CAPTAINS SCHOOL'S FINALLY OUT!

I spent part of April at Captains School in order to obtain my USCG Captains License. It was a long nine days and I now know more about navigating the ocean than I ever cared to know but I'm officially a Captain and can guide "legally" which should boost business since I can advertise without worrying about getting in trouble with the Coast Guard and the $27,500 fine that comes with it! A lot changed while I was in school at Green Turtle Bay and over the course of the week we actually watched the water rise about five feet and I can't wait to get on the water and use up some of the Strike King Rodents I never got to put to use last season!

Fire Fighters Good Friday Open Barkley Lake March 29, 2013

BARKLEY OPEN PRACTICE AND TOURNAMENT: The Fire Fighters were having an open Good Friday tournament out of Bumpus Mills, TN and it guaranteed $1500 for first place. I normally wouldn't gamble on a long run in a small tournament but I know south Barkley fishes tough that early in the year and I didnt think anybody would be crazy enough to make the run to KY Lake so it seemed like a good idea to jump in this thing, make a 75 mile run, catch about 20lbs. or so and make 1500 bucks. The Jett-A-Marine tournament was also coming up and I was going to use Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as practice for that as well. I was pretty confident when I hit the water on Wednesday as my good buddy David Gnewikow and I had just caught a 26lb stringer the week before. I figured out pretty quickly the current was nonexistent and unfortunately thats what our entire pattern was based on the previous weekend. I spent two days Umbrella rigging and cranking my way from the Blood River area towards KY Dam and the only places I could catch any decent fish were on the places wed found the week before. It was a little further than I wanted to run but I still felt confident we could win the $1500 first place prize money so on Friday morning, my buddy Mike Hardin and I set sail for a 75 mile one way trip to the Blood River area from Bumpus Mills. We had smooth sailing all the way to the canal but once we hit KY Lake she was rolling and I immediately started dreading another 30 miles in those big waves. I shut down outside of Moors Resort on a place where David and I had caught some 3.5lbers the week before. After about 15 minutes there we had only caught one 2.5lber so I knew then we had to commit to the Blood River area. We finally reached our first stretch and after 30 minutes wed had one bite, a small keeper Mike caught on his rig. I headed to the next stretch that had been so good to us the previous week and when we got to the end we hadnt had a bite! I was feeling pretty bad that Id talked Mike into making this long run with me for nothing but I decided to fish a little further down the stretch and it was a good decision, I popped a 5lber and as soon as we dropped her in the live well we hit a school of 17" fish! We filled our limit with those and culled the two small ones and then it was over! We fished our way back to where wed started the morning outside of Moors and hadn't caught a fish since that group of 17”ers. With time running out, we were going to spend or last few minutes on this place at Moors and I just happened to start about 10 yards away from where we started that morning and wouldnt you know it, I caught two 4lbers on my first two casts! By the time we culled and got everything strapped down, we were out of time and had to head back. We ended up in 3rd place with 18.51lbs and made enough money to pay for our day. I did find out 2nd place also ran to KY Lake and they had a little over 19lbs and Im not sure where the winners caught there fish but they ran away with it weighing in 23+lbs.


SUMMARY: This was a fun little tournament. I love fishing on weekdays and I dont get to fish with Mike that often any more so over all it was a good day. The only thing I wouldve changed would have been to spend a little more time on that starting spot outside of Moors, if I couldve relocated that school that morning, I believe we couldve saved a lot of gas and milked them all day and probably weighed in more than we did by running all over the lake. Oh well, you live and learn. I did opt out of the Jett-A tournament the next day and it was probably a good thing because it took 18lbs just to get a check and I dont think I could've caught much more than that with what I was on.

 

Sportsmen's Digest Professional Team Trail KY Lake #1 March 23, 2013

SPORTSMENS DIGEST PRACTICE: I met David Friday morning and we decided to try and expand on what hed figured out the week before. He explained to me what he was fishing and I picked a place out on my Lowrance Insight map and we started heaving our umbrella rigs. We got several bites on that first stop but only caught one 3lber. The next place we checked produced two bites but one of them was a 5lber. The next place we checked produced eight bites but we only hooked one of them and it was just a small keeper. It looked like getting bites was going to be easy but catching them and them being the right size was a different story. We spent the rest of the day just running up and down the lake hitting places that looked right and when it was said and done wed caught about 15 fish and had about 15lbs. Our only hope was that some of the stuff David had fished the week before would still have some fish on them and the fish on the places we found in practice would actually commit to our offerings and maybe grow a few pounds over night! I wasnt feeling real good about the tournament but David assured me we would have at least 25lbs on tournament day. I told him he must have something up his sleeve he didnt show me because I wasnt seeing 25lb potential after our 10 hour practice session.


