ABA Weekend Bass Series TN Central Division KY Lake, March 29

My good buddy David Gnewikow and I fished a team tournament out of KY Dam Marina last weekend so we decided we would practice separately. I had a horrible day on the north end of the lake managing only 3 keepers. Dave figured out a pretty strong umbrella rig pattern down south so we decided to spend our tournament there. We caught a ton of fish but never caught any big ones and ended up 13th with 17lbs. I had an electronics trip Monday and had no intentions of fishing afterwards but it was such a nice day I decided to make a few casts. I decided to play around with the pattern Dave had figured out in the Paris area and the third place I hit produced a couple of 3lbers and a 7lber. I found a couple more places that day and when it was said and done my best 5 weighed over 26lbs and I felt like I had really fine tuned the pattern.

I had a guide trip Wednesday and spent the day trying to expand on what I'd found Monday and by the end of the day we'd caught 40 or 50 bass, several stripers in the 15-20lb range and our best 5 largemouth went about 23lbs. After that, I was so dialed into what I needed to look for I decided to not even practice for the upcoming ABA WBS.

TOURNAMENT: After a beautiful week of low wind, sunny skies and mild temperatures, a big cold front rolled through Friday night and Saturday morning. We launched out of Paris Landing Marina into a cold steady rain and a steady 20 mph north wind. Strong current and a stout north wind create some giant swells on KY Lake but I knew from past experience the bite would be on fire in those big waves for the guys that were willing to fight it all day. My first stop was what I thought was my best school but after a half hour I'd caught a handful of stripers and three bass. One of them was pushing 6lbs but it definitely wasn't as good as I was hoping. I made a short run to my next best place and it was on! I caught a largemouth or smallmouth on every cast for about 20 minutes and when I'd exhausted the school at 8 a.m., I had around 21lbs. My next stop was loaded with 2 and 3lb class fish and after catching at least one on every cast for awhile, they shut off and I never upgraded. With the waves getting bigger by the hour I had a decision to make. Should I run around trying to fish everything I'd found earlier in the week, or stay close and rotate through the three places that had already produced for me that morning? I really felt like the two places I'd started on had the potential to produce the winning fish so I decided to spend the day bouncing back and forth between the two. I headed back to where I started for round two and I was catching a striper on every cast. I knew the bass had to be close by so with each cast I moved a littler further up onto the flat and suddenly I had slack knocked in my line four times on one retrieve! I knew then I'd hit the school and my next cast produced a 3 and a 4lber. I made a quick cull and fired out another cast and caught another fish over 4lbs. This went on for awhile and then I hooked my biggest fish of the day, a 6.54lber. The action finally slowed so I headed back to my other little honey hole about a mile away and while the school was still busted up from my earlier assault, I did manage to cull twice. It was 10:45 a.m. and on my scales I had over 25lbs. I caught another 18 to 20lb stringer or two as the day went on but never was able to upgrade again. I'll never complain when I have a 5lb average but this day and age on KY Lake you never feel sure you have a tournament won unless you have over 30lbs and some days your not safe with that, but with the conditions we had that day I thought I may have a shot at the "W". I got in line to weigh in and before I ever made it to the stage, Craig Dowling weighed in 29.08lbs! I knew I didn't have enough to overtake him but I honestly didn't even care. I'd had a blast out there bouncing around on those five footers catching 3 to 6.5 lbers all day. Before the scales closed another 29.08lb bag was weighed in and I ended up 3rd with 25.82lbs and claimed my fourth Toyota Bonus Bucks check in as many tries.

SUMMARY: Absolutely, by far, the most fun I've had in a tournament in a long time. There's just something about fishing in such horrible conditions that most people think it would be impossible to even catch a bass and just thumpin' 'em all day long! I even had to cull an 18lb limit of smallmouth which was pretty cool because I've never even caught a limit of smallmouth in a tournament before.

