it and it had about ten big ones swimming with it!  I dropped a waypoint and trolled up the bar a little ways, made a few casts and an 8lber engulfed my Sexy Dawg!  I was pretty bent out of shape and probably should've left but I made a few more casts and covered a little more ground and when I finished my best 5 would've weighed between 32 and 34lbs!  I spend a lot of time on KY Lake and a lot of other great lakes and this is by far the most impressive school of fish I've ever seen!  I went out the next day and ran the pattern again and found six more places holding big ones and one school that had a ton 3 to 4lbers.  It's three more days until tournament day and I'm going crazy waiting for it to get here. I think if the wind doesn't blow too hard I can smoke 'em this weekend!

KY BWS #5 Day 2 Sept. 8, 2013

Tom had me a little nervous this morning being that close to me. This is his time of year and the big ones were in shallow water which is his specialty. I ran straight to where I caught my Sexy Dawg fish on yesterday and started well shy of my waypoint. I had no idea if these fish would bite that early in the morning but just as I went to pull my bait out of the water a 5lber almost took my rod out of my hand. The fish was so close to the boat I couldn't get any line out and she pulled off.  Normally losing a 5lber on my first cast would hurt but I turned to my co angler and said we're about to crush 'em! I made my way down the stretch and heard an explosion behind the boat. I looked back and my co had a giant on and it immediately went airborne and threw his bait. I fired a cast out in the same area and caught 4.5lber. A few casts later I caught another 4.5lber, then a 4.25lber. I was piecing together a pretty good stringer but I still had Tom in the back of my mind and I knew if I was catching 'em then so was he. I worked along the stretch and just as I was ready to swing around for another pass, a 6.5lber smoked my Sexy Dawg! That gave me four fish that weighed over 19lbs in the first hour of the morning! I made a few more passes without a bite and that's when I started thinking about that big one I'd lost. I was afraid I'd missed a huge opportunity. I had to get number 5 in the boat so I could relax and run my big fish pattern the rest of the day so I ran to the closest school I had and popped a 3lber in about 10 minutes. I headed back to the shallow water and finished up the day and only caught one more fish but it was a 4.5lber. I weighed in 22.95lbs today for a two day total of 50.85lbs and ended up winning the tournament by 11lbs!

KY BWS # 5 Day 1 Sept. 7, 2013

I headed south out of Moors Resort and straight to my most northern school in the Blood River area. I looked at it with my Lowrance and didnt see any bass but there was a ton of activity in the water column so I made a few casts. I never catch them when its like that but there had been some good fish in the school and I had to try it. 15 minutes passed without a bite and I headed south. My next stop was south of Paris and when I pulled up there was a boat sitting right on the goods. I fished around for about 30 minutes hoping he would leave but he never did. I headed further south and things started to pick up. I scanned one of my favorite schools and only saw a few fish but the quality had been good there so I went to work on them. It took me a little while to get the right line up but once I did I had 14lbs in the boat in 10 minutes. I spent another thirty minutes trying different baits and angles but never could upgrade so I headed further south. My next school was small also but they too have had some 4lbers in them so I spent about an hour on this particular school. I caught them on everything from a 6XD to a Rage tail Recon worm but when they finally exhausted, Id only culled once. I was up to about 15lbs and seriously thought about heading shallow but I had one more school close by and gave them a look. I caught a couple real quick on Shadalicious swim bait but they didnt help. I saw a few on the bottom right under the boat and lowered my drop shot down and caught a 3.5lber on my first drop. That gave me around 16lbs and I headed to the shallows. As I ran down the lake trying to decide where to start I ran right past my Sexy Dawg hole and almost forgot about it. I turned around and idled out into the middle of the flat. As I neared my waypoint, I told my co angler “were in the danger zone!” My bait hit the water and two twitches later there was an explosion around my bait and the tip of my rod almost touched my knuckles! I wrestled a 5lber into the net and culled a 3lber. I was pumped because I knew that was going to be huge in a low weight tournament. I told my co that we probably wouldnt get another bite but I dropped my Power Poles and worked the area over. I fan cast around for a few more minutes and just before I got ready to leave….KABOOM! A 7lber did horrible things to my top water plug! I wasnt sure what my weight was after that but I knew I had over 20 and was feeling confident Id have the lead after day 1. I fished around the area for awhile with no action so I made my way back north throwing a jig on the best stump places I know. As I fished my way back I thought how awesome it would be to get three more giant bites and get rid of ALL of those little 3lbers for a change. At 12:30 we hadnt had a bite in a couple of hours and I rolled in on a place south of the 68/80 bridge. Ive caught big fish there this time of year but never multiples. I worked around the bar with the jig making sure I hit every piece of wood. I felt my jig fall over a stump and a light tick; I set the hook and a 5lber shot out of the water! Thats when it hit me that I was absolutely, no doubt doing the right thing to catch the big ones and I was determined to get 2 more! I made a few casts and hit another stump and felt another tick and caught another 5lber. I made a few more casts, felt another tick and caught a 6lber. With an hour of fishing time left I knew I had in the high 20s and one of those big girls was looking weak so I decided to weigh in early. I weighed in 27.90lbs and I had a pretty big lead for most of the weigh in. Id decided if I had at least a 10lb lead I would strictly fish deep tomorrow, catch about 15lbs and have enough to win and save those big fish for a rainy day. Thats when my buddy Tom OBryant dropped 25lbs on the scales and put the pressure on me for day two! Im swinging for the fence in the morning and catching as much weight as I can catch!

