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.