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!