I've mentioned several times before that every good finish I have, there seems to be a critical piece of equipment that made it possible. This time it was no doubt my new Triton TRX, Mercury Pro XS and MotorGuide 109 trolling motor. I ran around like a mad man all day in those giant waves and my boat and engine got me everywhere I needed to go safely and comfortably. The deck on the new TRX looks like an aircraft carrier and I stood up there all day with waves breaking over the bow and never missed a cast. Last but not least, my MotorGuide 109 allowed me to stay right on my waypoints and quickly return when I blew 100 yards away while culling or rigging baits. Thanks Triton, Mercury and Odom's Blue and Gray Marine for allowing me to run the best tournament rig in the industry!

FLW Music City BFL, March 8, 2014

Tournament number three of 2014 is in the books. Only three weeks after the worst tournament I've had in years, things luckily turned around in a hurry. With a little guidance from the good Lord above, I was able to figure out what was probably the best pattern on the lake last weekend and win the LBL BFL by nearly 8lbs. I was pumped to get on the lake again and see if my pattern was still holding but mother nature had different plans and dumped several inches of the frozen stuff all around KY Lake so I was unable to hit the water until last Thursday. I had a guide trip that I booked back in January scheduled that day and almost canceled Wednesday because all of the ramps were still iced over. We decided to give the sun a few hours to do it's thing on the icy ramp Thursday morning and I met Phillip and Ronnie at Paris Landing at 9:30am. The lake had risen a couple feet since my win just a few days prior and the already stained water was pure chocolate. I told the guys that conditions had changed a lot so I was basically going to just treat it like a day of practice and see what we could come up with.

Our first stop was a real shallow place that I catch a lot of big fish on this time of year with the Redeye Shad and as we worked our way out a little deeper I decided to give the KVD Flat a try and in a few casts hooked up with a 4.5lber. I put my rod down and they told me I was welcome to keep fishing but I said I didn't really want to catch a lot myself since I had another Triton Gold and Mercury sanctioned BFL coming up. They said they were more interested in learning what to look for this time of year than catching fish and encouraged me to just leave the area before we caught any more. Our next stop was very similar to the first and it didn't take long for us to crank up a couple 3lb class fish and we moved on. We then headed to an offshore bar that I hadn't fished the weekend before but it definitely fit the pattern and I have definitely flat smoked 'em there in the past. After only a few casts, Phillip bowed up on a 5lber and we snapped a few pics and headed on. We hit a lot of different type places as we made our way up the lake and caught a fish or two here and there but no quality. We finally made it to where I caught the bulk of my fish in the LBL BFL and after I scanned the area to make sure there weren't any boats around, I decided fish it and make sure the school was still there. We made a pass with the KVD Flat's and with the water being higher we were having trouble getting the bait to the bottom. I tied them on a couple of 5XD's in Chart. Perch and it was on! They caught several in the 3-4lb range in a row and finally said they'd seen enough so we made a move. I spent the rest of the day in the creeks just checking some places and patterns that work this time of year but we never caught another fish. When we headed in I scanned some main river ledge stuff just to show them how many fish of all species (especially shad) were still out really deep and they were absolutely loaded with fish. I told them they'd been there for several months but I hadn't been able to get them to bite since the water got muddy back in December and it would be a waste of time to even try. We ended the day with about 15 fish and around 20lbs on our best five and I was feeling pretty good about the BFL on Saturday.

Friday I headed south to New Johnsonville in hopes of finding a backup pattern for Saturday. I fished everything from the bank to the main river ledge and caught one drum all day. With a couple hours left I headed back to Paris to try and figure out a way to make those deep fish go one last time and was pretty shocked when every place I scanned with my Lowrance was void of life! I'm talking thousands of fish that had been on these places every day for months had completely vanished! That told me that something had changed in a big way but I still felt like my main pattern would only get better with more fish migrating through the ditches with the warm weather ahead.