 

KY BWS #4 Practice

Id been guiding on my deep schools a few days a week so I knew all of the best baits and angles for each school. I also knew that it would be tough to catch much more than 15lbs fishing out deep. All of the reports Id heard were that fishing was super tough and some predicted 15lbs a day would win. I felt like if I could catch a 5lber each day to go along with the 3lbers I could catch out deep, Id have a good shot at the win. I spent both practice days trying to figure out how to catch a big fish. The best ways I knew to catch big fish in late summer was to fish isolated stumps and brush in the 4-8ft range with a jig or fish the grass with top water. The first day I headed to the grass determined to throw a Sexy Dawg all day and never lay it down. The hydrilla was dying off and what few patches Id had some success in had disappeared but I stuck with my plan and covered a ton of water. I caught a few fish throughout the day as I worked my way back towards Paris Landing but none were over 2.5lbs. By the time I made it back to the Danville area, I knew the grass wasnt going to cut it. I spent the rest of the day scanning a few schools just to make sure they were still around and hit all of the isolated stumps and brush I knew with a jig. My schools were sitting right where Id left them but I never got a bite off of the stump pattern. This same time last year I caught a lot of fish around the Spiny Naiad and they stayed put as long as there was a little grass left. As I fished on into the fall last year, the Naiad disappeared but I kept beating the areas to death because there had been so many fish around. One day I was fishing one of my best stretches and I saw a huge gizzard shad fly out of the water. I trolled out into the flat and immediately started catching 3lbers on the Sexy Dawg. At the time, I thought it was luck that I happened to be right there when the bass chased the shad through the area, but as the fall progressed I continued to catch fish off of this place and they were always within a few yards of my waypoint. The grass never grew in that area this year but as I ran by it during practice I thought Id twitch my Sexy Dawg around on top of the flat where I caught them last fall. I started shy of my waypoint and as soon as I got within range a 5lber crushed it! I was pretty pumped up because I knew 5lbers were going to be gold in this derby and last year when they were on this stretch they were loaded! Unfortunately I fished around for awhile and never had another bite but I still felt good about possibly getting at least one good one there if I fished it both days of the tournament.


Day two of practice I did more of the same on the north end of the lake. I made sure my schools were still around and fished shallow water for big bites most of the day. Once again, it was a pretty slow day for the most part other than confirming my deep fish were still around. On the way back to the ramp, I ran by a shallow bar I havent fished in a while and wheeled in to make a few casts with the jig. I hit the biggest stump on the bar and a 6.5lber choked it. That was all I needed to see. I packed it up and headed to the meeting with plans of spending day 1 out deep until I caught around 15lbs and then jig and top water for a big fish.

 

Sportsmen's Digest Tuesday Solo Cup #1

I caught numerous 20+ lb stringers on guide trips in the middle of the week last summer when the current was flowing and I could fish anywhere I wanted because no one else was on the lake. Saturday would roll around and Id have to drive by 40 schools before I could find one with no one sitting on it and when I finally found a place the fish wouldnt cooperate because the current wouldnt be moving. Id work my tail off to catch a limit of 2.5 to 3lb fish and all the way back to weigh-in think, “if only this was last Tuesday!” I thought how cool it would be to have a BWS or BFL type event during the week when conditions are optimal and we could all fish where we wanted to fish because there arent 10,000 boats on the water. I just happen to know a great tournament director named Randy Sullivan and I ran the idea by him and the next thing I knew the Tuesday Strike King Solo Cup was born. Its still in its infancy and this first event was somewhat of a test run but with the positive feedback weve gotten so far, it looks like the Solo Cup is here to stay and we have another event scheduled for October 29th. We had 20 boats show up and another ten guys were out of town that week that wouldve have been there. I really wanted to have a good finish since I had kind of help put it together and I had basically recruited the best fishermen from both ends of KY Lake to come and participate, it was going to be a pretty prestigious event.


Two days before the tournament I got a call from Triton Boats asking if I could help out with a photo shoot Tuesday morning. I was about to turn them down when they informed me that it was for the cover of the catalog and it was in the new Triton TRX! That was all it took to convince me because Id been itching to play around in the TRX plus it was for the cover, I couldnt turn down the cover! I decided I could donate a couple hours of my morning to the shoot and still have plenty of time to fish since they were shooting right around the corner from Paris Landing. So Tuesday morning after everyone blasted off, I headed around the corner to where the shoot was taking place complete with my signature shaggy hair nicely trimmed only to find nobody there! Id gotten my phone wet that past weekend and it was on the fritz but after an hour of waiting around I finally got a call to go through and verified that the shoot had been canceled due to cloudy weather. Most people wouldve probably been upset over losing an hour of fishing time but I was much more concerned over the fact Id gotten my hair cut for nothing. I headed back to Paris Landing and had Randy check my boat and I headed out. Ill go ahead and cut to the chase and let you know I didnt catch them very good. I weighed in 15.63lbs and finished in 7th or 8th place I think but it was everything Id hoped it would be from a fishing standpoint. I ran from Paris past the Blood River and back to White Oak creek and back north of Paris and I got to scan or fish every single place I wanted to fish. The current was rolling and the schools were schooling, I just never caught any over 3.5lbs. Ive said many times, I can live without catching them as long as I get a chance to try and I got to try everything I wanted to try at least once. So many weekend days I never get to fish the places that I think will give me the best chance to win and I think the Solo Cup is the cure for that problem. Matt Nix dropped a pile of grass fish on the scales that weighed almost 29lbs and ran away with first place and the $900 check that came with it. Unfortunately Matt didnt get in the side pot and 2nd place overall finisher Micah Smith took home $500 for 2nd and another $600 in side pot money. Eric Shelton popped a near 8lber for big fish of the tournament! Congrats guys.


SUMMARY: Being able to fish everywhere I needed to fish was a nice change from what Im used to. Im actually so used to fishing the “leftover” holes I may have hurt myself a little because I didnt really know where to start. I ran around fishing every school really fast and never really settled in but Ill take fishing them all too fast over having to milk a school because its the only one I can get any day. Thanks to everyone that came out and I hope to see everyone back Oct. 29th at Paris Landing.

 

KY BWS #4 Practice and Tournament

PRACTICE: The Big Bass Splash was out of Paris Landing and with my lack of success in the grass the few times Id fished it, I made up my mind to practice north on KY Lake one day and south on Barkley one day. I headed to the Blood River area and started staring at my Lowrance and while most of the schools were long gone, the few I found were massive. A few of my schools that had disappeared during July high water had made their way back to the main river ledge and they had multiplied! A couple of these schools probably had over a thousand fish in them by my estimation and while that sounds like the mother lode, its not always good news. Late summer schools tend to suspend really high in the water column which makes them nearly impossible to catch and if you do make them bite, theyre usually on the smaller side in the 2 to 2.5lb range. Apparently these four schools didnt get the memo on it being mid August because they bit like it was June 1st and they were built like it as well! I caught 4lbers out of every one of them usually on my first cast and when I did make multiple casts I caught fish on every one of them. I had low twenties easily on my best five and with Barkley fishing as tough as nails, I knew that kind of weight would put me in contention on Saturday. I never made a cast on Friday because even though I knew it would be tougher on tournament day, there was nothing I could find on south Barkley that would change my game plan. I was KY Lake bound!


