Fire Fighters Good Friday Open Barkley Lake March 29, 2013

BARKLEY OPEN PRACTICE AND TOURNAMENT: The Fire Fighters were having an open Good Friday tournament out of Bumpus Mills, TN and it guaranteed $1500 for first place. I normally wouldn't gamble on a long run in a small tournament but I know south Barkley fishes tough that early in the year and I didnt think anybody would be crazy enough to make the run to KY Lake so it seemed like a good idea to jump in this thing, make a 75 mile run, catch about 20lbs. or so and make 1500 bucks. The Jett-A-Marine tournament was also coming up and I was going to use Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as practice for that as well. I was pretty confident when I hit the water on Wednesday as my good buddy David Gnewikow and I had just caught a 26lb stringer the week before. I figured out pretty quickly the current was nonexistent and unfortunately thats what our entire pattern was based on the previous weekend. I spent two days Umbrella rigging and cranking my way from the Blood River area towards KY Dam and the only places I could catch any decent fish were on the places wed found the week before. It was a little further than I wanted to run but I still felt confident we could win the $1500 first place prize money so on Friday morning, my buddy Mike Hardin and I set sail for a 75 mile one way trip to the Blood River area from Bumpus Mills. We had smooth sailing all the way to the canal but once we hit KY Lake she was rolling and I immediately started dreading another 30 miles in those big waves. I shut down outside of Moors Resort on a place where David and I had caught some 3.5lbers the week before. After about 15 minutes there we had only caught one 2.5lber so I knew then we had to commit to the Blood River area. We finally reached our first stretch and after 30 minutes wed had one bite, a small keeper Mike caught on his rig. I headed to the next stretch that had been so good to us the previous week and when we got to the end we hadnt had a bite! I was feeling pretty bad that Id talked Mike into making this long run with me for nothing but I decided to fish a little further down the stretch and it was a good decision, I popped a 5lber and as soon as we dropped her in the live well we hit a school of 17" fish! We filled our limit with those and culled the two small ones and then it was over! We fished our way back to where wed started the morning outside of Moors and hadn't caught a fish since that group of 17”ers. With time running out, we were going to spend or last few minutes on this place at Moors and I just happened to start about 10 yards away from where we started that morning and wouldnt you know it, I caught two 4lbers on my first two casts! By the time we culled and got everything strapped down, we were out of time and had to head back. We ended up in 3rd place with 18.51lbs and made enough money to pay for our day. I did find out 2nd place also ran to KY Lake and they had a little over 19lbs and Im not sure where the winners caught there fish but they ran away with it weighing in 23+lbs.


SUMMARY: This was a fun little tournament. I love fishing on weekdays and I dont get to fish with Mike that often any more so over all it was a good day. The only thing I wouldve changed would have been to spend a little more time on that starting spot outside of Moors, if I couldve relocated that school that morning, I believe we couldve saved a lot of gas and milked them all day and probably weighed in more than we did by running all over the lake. Oh well, you live and learn. I did opt out of the Jett-A tournament the next day and it was probably a good thing because it took 18lbs just to get a check and I dont think I could've caught much more than that with what I was on.

 

Sportsmen's Digest Professional Team Trail KY Lake #1 March 23, 2013

SPORTSMENS DIGEST PRACTICE: I met David Friday morning and we decided to try and expand on what hed figured out the week before. He explained to me what he was fishing and I picked a place out on my Lowrance Insight map and we started heaving our umbrella rigs. We got several bites on that first stop but only caught one 3lber. The next place we checked produced two bites but one of them was a 5lber. The next place we checked produced eight bites but we only hooked one of them and it was just a small keeper. It looked like getting bites was going to be easy but catching them and them being the right size was a different story. We spent the rest of the day just running up and down the lake hitting places that looked right and when it was said and done wed caught about 15 fish and had about 15lbs. Our only hope was that some of the stuff David had fished the week before would still have some fish on them and the fish on the places we found in practice would actually commit to our offerings and maybe grow a few pounds over night! I wasnt feeling real good about the tournament but David assured me we would have at least 25lbs on tournament day. I told him he must have something up his sleeve he didnt show me because I wasnt seeing 25lb potential after our 10 hour practice session.


