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.