TOURNAMENT: I knew something would put a damper on my plans and it did. Thunder was roaring and lightening was all around us as we launched out of Barkley State Park marina. Ive expressed my fear of lightening in past entries and Ive also expressed my fear of the bass refusal to group up on cloudy, rainy days! We lucked out on the storms and by the time I drove 25 miles north on Barkley to the canal and back south 40 miles on KY, I somehow avoided all of the electricity and other than rain drops to the face at 75 mph I was no worse for wear. I arrived at my first spot which was a small school but their usually 4lb class fish and I didnt even have the nerve to scan it. I was afraid I wouldnt see anything and Id get bummed out so I just started fishing. I made a few casts and never had a bite and I knew then they werent home. I finally spotted a couple on my sonar and dropped a Purple Haze, Strike King Super Finesse worm down on them and immediately caught a 17”er. The Super Finesse worm is made of the Elaztech plastic and it is the deal for drop shotting. You can catch hundreds of bass on the same worm and if the fish throws the bait off, it floats back up. One pack will last you an entire season, I trolled around looking for more fish on the sonar and while I was dialed into that my co angler caught a chunky little 3.5lber casting a worm around the boat. I picked up another small keeper on a spinner bait and that was all I could stand. We packed up and headed to one of the 1000 fish schools. I was a little concerned about them being where Id left them Thursday with the clouds over head but I quickly settled down when I reached my waypoint and starting seeing bass! They were lined up for 50 yards just like they were in practice and I knew I was about to put 20lbs in my Triton and 12 grand in my checking account! I got lined up on them and made a cast without a bite. I figured Id missed the school a little so I eased up and fired another cast out and nothing. I was pretty sure I was lined up on them but after ten more casts without a sniff, I figured I had to be missing the school. As I eased towards my waypoint, I saw what I didnt want to see. I started marking bass on my sonar by the hundreds which meant Id just made at least 20 casts right into their nest and they werent interested. My concern had been the fish not being schooled up, I never even considered them not biting. I tried a few different baits with no luck so I finally put my drop shot right in their faces and still couldnt get any takers. I made a big circle around the school raining baits down on them from all angles and I finally hooked up with a 3.5lber on the spinner bait. I fired back out as quickly as I could and popped another 17” keeper. I thought I ignited the school and it was about to be a beat down but I never had another bite. I decided to make a short run and let the fish settle down and try them again on my way back. The next school was loaded as well but proved to be even less productive. I had one more giant school a little further south and there was a huge storm heading that direction. I decided to go try them and hang with them until the storm got close and then head back to my starting place. That group was stacked and I caught several keepers in a row on the spinner bait but they were just 2.5lbers. Once they cooled down I put the drop shot right on their noses and managed to coax a trio of 3lbers into biting. I headed back to my best school to finish out the day and caught a 3.5lber on my first cast but never upgraded after that. I weighed in 16.13lbs and finished in 4th place less than 1.5lbs shy of the win and the 8 grand in Triton/Mercury bonus money!


SUMMARY: Well, I said I can live without catching them as long as I get to try and I got to fish everything I needed to fish and it just wasnt meant to be. It was a little frustrating knowing that on my previous six trips Id boated enough weight to have easily won this tournament and on the day I really needed it I couldnt make it happen. I was definitely around the right kind of fish and I wouldnt change a thing as far as my game plan went. I really think if the sun wouldve shown itself, the fish wouldve been a little more cooperative, but thats beyond my control. Its still tough to be that close to a big pay day but I have several more chances coming up in September and October.

 

Sportsmen's Digest Professional Team Trail #2 Practice and Tournament July 20, 2013

Practice: I had been guiding at least three days a week leading up to this one and I felt like I knew where every school of fish on the lake was living. The good news was I for some reason had been catching some big ones out of a lot of the schools Id found and really felt like a 20 to 25lb stringer was possible. My ol buddy David Gnewikow was heading up to fish with me and was only going be able to practice a half day so we decided to spend that half day trying to figure out a way to catch some really big fish! Our half day didnt go so well and when we put it on the trailer we hadnt even caught a limit of bass! We decided to run my schools that had been producing the biggest fish and then just hit as many places as we could think of where we might catch a big fish. 


Tournament: It started off slow and the first couple schools we stopped on werent grouped up very well and we only caught a few small keepers. I pulled into a bay and fished a hump that produces some big ones this time of year and we ended up catching a 3lber and about a 17”er there. I headed to what had been one of my best schools all the way down by Paris and they were nowhere to be found. We made our way south and Dave suggested we hit a place on the river that we had both fished in the Everstart and neither one of us had fished it since that tournament. I drove over the ledge and they were laying right where they were a month earlier and while they werent just jumping in the boat we did manage a 3lber and a 4lber out of that school. We kept working our way south and were catching a few here and there but nothing spectacular. I drove over a school that I hadnt seen in awhile and I had caught some big ones off of it last year but nothing much over 2.5lbs this year so far. I didnt see a huge number of fish but it was enough to fish for and once I got us lined up we caught em every throw for about 20 minutes. They were nice fish all in the 3.5lb range but I kept telling Dave this spot owed me a big one. Not long after that he set the hook and called for the net. I grabbed the net and he had the fish coming towards the boat and then she went air born! About a 6lber launched into the air and Daves worm came flying into the net! We were both really bummed out because we knew that would be hard to make up but we kept our heads down and kept fishing hard. We made our way a little further South than wed planned on fishing but our final stop was worth it when David popped a 5.70lber on his Rage tail Thumper worm! We made our way back towards KY Dam fishing a few places along the way but never manage to cull any along the way. We ended up winning the tournament with 20.81lbs and had Daves 5.70lber was good enough for big fish honors.


SUMMARY: Wow! David and I finally won a tournament together. We havent fished together a lot but weve had some really good days when we have weve just come up a little short on our previous attempts. Now that weve got the monkey off our back maybe we can get a few more Ws under our belt before the end of the year!