SPORTSMENS DIGEST TOURNAMENT: We launched out of Moors and David headed south. He had told me where his best place was during the BWS and I thought that would be our first stop. He pulled into a place a few miles short of there and said he had caught a few there as well. I hadnt even loaded my rig up with Caffeine Shads yet so while I was sitting in the floor doing that, David swung a 3lber into the boat! Not a bad start and I was fumbling around trying to get my baits on because I wanted in on the action! I finally got rigged up and for the next 15 minutes we put an absolute beat down on 2 to 2.5lb fish. We werent keeping any of them because we knew we couldnt win with that size fish but after a while when the size wasnt getting any better, we decided to throw a few in the box. When we exhausted the school, we had a 3lber and two 2.5lbers in the live well. We fired up the Mercury and headed to Davids best spot from the week before and there were four boats piled on top of each other right on the sweet spot. We passed it by and headed to one of the places wed found on Friday. We fished a good stretch without a bite but then ran into a school and caught ten or twelve in a row but the biggest one was about 3lbs. Our next spot was kind of the same deal; we caught several smaller keepers with a 3.5lber in the mix. We checked one other place from Friday and I stayed hung up in stumps the entire time and we never caught a fish there. We decided to go look at a couple of new places and managed another 3lber off of one of those but then we were kind of out of options on where to fish. We talked about it and decided to just jump back and forth between the two places wed caught the bulk of our fish and hopefully slowly cull up. It turned out to be a pretty good decision and after four passes down each of our two best stretches we had a 6lber, a 5lber, a 4lber and two 3.5lbers. That gave us about 22lbs and we knew we had to get rid of those two smaller ones to have a shot at the win. We decided to stop on a place where we only caught a 2lber the day before but it is one of the most unique looking places Ive ever seen. Its also a place where my buddy Zach Parker caught back to back 8lbers back in December so I knew big fish did like to hang out there. When we rolled up on the spot for some crazy reason, I picked up a jig. Wed caught 100 fish on a rig but something told me to try a jig on this particular spot. It took me a couple of casts to hit the sweet spot but when I did, I popped a 4.5lber! David was culling and I fired another cast out. I drug the jig one time and one knocked slack in my line. I set the hook and missed it! A few casts later I got hung up and broke my jig off. I laid my rod down and picked up my umbrella rig and then I stopped, asked David to take the trolling motor and sit down and tied on another jig. My next cast with the jig I hooked something big. I told David if it was a bass it was a giant! It came up under the boat and I just knew it was going to be a drum but when it swam out from under the boat it looked like it was four feet long! David scooped it into the net and it was a 7.5lb largemouth! We were pretty pumped up and knew we probably had a pretty good shot at winning the tournament because that got us up in the mid 20s range. We caught several more 3 to 3.75lbers the rest of the day but never culled anymore. When we got back to Moors I talked to another team and they said they thought they had mid 20s as well. We let them weigh in first and we knew it was going to be close. There bag consisted of three beautiful 5lb. smallmouth and a couple of big green heads to go with them and they weighed 26.85lbs! We bagged our fish and dropped them on the scales and wouldnt you know it, we came up just a bit shy with 26.41lbs! What an awesome finish, I wouldve loved to have won obviously but I like a close nail biter weigh in like that. We also managed big fish with that 7.45lber.


SUMMARY: Man, what an awesome day! Ive had a tough start to the year with mechanical issues, illness and just having the wrong game plans. This was only the second tournament Ive fish all year, my confidence was down in the dumps and this was just what the Dr. ordered, no pun intended! Dr. G is not only one of my best friends but hes one of the best fishermen I know. Even though a lot of our fish came off of places I found or picked out, without his confidence and mental toughness, I wouldve never caught that kind of weight off of those places. It was eye opening to be able to spend a day in the boat with him after a tough day of practice and see how you can make something out of nothing. Thats always been a weakness of mine. Im mentally tough as far as not getting psyched out by weather or because some big time pro is in the tournament but I really struggle putting a good day together after a tough practice and David has done it two weeks in a row and I got to be a part of it on that day and I think it will help my fishing tremendously in the future. Im still not sure how he knew we would have 25lbs on Saturday after a mediocre practice, I think it was coincidence but hell never admit it if it was! Congrats to Donnie Siress and Chris Jones for edging us out with a beautiful bag of smallmouth!

BASSMASTER WEEKEND SERIES KY DIVISION #1 MARCH 9, 2013

BASSMASTER WEEKEND SERIES: I took a trip to Florence, AL to fun fish on Wilson Lake the week before the first BWS on KY Lake. I started feeling a little rough while I was at Wilson but just assumed it was allergy and sinus trouble. I got home and wasn't feeling much better but the first BWS was coming up and I had to start hunting some fish because not only did I desperately need to draw a check in the BWS, I wanted to try and defend my points title. I suffered through one day of practice and it wasn't very impressive. I went to New Johnsonville and caught one 3.5lber and three short fish all day. By the next morning I was running a fever and really feeling rough. I ended up dropping out of the tournament and spending the next four days in bed hopped up on Nyquil! I stayed in touch with my good buddy David Gnewikow while he was practicing and he was struggling mightily as well. I think he caught two or three fish in two days of practice and he wasn't looking forward to fishing the tournament. David is as good as they come at not giving up and figuring things out on the fly and at 10am the day of the tournament something clicked and he managed to pop 21lbs worth and finish 3rd in the tournament. Unfortunately for David, Scotty Young dropped almost 30lbs on the scales and ran away with first place.