TOURNAMENT DAY- We took off out of Birdsong Creek at 7am and I had a bad feeling I was going to have some company on my best place. I wasn't concerned with guys in my tournament because my new Triton TRX will run close to 80 mph but there were several other tournaments going on that had started at daylight. When I got within sight of it there was only one boat in the entire area and they were sitting right on my waypoint! I headed to another section of the bar that I caught a few on the weekend before and started cranking my way down the bar. The guys in the other boat were catching a fish on every other cast with an umbrella rig and I was watching close to see if they were big ones and that's when my co angler called for the net. I netted a 3lber for him and went back to fishing and a few casts later he yelled for the net again. This time I scooped up a fish over 4lbs for him and from the looks of things everybody behind me and ahead of me were off to a good start and I couldn't get a bite! Things finally slowed down for everyone but I fished around the area until 9:30 and when I left I had a fish pushing 4lbs and four 15" fish for a total of about 12lbs. I ran through all of the other stuff I fished in the LBL event, all of the stuff I fished on my guide trip and never had a bite. While I'm fishing I'm constantly analyzing everything imaginable in order to try and make good decisions and adjust as the day goes on. The one thing that really stuck out to me were the fact that the guys that were sitting where I wanted to start were catching fish on an umbrella rig and my co angler caught a few fish behind me on a Sexy Shad crankbait while I was using crawfish patterns. That made me think about how all of the shad had disappeared from the deep ledges between Thursday and Friday. I came to the conclusion that when all of those shad moved up, the bass followed and with everything in transition I knew it was probably going to be hard to nail down a strong pattern. I decided to cover some really shallow water with a Redeye Shad and see if maybe I could relocate the majority of the bait and hopefully catch a few bass along the way. The second shallow place I stopped on I snagged a big Gizzard Shad in the back and I knew then there had to be some bass around. I slowly worked the area over and finally caught a 4.5lber. I really slowed down then and basically fished the bait like a jig and ended up catching two more fish in the 4-4.5lb range and a 2.75lber. I got that gut feeling that I was about to put 20 plus lbs in the boat but after an hour I hadn't had another bite. By that time I was a lot further north than I'd planned on going, time was slipping away and I had a big decision to make. I felt like I could run around throwing the Redeye the rest of the day and probably run into another 4lb fish or two but I really thought in order to win I needed to catch a giant. I felt like my best bet to catch that giant was back in New Johnsonville so I headed back south. I made a quick pass through all of my productive areas from the week before and only picked up a few small keepers. I finished the day running as many shallow points and bars as I could but never caught anymore fish. I weighed in 18lbs 14oz and finished in 4th place. 

SUMMARY: I was a little disappointed when only 20lbs ended up winning the tournament because I knew then I'd probably made the wrong decision going for a giant bite the last few hours of the day. Unfortunately when you fish to win you have to take some gambles and more times than not, it doesn't work out. Overall it was another beautiful day on the lake and much more successful than my opening event of the year just three weeks ago.

FLW LBL BFL March 1

I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible but this tournament was a first for me in a lot of ways and it's proof that when the good Lord wants you to win there's nothing you can do to stop it. I wrote an article last month for The Sportsmen's Digest magazine where I talked about cold water, pre-spawn fishing. I talked about how my first few years on KY Lake I did really well and seemed to always figure out a potential tournament winning pattern. I also talked about how each of those years I caught my fish different ways in different places. Having had success so many different ways, each new year I have to run through all of my old patterns and places just to make sure they aren't working again (which they never are) and by the time I eliminate all of my "old" water, I don't have much time to try and figure out what's going on at the present time. I keep thinking that just maybe some day one of my old patterns will be on again and make my job a lot easier but up until this past Saturday it hadn't happened.

Coming off of the worst tournament I've ever had on KY Lake I really wanted to spend some time trying to figure out what I'd done wrong before the upcoming BFL. Unfortunately between business, weather and a throbbing tooth ache that set in Thursday night, I only practiced one day and caught one 2lb fish. Having never done good in a tournament after a terrible practice and still in pain on Friday, I called BFL tournament director Daniel Fennel and asked him to take me out of the tournament and he said he would. That night I got a text from FLW Outdoors with my boat number and co angler partner for the tournament. Daniel immediately called and said he apologized but for whatever reason I wasn't removed from the system but he could still get me out of the tournament if I really didn't want to fish. I told him that maybe that was a sign from God that I needed to fish and I'd just throw back some Advil and tough it out.