CHURCH TOURNAMENT AND PRACTICE JULY 13, 2013 with the Legend, Ed Gettys

PRACTICE: Ive gotten to meet some awesome people over the years and have become good friends with several of them. When I first started fishing a couple of the first names I ever heard were Ed Gettys and Billy Leadbetter. Ed and Billy were legendary on Lake Guntersville and Ed had gone on to have a very successful draw tournament career with several Everstart, Bassmaster Open and BFL Regional wins to his credit. Ed and I became friends a few years ago and stay with each other when were at the others home lake but Id never had a chance to fish with him until this event. We practiced separately and by tournament day Ed had found about 20 schools he thought had potential to cough up a good fish or two and I had basically eliminated most of my schools for having big fish potential but I did find a new school that I caught a 7lber out of on Thursday. We decided to just head south out of KY Dam and fish everything we could get on that we thought had potential and just see what happened.


Tournament: We headed up the lake and the first three places we stopped on were loaded with bass. We would catch a few really quickly on a 6XD and a Bottom Dweller spinnerbait but then the school would just shut down. I could still see them on my Lowrance after we caught a few but they were just extremely tough to catch. To make a long story short we basically caught a couple off of every place we hit only to have them to shut down after that. We weighed in 17.64lbs and finished 15th out of 225 boats.


SUMMARY: I really enjoyed fishing with my buddy Ed and getting to see how an old school off shore fisherman operates. Ed was fishing ledges when he was 13 years old out of a Jon boat with a rope and a rock to find the drop offs! He has adapted well to the technical side of locating fish but he still uses a lot of his old tricks for lining up on schools and finding the little sweet spots on structure and it was really cool to spend a day in the boat with someone I have so much respect for.

Paul Steele Open Practice and Tournament June 29, 2013

PRACTICE: I had the opportunity to fish the Paul Steel benefit tournament out of Paris Landing with my buddy Triton McClain. Triton is 13 years old and this was our first time fishing together. We headed out Friday to hunt some new places and check some old ones to try and get an idea of what we needed to do on Saturday. Everything was pretty much the same as the last time I had been on the water, schools everywhere with size hard to come by. We managed a couple of decent bites in the 4lb range out of some of the schools wed fished and had about 18lbs for the day. On our way in I ran right by a place that I had found a giant school of fish on early last summer. Id been checking this place several times a week since early may and had yet to see a fish on it so far this year. I had pretty much written it off for this year but since I had to drive right by there I decided to scan over it just for the heck of it. As soon as I hit the top of the bar my Lowrance lit up with bass. I told Triton we were about to smoke em and I caught two 3lbers on my first cast! He made a cast with his 6XD and caught a 4.5lber and we packed up and headed for the house.


TOURNAMENT: We took a left out of Paris Landing and headed straight for our 6XD fish wed left biting on Friday. Last year when I found this school they bit early in the morning and I was hoping they were in the same mood this go round. I made a few casts around my waypoint and never had a bite and was beginning to think they had moved on. I trolled around to hit the bar from another angle and loaded up with a 3lber on my first cast! We caught them every cast for the next hour and when the dust settled we had right at 22lbs in the boat. We ran down south and did everything I could think of to try and upgrade and though we caught a ton of 3 to 3.75lbers we never caught anything that would cull. The wind had picked up and the pleasure boaters were out in full force and unfortunately by the time we made it to weigh in three of our fish and expired and we lost 1.5lbs to fish care penalties. We ended up finishing in 6th place.


SUMMARY: I had a blast fishing with my buddy Triton. We caught well over 100 keepers and unfortunately having those fish expire on us cost us a few places in the standings. I go out of my way to take care of my fish and Im not sure what caused this other than how early in the morning we caught them. Looking back on it we wouldve been better off to just weigh in at 6a.m. and call it a day!

 

KY BWS #3 June 22, 2013

    
I headed straight to my giant school on Saturday morning and caught one over 3lbs on my first cast on a big Shadalicious. I caught a bunch over the next hour and was only keeping fish over 3lbs. The bite finally slowed after another hour or so and I weighed all of my fish and had a little over 17lbs. I was a little disappointed those 4.5lbers didnt bite but I had a feeling they would before the day was over. I ran to another school I found on Friday and culled once with a 3.75lber. I hit another school and caught a few 3s but never culled. I was chomping to get back to where I started but I had one more school I had to check. I drove over them and they were stacked! I have no idea how many I caught but I got tired of catching them on a 6XD and I never culled once with any of them. My co angler did manage a couple of cull fish there so it wasnt a total loss. I headed back to where I started the morning and got right on the stretch where Id caught the big ones on Wednesday. For the last hour of the day I caught a 3.75lber every time I got to my waypoint and culled all but one fish I had in the livewell. Unfortunately 3.75lbers dont win tournaments and I weighed in 18.85lbs and finished in 7th place.


SUMMARY: Well, it was a fun day. I caught well over 100 fish and the bigger fish were right where they were supposed to be, they just werent big enough. I still had a blast, got a little check and won some more Toyota money so I cant complain. Oh yea, that Gnewikow guy had a 9.42lber and won the tournament with 26lbs! Congrats Dave! Again!
      

KY BWS #3 PRACTICE

Id made up my mind there was no way I was strictly fishing school fish in this one because I just couldnt catch the right size. I had a guide trip on Wednesday and I told them we probably wouldnt catch any big ones but we would try and catch 100 fish. We caught 20 on our first stop, 18 on our next stop and 15 on our next stop. We had about 17lbs out of all of those and then I found the biggest school of fish I think Ive ever seen. There were so many I even questioned the fact they could be bass but once we started fishing, they were all bass! We fished a 75 yard stretch pretty quickly and caught 48 keepers along the way. This isnt that unusual but what was special about it is that there was this one little stretch within the 75 yards that produced 24lbs on five casts! We ended the day with 121 keepers and they had a blast and I have a new outlook on fishing the schools in the tournament Saturday. Ive spent the last two days looking and looking and Ive found many new schools but Im back to the old 3lber syndrome. On the way in on today I drove over the 75 yard stretch I guided on and they were loaded! Thats where Ill spend the majority of my day tomorrow, we'll see what happens!