LBL BFL #1 March 2, 2013

BFL PRACTICE: I only practiced one day for the BFL which ended up coming back to haunt me. My good friend Troy Hollowell had won a tournament the previous weekend with 26lbs. throwing an umbrella rig around brush piles 8 to 12 feet deep. It seemed simple enough and I just happen to know where a brush pile or two resides on Kentucky Lake in that depth so I decided to give it a try. The first little place I fished produced a 5lber and I decided that was all I needed to see. These brush pile fish are single fish, not groups or schools and the last thing I wanted to do was catch a lone giant or two during practice two days before a tournament. I decided that would definitely be a pattern Id fish in the tournament and then I pulled out my Redeye Shad rod and started searching for hydrilla. Since I hadnt been on the lake in 2013, I wasnt sure what condition the grass was in but I had heard some of the grass had survived the mild winter. I had an epiphany the night before about the perfect place to start my search. I headed that way and when I chunked my Redeye out onto the bar I immediately started ticking the hydrilla! I was pretty pumped because Ive never gotten to fish grass on KY Lake this time of year and its one of my favorite things to do during the pre spawn. I figured out pretty quickly the grass was left over and not new growth which the fish will still use but it makes it a little tougher to fish. I like the grass thats just sprouting because its nice and crunchy and that Redeye shad will snap right out of it and thats usually when it gets annihilated! The left over grass is soft and loose and its very tough to get rattle bait through it. Not only was this grass soft and loose but it was still pretty tall which made it tough to get a bait over it as well. As I worked my way down the bar I was a little disappointed in the condition of the grass and plus I discovered it was really scattered and clumpy. I like a good edge when Im fishing a Redeye shad in the grass in the pre spawn so you can parallel the outside edge and when you find that little indention or point in that edge, thats usually where the girls will be sitting! Even though I found every reason not to like this first stretch of grass, I still managed to catch about 16lbs out of it with a 5.5lber in the bunch. It was a decent start but still not what I was looking for. I figured I would struggle to find any grass on the bars that had been exposed to the current over the winter but quickly figured out I was wrong and every single bar I fished was covered up with hydrilla and none of it was in very good shape. I never caught another keeper the rest of the day. I decided not to fish Friday because I knew I was going to fish about 25 brush piles with the umbrella rig during the tournament plus a few Redeye holes that produce a big bite or two for me year in and year out.


BFL TOURNAMENT: I knew we would have a stout North wind during the tournament because we always do but Ive fished in plenty of big waves out on the river and wasnt too concerned. The wind was howling from the get go and I left KY Dam at 6:45 and didnt make it to the Paris area until 8:15, it usually only takes about 40 minutes to get up there. I stopped on an old faithful Redeye spot and it was somewhat protected from the wind. I had an inch of snow on the front deck of my Triton and the wind chill was in the 20s and I had a feeling it was going to be a grind trying to catch them on a Redeye Shad in a foot of water in those conditions. I was pleasantly surprised when I hooked up with a 2.75lber on about my 10th cast of the day! I dropped my power poles and made several more casts to the same area. Just as I was about to move on, I loaded up again and drug a solid 3lber into the net. I spent another 45 minutes in the area but never had another bite so I headed to my first brush pile. This spot had four foot waves crashing in on it and I never even made a cast, I just headed to the next one. I spent about 15 minutes on that place with the rig but never had a bite. The waves were getting bigger and it was taking me forever to get from place to place and next thing I know I was all the way to the Danville area where Id caught my grass fish on Thursday and hadnt had a bite since my first stop. I pulled up to the sweet stretch and put the poles down and started fan casting the Redeye shad around the grass. I spent an hour inching around the bar and had one bite and my co angler caught one short fish! It was 11 am and I still had 20 brush piles I needed to fish and with the waves getting bigger by the hour, it was obvious my game plan was falling apart. I only got to hit two more of my brush piles and I stopped on the place I started on my way back and picked up one more 3lber. I weighed in 3 fish for 8lbs 12oz and finished 51st.


SUMMARY: This was the worst tournament Ive had on KY or Barkley Lake in several years and I cant remember the last time I didnt have a limit in a tournament on these lakes. I was extremely disappointed in my showing because I love fishing in March but at the same time, I felt like I had a plan that could produce the class fish I needed to win. Where I screwed up was not factoring in my travel time between brush piles in those big waves. That being said, the only thing I wouldve done differently was spent another day practicing looking for a group of fish where I couldve at least caught a quick limit which wouldve at least been enough for a check and kept me in contention for a points title.