Next, I talked to my partner Bryan Henry and told him I wasn't on anything, wasn't feeling very good and I had no clue what we were going to do the next morning. I told him to bring everything he had and be sure he bought a TN license.

We headed out of KY Dam Saturday morning and made a 45 mile run to the Paris area and I stopped on a place that I caught one of my two keepers the weekend before. I told Bryan if we didn't catch any there I was rolling the dice and going to New Johnsonville. We didn't catch a fish so I headed to another place close by and once again said if we didn't catch them, I was going to Jville. After an hour there we hadn't had a bite and I said one more stop and we're going to Jville and that's when Bryan said something you rarely hear from a co angler especially when it's 35 degrees outside, he said he wanted to go to Jville. He said he'd wanted to go for two years but his boaters never took him. I'd been wanting to practice in Jville for two weeks but hadn't made it up there and though I've made that run many times, I'd never done it without at least a small clue as to what the fish were doing on that end of the lake. Knowing I was basically throwing in the towel if I stayed around Paris I strapped everything down and made another 30 mile run to New Johnsonville. By that point it was already 10am and I had to leave at 2pm in order to make it back on time so I knew in order to salvage the day I needed to figure them out quick. Lake conditions were very similar to 2010 when I figured out a really strong pattern on that end of the lake. I headed to the first place I came to that worked that year but didn't have a lot of faith in it because like I said before, I've never been able to duplicate any of my past successful patterns or areas. I fired out a bait I've never even made a cast with, the new Strike King KVD 1.5 Flat, and caught a 3lber on my first cast. A few minutes later I caught another 3lber and then several 2.5lb fish. When they quit biting I only had about 14lbs. but I smiled at Bryan and said "I know where they are!" My next stop produced a 6.5lber and my next stop produced a 7.25lber and I basically ran as many of my 2010 places as I could until we had to go back. Bryan was a great guy and he'd told me that he'd never weighed in a limit in a BFL. I really wanted him to catch five but when I pulled up on our last stop it was 2 pm and he only had two small keepers. I told him we only had ten minutes to fish and I had a good feeling there would be a load of fish on this particular spot. I only had one spare KVD Flat in my boat but on my first cast our baits landed side by side and I had three bites and then hooked a 4lber and he never had a sniff. I grabbed my back up bait and threw it to Bryan and told him to tie it on. Over the next ten minutes we doubled up on 4 to 5lbers on every cast but unfortunately we were having to take time out to cull and finally had to leave. When the scales closed I'd weighed in 26lbs. 7oz. and won the third BFL of my career. Bryan weighed in 15lbs. 5oz. and finished 3rd on the co angler side. 

What an amazing day! This was a really special tournament for me in a lot of ways. Number one, one of my old patterns that I'd worked so hard to figure out back in the day finally came into play only a few weeks after I'd written an article on how they never do. Number two, it showed me that I can figure out the winning pattern during a tournament which has always been my Achilles Heel.

It seems like every tournament I win there's a piece of equipment or two that really play a role in my success. I started using All Pro Rods exclusively late last summer. I weighed in over 75lbs of Sexy Dawg fish in three days of tournament fishing using the All Pro APX MH Cranking Rod. This was my first tournament to actually use this rod for what it was intended for, cranking, but I'm telling you I wouldn't have won without it. I didn't mention that my co angler kicked my net over board early in the day and I caught over 30 keepers and never lost a fish either swinging them in or lipping them beside the boat. The 7lber I caught made a run beside the boat and my drag was waaaaay too tight and my APX absorbed it and allowed me to keep that fish hooked up. 

Another key to my pattern was staying way off of the bars and making a long enough cast that my bait had time to really dig into the bottom and I was out casting my partner by 25 yards. 

The most important part of my pattern was that when I felt the bait really get into the roughest stuff around, I'd pause it and then it would get engulfed! I could feel every piece of gravel and shell that my bait hit all day long and I know that's why I caught so many more fish than my partner. I've always cranked with glass rods so this was my first go round cranking with graphite and this rod is the deal for shallow to medium diving crankbaits, lipless baits and obviously it's a pretty good top water rod too!