EVERSTART DAY 3 JUNE 15, 2013

I thought I could sleep in this morning but for some reason at 6:30 I jumped out of bed. I looked at my phone and had a missed call from David G at 6:15! In the voicemail he said his engine had blown in Danville. I finally got back in touch with him at 6:45 and Kevin Woodside had already brought him his boat even though he was already entered into a team tournament in New Johnsonville! David had to run all the way back to Kenlake, go through boat check, fill up with gas and then run back to New Johnsonville. He amazingly still caught almost 19lbs after all that and held onto the 2nd place position. Congrats David on another awesome tournament and thanks to Kevin Woodside and his partner Matt for being the kind of friends they are. It takes guys like that to survive in this game, I know very well because I was in the same boat in 2010, no pun intended.


Congrats also to Curt McGuire on yet another KY Lake Everstart Trophy for the shelf!!!

EVERSTART DAY 2

I figured I needed at least 20lbs to have a shot a making the top 10 cut so I decided to fish more isolated stuff again today since thats how I caught my two biggest fish on the  yesterday. At 9:30 I hadnt even had a bite and decided I may need to do something different. Knowing I couldnt catch the right size fish out of the schools I already knew about I made up my mind to drive around and look for new schools. It took me about an hour but I finally found a school on a really subtle place that I knew hadnt been fished. I caught em on every cast for about an hour but only got about 14lbs out of them. I left there and looked some more. After another hour or so, I found another fresh school and absolutely pounded them on a 6XD and culled three times. Unfortunately the biggest of the bunch was about 3.75lbs so I was still a long way from my 20lb goal. I went back to fishing the shallow bars the rest of the day but never upgraded. I weighed in 16lbs 10oz and moved up one spot to 27th which was luckily good enough for a $1300 check and $1500 Toyota Bonus Bucks.


David G managed to hold onto his 2nd place spot though his weight was down considerably from day 1 but he still has a shot at the win heading into tomorrow....GOOD LUCK DAVE!!!.


SUMMARY: I definitely shouldve practiced differently for this one. When I thought I had Davids honey holes to go to I got a little lazy in trying to find anything really good because I knew I was going to spend at least half of each day on his stuff no matter what. Ive never been much on relying on someone elses fish but I knew what was living there and I knew whoever spent the time there would have the bites to make a run at the win. Unfortunately it wasnt me but fortunately it was him and he deserves it because he found them.

 

EVERSTART DAY 1, June 13, 2013

I headed south out of Kenlake Marina hoping my first school would be open and still have some good ones swimming around. When I arrived I had it all to myself and I started cranking a 6XD down the ledge. My co angler caught a small keeper on a swimbait and then I hooked up with a small keeper. My next cast my rod loaded up and I called for the net. A 4lber cleared the water and when I got her almost to the boat she jumped again and threw my 6XD. That was the last good fish I saw there. I spent another hour rotating through different baits and when I left I had about 12lbs. I stopped by a community hole that was open on the way to my next school and culled a small keeper with a 3lber but I didnt fish there very long. I headed to my other good school Id found with my parents over a week ago seriously needing them to still be there. I pulled up to my waypoint and fished around for about twenty minutes and never had a sniff. I fired up my Mercury and idled around trying to locate them on my Lowrance but they were nowhere to be found. I knew I needed at least 4lb class fish to stay in contention so I decided to abandon the ledge fish and hit every shallow bar I could think of where Ive ever caught a big one. The first bar I fished produced a fish pushing 4lbs and gave me a little bit of hope I was doing the right thing. After my next few stops I hadnt gotten any bites so I headed to the hydrilla. I swam a big Shadalicious around the grass and pretty quickly ran into a school of fish. I caught at least thirty in a row and culled a couple of times but none were over 3lbs. By that time the wind had shifted out of the north at 25mph and with the current running through the lake at 100,000 cfs, the waves were getting huge. By the time I made it back to the Paris area I had just enough time to fish the bar where Id caught my biggest fish of the day. Just before I had to head back I popped a 3.5lber on a Strike King Thumper worm and culled my last 2lber. After a slow rough ride back to Kenlake I weighed in 16lbs 6oz and Im sitting in 28th place. Some guy named David Gnewikow had over 25lbs and is 1oz out of the lead after day 1!

 

EVERSTART PRACTICE

   
Last week I spent a couple of days on the lake with my parents. I found two really good schools that werent on community holes and each of them had several 4 to 5lbers in them. I didnt lean on them too hard because I didnt want to get spotted by the numerous hole poachers running around the lake and I had high hopes they would stay put for one more week. I also fished a team tournament over the weekend with my buddy David Gnewikow whos fresh off a win in the Triton Owners Tournament. He wasnt planning on fishing the Everstart and agreed to donate a couple of places hed been catching some big ones to try and help my cause. With Davids honey holes in my pocket and two really good schools already located, I felt pretty good going into my official practice days.


I spent Sunday in the New Johnsonville area in the grass and it wasnt too impressive. I flipped, threw top water, square bills, Baby Burners and everything in between and I caught quite a few but nothing over 3.5lbs.


Monday I moved a little further north and scanned for some schools, fished a few shallow bars and fished some more grass but the results were the same….3lbers!


Tuesday I headed to the north end of the lake and scanned some really deep stuff looking for the mother lode but never found it. As I was putting the final touches on my game plan for the first tournament day, I got a phone call that changed everything. David fished a tournament on Tuesday and while he hadnt planned on fishing the couple of big fish holes hed given me, he needed a big fish to have a shot at winning the tournament. He stopped by there on his way in and caught two 5lbers on consecutive casts! That was the final nudge he needed and hes decided to enter the Everstart at the last minute. Davids a heck of a fisherman and a heck of a friend because he actually asked me if I cared if he entered the tournament because he knew I was banking on fishing a couple of his places. It wasnt an easy thing to do but I encouraged him to enter the tournament because hed found those places the right way, on his own and I wouldnt have been much of a friend if I wouldve been upset over the situation.


 So, with Davids honey holes now taken out of the equation, all I have to look forward to are two schools with 20lb potential that I havent even looked at in nine days and 100 places I can catch 3lbers! Ive decided to hit those two schools and just go practicing the rest of the day and hope to stumble across some big ones.

