BARREN RIVER BFL PRACTICE: I had never been to Barren River before but several of my friends had. They had informed me that there would be schools out deep that I could find on my Lowrance but there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get on those places on a Saturday. I had also heard that you could catch some good fish up the river flipping in the summer as well.
I had marked about 20 places on my map that fit the criteria for holding a school so my first day of practice I ran around and scanned those. At the end of the day I’d found 7 schools and caught a 3 to 5lber out of each of them on my very first cast with an Ignite swimbait.
I spent day 2 up the river flipping and scanning some more subtle deep stuff. I found a stretch of river bank that had several fish on it but only found one more school of deep fish.
I was feeling pretty good about the tournament until I started talking with a couple of my buddies that were fishing it too. We figured out we’d all found the same schools and we knew if we had found them others had as well.
We decided to make a deal with each other that if one of us got a good boat draw, we would go to the school that we all agreed had the most potential for big fish and then share it with the other two.
When pairings came out that night I had the best draw with boat number 69 which pretty much told us we weren’t going to get to fish our best places.
I decided for tournament day I’d make a lap around the lake and see if any deep stuff was open and if not I’d head up the river with a flippin’ stick in my hand.
BARREN RIVER BFL #3 JUNE 6, 2015: I headed up the arm of the lake where I’d found all of my schools and it happened that my best school was the first one I came to. I was pretty shocked to see no one around when I pulled in. I wanted to scan the area and see if the school was there but with 100 more boats blasting off behind me, I was afraid someone would pull in on me, drop their trolling motor and stake claim to the spot while I was idling around on it which seems to be the new thing for people to do to make it “ok” for them to fish there and then you’re in the wrong if you get up and start fishing even though you were there first but that’s another story for another time.
I got right on my way point and dropped my trolling motor and not long after that a boat pulled up and I could tell he wanted to fish there. I have to give him credit because even though he still pulled in behind me and casted at my trolling motor, he didn’t pull in front of me like he could’ve done.
I was determined I wasn’t going to budge from that waypoint until he left and then I could idle around and look for my school. So, after a two hour standoff, neither of us had ever had a bite and he finally left.
I immediately fired up my Mercury and idled over the point. I made a pass straight through where I’d been casting for two hours and I couldn’t believe what I saw. There were at least 100 bass laying right in my line of fire and I hadn’t even had a sniff!
I jumped up and fired my swimbait at them from another angle and caught a 3.5lber. I told my co they were about to fire and we were going to make a run at the win and then two hours passed without a bite!
Knowing I’d been casting right into the heart of the winning fish for 4 hours and only gotten one bite was a little discouraging so I decided to move on.
My next school was open but I could tell they’d been fished for as they were scattered around all over the place. I made several passes over them to get a good idea of how and where they were positioned and once I felt like I knew where the bulk of them were I made a cast and caught a 2.5lber. A couple cast later I caught another 2.5lber and then it was over.
I ran around and looked at my other schools and they had boats camped out on them so I told my co that I was going to gamble that the fish in the schools would be so tough to catch that a lot of guys would give up on them later in the day.
I decided to run up the river and flip for a couple hours and then run back through my deep stuff on the way to weigh in.
I caught a 2 lber on about my third pitch once I made it up the river and was feeling like it was a good decision. Almost two hours later I hadn’t had a bite and was wishing I’d just stayed on the schools all day.
I headed back down just hoping some of the deep stuff would’ve opened up but it seemed like there were more guys fishing deep than earlier in the day.
I decided to fish a rocky hump I’d found in practice that was within sight of a couple of my schools and if either of them opened up I’d make a run for them.
With about an hour to go a boat left one of my schools and I headed straight for it and scanned around trying to see what I had to work with.
I saw about 20 bass scattered around and suspended pretty high in the water column. I pulled out my BAJA X spinnerbait and began burning it through the school. I caught a 3lber which gave me my limit and with just minutes to go I caught another 3lber and culled my 2lb flipping fish.
That gave me about 15lbs which I knew would be real close to a top 10. I was pretty pumped to have gone to a lake I’d never seen, grind it out and accomplish my goal of a top 10 finish.
As I bagged my fish up, I heard that 16lbs was leading. That made me feel even better about my chances of making the top 10. As I stepped from my boat over to the dock a terrible thing happened.
My 3lber that I’d caught just a half hour earlier got a running start and leapt out of my bag!
It hit the side of my boat, then the wall of the dock and fell right back into the lake! I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I set there speechless for a minute and my co turned and said “what’s wrong”?
He didn’t believe me when I told him until he counted the fish in my bag. I almost dumped the rest of my fish in the lake I was so frustrated but knew I’d regret it later so I went ahead and weighed-in and my 4 that didn’t escape weighed 11lbs 10oz and I finished in 38th place.
SUMMARY: Man, what a frustrating deal. Not only did that escapee cost me several hundred dollars, it cost me a top 10 and about 25 places in the points.
I moved up from 96th to 71st with my 38th place finish and with that fish I would’ve been 52nd and only had to catch a couple fish in the last event to make the regional in 4 tournaments which is nearly impossible to do in a division as tough as the Mountain.
Now I’m 60 points out of 50th place going into the last event which means I need a top 10 and several guys have to zero in order for me to make it.
Oh well, things happen but I’ve always been afraid of a fish jumping out of my bag and usually roll the top over and carry it with two hands but the dock wall was concrete and I had power poled down a few feet away to keep my boat off of the concrete and had to carry my bag by the handles with one hand and jump across to the dock.
A lot of people have told me that’s why you trailer your boat before bagging your fish but FLW doesn’t allow us to trailer. We have to weigh in before we take our boats out.
I’m not blaming them for my mishap but if they are going to force us to use the bags they provide and weigh-in from the water, I do wish they would give us zippered bags to keep things like this from happening.
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