 

LBL BFL #4 June 1, 2013

Saturday morning started with a bang when a line of severe storms moved across the lake. Lightening and I dont get along and I was praying I would be out of the line of fire once I reached my first fishing hole. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised that I had it to myself but the storms were coming from all directions. I would normally have taken cover but there were black clouds everywhere I looked so I had to tough it out. I had been on the water guiding enough to know the schools werent showing up until the sun got up good so I told my co angler if we were able to get on one of the good community holes, we were going to stay with it until the fish moved in. After two hours in the pouring rain Id caught one white bass and he had jumped off about a 5lb largemouth. The wind was howling out of the north and the conditions just werent conducive to what I was trying to do. I eventually threw in the towel and changed locations. My next community hole had boats all over it so I headed to my subtle school of 4 lbers. I made a few casts right on my waypoint and nothing happened. I beat around on that place for awhile and finally coaxed a 4lber into biting my football jig but it was a loner. I ran and looked at my other school and they were nowhere to be found and I knew then I had to change gears until the sun came out and conditions got right for the fish to school. I had no shallow tackle in my boat other than a Sexy Dawg so I headed to the back of a pocket and started working around the shore line. My co angler was throwing a spinnerbait and he started catching small bass immediately. I was watching him reel a fish in and I heard a flush in the area of my Sexy Dawg. I turned around and about a 3 or 4lber had just blown it out of the water and then rolled on it again but didnt take the bait. Not long after that my co popped two pretty nice keepers pushing 3lbs each on his spinnerbait so I grabbed my big ¾ oz. spinnerbait and went to work in the shallows with it. After about an hour with no more keepers I was itching to idle over my schools again. I decided to run through them once more and if it didnt work, I would head back shallow. I stopped where I caught my 4lber and fired my football jig out to the sweet spot. My co angler had been paying attention earlier in the day and his football jig landed not far from mine right in the zone! We both set the hook and a 3 and 4 lber went airborne! I guess you know which one of the two had my jig…the 3lber! I thought a school was finally going to cooperate but after thirty more minutes we hadnt gotten another bite. I ran and scanned my other three schools and nobody was home so I headed to the back of a creek and hit the bank with a spinnerbait. I managed a small keeper and a 3lber doing that but I was running out of time. It was hard to believe Id been on the lake ten straight days and was averaging about 20lbs a day and about 75 keepers a day and with an hour left to fish I had four keepers in my Triton. When I ran out of the creek I noticed the wind had shifted around out of the south and the sun was trying to break through the clouds. I headed straight to the nearest school and graphed the area. Just as I was about to give up I spotted a few bass out to the side of the boat on my Lowrance. I swung around and made another pass and they were loaded! Id fished this school in practice and they were very skittish so I asked my co angler not to throw any big baits until I got my fifth keeper. I caught a 16”er on my first cast with a football jig and then we brought an all out assault of 10 XDs down on them! We caught them every cast until we had to leave and though the size wasnt very good I was able to cull a couple of times. I weighed in 15lbs 6oz and managed a decent check in 16th place.


SUMMARY: Theres not much to say about this one. I got to fish everywhere I wanted, the weather and the fish just didnt cooperate. I lucked up and made the right adjustments by going shallow to water Ive never fished and caught a decent keeper and then tapped into that big school right at the end of the day. If it hadnt been for those two things this one couldve been a lot worse than it was. I had visions of only having four keepers in a June tournament on KY Lake and that would not have been a good day. I just thank the Lord I survived the electrical storms and lived to fish another day.

 

LBL BFL #4 Practice

The past couple weeks were extremely busy. The Triton Owners Tournament is back on KY Lake this weekend and Ive been slammed with guide trips leading up to it. Weve had fairly stable warm weather and new schools are moving out daily. Im finding three to six new schools everyday but most of them are on community holes. If you can be the first guy to find them on the community holes you can catch some big stringers and though I wont get to exploit them in any tournaments, Ive had some very happy guide clients the last two weeks. Unfortunately our BFL is the same day as the second day of the TOT but with 300 boats launching out of Paris it will be next to impossible to get on any schools in that area so I gave those away to guide clients. I spent today trying to locate some fish further north for myself and was able to find four schools. Three of them are on community holes but theyve just moved out and they have some big ones in them. The other school is on a really subtle place and I only saw about twenty fish on my Lowrance but I caught a 4lber on my first cast and left. Ive decided to race to what I think is the better of the community holes first thing in the morning and then rotate between my four schools throughout the day.

 

LBL BFL #3 May 11, 2013

We launched out of Kuttawa Harbor on north Barkley and there was so much debris floating in the river they delayed our take off by an hour. I was also in an early flight which meant I was going to have about five hours to fish if I made a long run. With all of that in the back of my head and 300 boats getting an hour head start on me out of Paris, I made a critical mistake. I saw a few pockets on the Lowrance Insight map on the North end of KY Lake that set up just like what I’d been fishing. Even though I’d never fished these pockets in my life, I decided to roll the dice and start north where there would be less fishing pressure and more time to pick things apart. The fish didn’t help me much when they threw me a curve ball on my first stop. I shut down in a pocket I’ve never even seen and caught three fish on my first three flips. They were small, but enough to get my interest. Before I made it half way back in the pocket, I had a small limit, had caught about ten other short fish and could basically call my shot as to where I’d get a bite. My biggest fish was a 17”er but I just knew I could keep running these pockets and put together a decent bag. A couple hours later, I’d fished three more pockets and had only caught two short fish. By that time, it was too late to run to the Paris area and too late to spend very much time looking for my 5XD fish. I was still about ten miles north of my closest crankbait place and flipping place where I’d actually caught some in practice so I headed that way. I spent a half hour scanning a bar looking for that little group of 4lbers but never saw them. I finally grabbed a 5XD and speed cranked around the bar hoping I’d run into them but never did. With 45 minutes left to fish, I made a run across the lake to some familiar flipping water and pulled up on my favorite stretch. When time ran out, I’d caught two 3lbers and lost a 5lb class fish and had to head back. I weighed in a disappointing 13lbs 6oz and finished in 40th place.


SUMMARY: The lesson I learned in this one was simple. A few years ago when I first starting fishing KY and Barkley a lot and having a little success, I went to where I thought I had the best chance to have the best finish I could have. I didn’t care how many other boats were launching out of where and I didn’t care if I had to run one mile or 100 miles. For some reason I’ve had this mind set lately of staying away from where all the other boats are going to be instead of doing what I need to do to put myself in the position to win or at least cash a check. I guess sometimes you have to fall on your face to wake up and realize what you’re doing wrong. This definitely made me do some thinking about how I used to approach tournaments when it was going to be a busy day on the lake and my old way seemed to work pretty well. If I had this to do over again, I would have run straight to where I’d been catching fish and fallen in behind the other boats. I guess the moral of the story is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

 

LBL BFL #3 Practice

BARKLEY BFL PRACTICE DAY 1: Both lakes were getting pounded before this tournament with several big weekday fish offs and classics coming out of the north end. Plus, the Austin Peay University tournament was scheduled the same day as our BFL and they were coming out of Paris Landing and always draw over 300 boats. A friend of mine was fishing the USA Bassin Classic out of KY Dam on Thursday and Friday and since I knew the Paris area would be covered up on Saturday, I decided to try and help him find some fish for his tournament and hopefully find a pattern I could run myself on the north end of KY Lake during my BFL. We hit the lake Tuesday and the first high water crankbait spot I pulled up on produced several 3lb fish and a couple of 4lbers and they were sitting right where they were supposed to be. The next couple places I hit were fishless so I decided to idle around and try and find them with my Lowrance. The next four places we hit I was able to spot small groups of 4 to 6 fish but they were all over the place as far as where they would be sitting. Some were on the tips of bars, some off the sides, some right on top. It was a time consuming way to try and locate them and when theyre in groups that small you can easily over look them. When we found them they were decent fish in the 4lb range but I knew fishing that way would still be a gamble at least for me making a long run on Saturday.


BARKLEY BFL PRACTICE DAY 2: I hit the water with my buddy again on Wednesday and we spent some time around the Paris area trying to expand on what we'd found Tuesday. It was the same type of deal where Id idle around for 30 minutes, spot a few on the Lowrance and crank them up with a 5XD. The pattern was holding but the size was going down. Most of the fish we caught that day were 2.5 to 3lbers. I decided to do some flipping just to make sure we werent over looking something and we caught plenty doing that but nothing over 3.5lbs.


BARKLEY BFL PRACTICE DAY 3: Not really impressed with what Id seen on KY Lake, I still had Barkley as an option. If the water had been normal it wouldve been a no brainer as to where I wouldve gone, south Barkley. With the water being four feet high though, Barkley had me nervous because Ive never done much good over there in high water so I decided to phone a friend. I called my buddy Tommy Ellis who has been flipping on both lakes probably as long as anyone. I asked him if he had any advice on flipping on Barkley in high rising water. Without hesitation he replied, “Yes, go to KY Lake!” I told him Id done some flipping on KY and wasnt seeing any size and he assured me there were plenty of big fish left in the bushes so I hit the water Friday morning with one rod on the deck of my Triton. I flipped all day and while I caught plenty of fish, I still never saw anything much over 3lbs so I decided to spend my tournament flipping and possibly scanning a bar or two for some of those small groups of 4lbers.

 

KY BWS #2 May 4, 2013

I can’t remember the last time I was nervous over a tournament but I couldn’t wait to get this one started. I knew if they bit half as good as they did on Wednesday I’d have a shot at the win. I talked to my good buddy David Gnewikow at the meeting Friday night and he informed me that he didn’t experience the phenomenal flipping bite I had on Wednesday during his practice session on Friday. He did however check a lot of the cranking holes I’d eliminated and several of them were loaded! That got in my head a little because I knew I’d either missed them, or they’d made a move since I’d been on the lake and when they come out, they come out fast. I knew several of the places David had found them on but there was no way I was going to fish them against him since I would’ve still thought they were void of life if he hadn’t told me they’d shown up. I did make a quick stop on the place I’d caught the most fish off of on Wednesday that morning and caught a 3lber and a few small keepers on my 5XD but that was it. I threw the 3lber in the livewell but tossed the little keepers back because I was pretty sure I could make those up once I started flipping. I headed to my best flipping area and just like clockwork, I got a bite on my first flip! I knew I was about to bow up on a giant and when I set the hook an 8”er came flying out of the water! That was not what I wanted to see. When I set the hook here in practice it was at least a 4lber, every time! After 30 minutes, I hadn’t had another bite and as hard as it was to accept, I knew I was in for a long day. I stuck to my plan and flipped the entire day all over the lake and when it was said and done, I’d only caught about 20 keepers and not a single one of them would weigh 4lbs. It was a gloomy ride back to Moors Resort and when I found out the cranker’s had all smoked them, it made it even worse. I weighed 17.41lbs and managed the last check in 14th place and the Toyota Bonus Bucks which eased the pain a little. The good news was my ‘ol buddy David G caught a pile of fish on his 6XD that day and the biggest five weighed in at 26.04lbs and he went home with the win! Congrats David!


SUMMARY: I’ve been burnt flipping more times than not but when those big egg laden girls are stacked in that brush like they were on Wednesday, it’s hard to imagine that’s not the way to win. One thing I learned from this tournament is that I need to start practicing on Friday again. I’ve gotten away from it the past couple of years because there are so many boats on the water and I like to spend that day prepping tackle for the tournament. Things change so fast, especially this time of year, you can miss the winning pattern by a day or two and David proved that to me in a big way.

 

BWS KY DIVISION #2 PRACTICE April 30 and May 1, 2013

KY BWS PRACTICE DAY 1: The rain set in last week and the lake is four feet above pool and the flood gates are open. A pretty good ledge fishing friend of mine named Randy Haynes told me a few years ago that if the flood gates are open, theres a pile of giants somewhere choking themselves on 6XDs! For those of you that dont know Randy yet you will soon enough! Hes probably the best ledge fisherman on the planet and when he speaks, I listen! Coming off a good tournament the weekend before, I was pumped to get back on the water and I hit the lake Tuesday with a 5XD and a 6XD ready to rock. The last time the water got to this level I absolutely murdered them cranking and I headed straight to those places. The first stop I caught a 3lb largemouth and a 3lb smallmouth on my first two casts but that was it. When its right, therell be hundreds of fish on these places so I was a little discouraged. The next place I hit, I caught two 3lb smallmouth, a 4lb smallmouth and a 6lb largemouth. That was a little better, but still not the giant schools I was expecting to find. I cranked the rest of the day and never caught more than two off of a place and the size progressively got smaller.


KY BWS PRACTICE DAY 2: I headed out Wednesday intending on cranking the entire day in a different part of the lake. After four hours without a bite I couldnt stand it anymore and I pulled the All Pro 8 footer out and headed to the bushes. The flipping bite was off the chain and I caught so many 3 and 3.5lbers I couldnt count them but I just wasnt seeing the size I wanted to see. I changed locations and it was on! My best five in a 30 minute span were around 26lbs and I shook off at least 30 bites! The best part is these big fish are still full of eggs and thats all I needed to see, I made up my mind what Im going to do and where Im going to do it tomorrow!!!

 

TN CENTRAL BWS KY LAKE April 27, 2013

I took off boat 52 out of 89 and made a very short run north of Paris. I felt pretty good about my decision to go north and flip when I had a limit of fish with a 5lber before the rest of the field had even taken off. I dropped my Power Poles and picked the area apart and after about an hour or so I'd culled a couple times and picked up another 5lber! My goal was five 5lb bites and to have two of them that quick was a big relief. I headed to my next stop and though I caught a ton of solid fish, none were over 3lbs and that was what I needed in order to cull. I left there and hit a main lake bank that has potential to produce a tank and after 45 minutes or so, I hadn't gotten a bite. I told my co angler we were going to make a move and I decided to make one more pitch and popped a 3.5lber that culled a 3. I knew I still had time to head south and hunt for a great big bite and it was really weighing on me on what to do. I decided to hit one more pocket a little further north and if I caught a good one, I'd stay north, if not, I was heading to Jville to fish amongst all of the other boats. I pulled into the pocket and immediately started catching 3lbers. I was nearing the end of my favorite stretch and I dropped my Rodent right into the heart of a bush and a big 'ol 5lber ate it up! That got me in the 20lb range and I still had a few hours to try and get my last two 5lbers and better yet, I hadn't seen another boat all day. That was the deciding factor in how I'd spend the rest of my day. Unfortunately, the next couple hours only produced small keepers to 3lbers and time was running out. I had a crazy idea of a crankbait spot that I hadn't fished all year but things were sitting up right for them to be there. My co angler and I tied on 6XD's and headed that way. On my way down the lake I looked over into a pocket and it just looked too good. I got about a ¼ mile past the pocket and made a U turn and headed back. I eased into the back of the pocket and my first flip produced a 4lber! For those of you that dont know, I've had the fish on flipping bushes to win a few big tournaments but lost or broke off key fish. I couldn't believe what a perfect day I was having, every decision was right and I'd caught around 60 keepers out of the thickest stuff you can imagine and hadn't lost a single fish. With about 15 minutes left, I knew I didn't have enough to win but at least I had fished a very clean tournament and thats when it happened. I skipped my Rodent about 30 feet past a bush, under a willow limb to the trunk of the willow. It never made it to the bottom and one smoked it! My line was under the bush so I set the hook back to my left which I normally dont do. A 5lber shot out of the water like a Marlin and before I could catch up to her, she was gone as quick as she came. What a tough way to end a great day! I weighed in 21.31lbs which was good enough for 5th place, Toyota Bonus Bucks and the Triton Gold money.


SUMMARY: This was the most fun I've had in a tournament in a long time even though it poured rain on us all day. I've never caught so many fish flipping and my hands were actually bloody from handling fish which usually only happens when the big schools are out deep. I would've loved to have landed that last big one and then it would have been a perfect day even though I still couldn't have caught Drew Boggs who smoked 27lbs of bush fish and blew the rest of us out of the water! I'm usually not content unless I win but catching that many fish using my favorite technique was just too much fun to be upset over.

 

TN CENTRAL BWS KY LAKE April 27, 2013 Practice

Im still a little bummed out after experiencing some of the best flipping Ive ever seen leading up to my last BFL and then having the water sucked out of the bushes and the wind out of my sails on tournament day. Im checking the water daily levels daily and with the water level predicted to be at that magical 360 mark by tournament day, Ive decided not to make a cast in practice and spend my tournament where I smoked em before the BFL. I also know that the majority of the field will head south of Paris to the land of the giants and while thats the place to catch a true giant, I should have a lot of water to myself north of Paris Landing and a lot of time to pick it apart with my Rodent. I feel like I know the best areas that could still be holding some big ones and if I can fish perfectly, I feel good about getting around 25lbs worth of bites. The only wild card will be the off shore fish and from what Ive heard, theres a lot of good ones out there. I still have two things in my favor, rising water and a full moon!

 

LBL BFL #2 April 20, 2013

LBL BFL TOURNAMENT #2: We launched from Moors Resort and I headed South to the New Johnsonville area. When I got within site of the Paris Bridge there was a huge fog bank out on the main river. I will not run in the fog plus I had a pretty good idea the other tournaments launching at Paris had probably been held back due to fog so I could sneak a few casts in that area while the fog burnt off. I pulled into one of the pockets Id fished with my parents and wasnt too impressed with the water conditions. It looked like a whole different place with a foot of water gone from the bushes but I knew there had to be a few fish left lying around what shallow cover was still available. I spent about an hour picking the area apart and when I left I had one small keeper, a 3lber and I had lost one good fish in the 4lb range that got me hung up in a bush. I made my way to New Johnsonville where I knew there would be a little more cover in the water and hopefully I could scrounge up a few big ones to go with what I already had. I spent a good three hours pitching at every piece of cover I could find and I finally managed a 4lber and two very small keepers. I decided to run back north and try some different things in hopes of getting a big bite but I cranked a few points and scanned a few secondary ledges and never saw anything resembling a bass. I decided just to stay with the shallow deal even though I knew it wasnt the right thing to be doing. It was a slow go and I finally managed to cull a couple times before the end of the day and weighed in 15lbs. even and finished in 20th place.


SUMMARY: This happens to me every year on KY Lake. The water gets high and I know exactly where to go. I know where the biggest fish on the lake go when the water is in the bushes, but then it comes down and I can barely catch a limit! Ive struggled with this time of year every year since I started fishing KY Lake. Ive tried different things and talked to a lot of people that have success in April when the water isnt flooded but I just dont get it and may never get it. That being said, I cashed a check in this tournament and thats more than I can say for most falling water April tournaments Ive ever fished on KY Lake but I wish Id gone to Barkley!!!