SPORTSMENS DIGEST TOURNAMENT: We launched out of Moors and David headed south. He had told me where his best place was during the BWS and I thought that would be our first stop. He pulled into a place a few miles short of there and said he had caught a few there as well. I hadnt even loaded my rig up with Caffeine Shads yet so while I was sitting in the floor doing that, David swung a 3lber into the boat! Not a bad start and I was fumbling around trying to get my baits on because I wanted in on the action! I finally got rigged up and for the next 15 minutes we put an absolute beat down on 2 to 2.5lb fish. We werent keeping any of them because we knew we couldnt win with that size fish but after a while when the size wasnt getting any better, we decided to throw a few in the box. When we exhausted the school, we had a 3lber and two 2.5lbers in the live well. We fired up the Mercury and headed to Davids best spot from the week before and there were four boats piled on top of each other right on the sweet spot. We passed it by and headed to one of the places wed found on Friday. We fished a good stretch without a bite but then ran into a school and caught ten or twelve in a row but the biggest one was about 3lbs. Our next spot was kind of the same deal; we caught several smaller keepers with a 3.5lber in the mix. We checked one other place from Friday and I stayed hung up in stumps the entire time and we never caught a fish there. We decided to go look at a couple of new places and managed another 3lber off of one of those but then we were kind of out of options on where to fish. We talked about it and decided to just jump back and forth between the two places wed caught the bulk of our fish and hopefully slowly cull up. It turned out to be a pretty good decision and after four passes down each of our two best stretches we had a 6lber, a 5lber, a 4lber and two 3.5lbers. That gave us about 22lbs and we knew we had to get rid of those two smaller ones to have a shot at the win. We decided to stop on a place where we only caught a 2lber the day before but it is one of the most unique looking places Ive ever seen. Its also a place where my buddy Zach Parker caught back to back 8lbers back in December so I knew big fish did like to hang out there. When we rolled up on the spot for some crazy reason, I picked up a jig. Wed caught 100 fish on a rig but something told me to try a jig on this particular spot. It took me a couple of casts to hit the sweet spot but when I did, I popped a 4.5lber! David was culling and I fired another cast out. I drug the jig one time and one knocked slack in my line. I set the hook and missed it! A few casts later I got hung up and broke my jig off. I laid my rod down and picked up my umbrella rig and then I stopped, asked David to take the trolling motor and sit down and tied on another jig. My next cast with the jig I hooked something big. I told David if it was a bass it was a giant! It came up under the boat and I just knew it was going to be a drum but when it swam out from under the boat it looked like it was four feet long! David scooped it into the net and it was a 7.5lb largemouth! We were pretty pumped up and knew we probably had a pretty good shot at winning the tournament because that got us up in the mid 20s range. We caught several more 3 to 3.75lbers the rest of the day but never culled anymore. When we got back to Moors I talked to another team and they said they thought they had mid 20s as well. We let them weigh in first and we knew it was going to be close. There bag consisted of three beautiful 5lb. smallmouth and a couple of big green heads to go with them and they weighed 26.85lbs! We bagged our fish and dropped them on the scales and wouldnt you know it, we came up just a bit shy with 26.41lbs! What an awesome finish, I wouldve loved to have won obviously but I like a close nail biter weigh in like that. We also managed big fish with that 7.45lber.


SUMMARY: Man, what an awesome day! Ive had a tough start to the year with mechanical issues, illness and just having the wrong game plans. This was only the second tournament Ive fish all year, my confidence was down in the dumps and this was just what the Dr. ordered, no pun intended! Dr. G is not only one of my best friends but hes one of the best fishermen I know. Even though a lot of our fish came off of places I found or picked out, without his confidence and mental toughness, I wouldve never caught that kind of weight off of those places. It was eye opening to be able to spend a day in the boat with him after a tough day of practice and see how you can make something out of nothing. Thats always been a weakness of mine. Im mentally tough as far as not getting psyched out by weather or because some big time pro is in the tournament but I really struggle putting a good day together after a tough practice and David has done it two weeks in a row and I got to be a part of it on that day and I think it will help my fishing tremendously in the future. Im still not sure how he knew we would have 25lbs on Saturday after a mediocre practice, I think it was coincidence but hell never admit it if it was! Congrats to Donnie Siress and Chris Jones for edging us out with a beautiful bag of smallmouth!

BASSMASTER WEEKEND SERIES KY DIVISION #1 MARCH 9, 2013

BASSMASTER WEEKEND SERIES: I took a trip to Florence, AL to fun fish on Wilson Lake the week before the first BWS on KY Lake. I started feeling a little rough while I was at Wilson but just assumed it was allergy and sinus trouble. I got home and wasn't feeling much better but the first BWS was coming up and I had to start hunting some fish because not only did I desperately need to draw a check in the BWS, I wanted to try and defend my points title. I suffered through one day of practice and it wasn't very impressive. I went to New Johnsonville and caught one 3.5lber and three short fish all day. By the next morning I was running a fever and really feeling rough. I ended up dropping out of the tournament and spending the next four days in bed hopped up on Nyquil! I stayed in touch with my good buddy David Gnewikow while he was practicing and he was struggling mightily as well. I think he caught two or three fish in two days of practice and he wasn't looking forward to fishing the tournament. David is as good as they come at not giving up and figuring things out on the fly and at 10am the day of the tournament something clicked and he managed to pop 21lbs worth and finish 3rd in the tournament. Unfortunately for David, Scotty Young dropped almost 30lbs on the scales and ran away with first place.

LBL BFL #1 March 2, 2013

BFL PRACTICE: I only practiced one day for the BFL which ended up coming back to haunt me. My good friend Troy Hollowell had won a tournament the previous weekend with 26lbs. throwing an umbrella rig around brush piles 8 to 12 feet deep. It seemed simple enough and I just happen to know where a brush pile or two resides on Kentucky Lake in that depth so I decided to give it a try. The first little place I fished produced a 5lber and I decided that was all I needed to see. These brush pile fish are single fish, not groups or schools and the last thing I wanted to do was catch a lone giant or two during practice two days before a tournament. I decided that would definitely be a pattern Id fish in the tournament and then I pulled out my Redeye Shad rod and started searching for hydrilla. Since I hadnt been on the lake in 2013, I wasnt sure what condition the grass was in but I had heard some of the grass had survived the mild winter. I had an epiphany the night before about the perfect place to start my search. I headed that way and when I chunked my Redeye out onto the bar I immediately started ticking the hydrilla! I was pretty pumped because Ive never gotten to fish grass on KY Lake this time of year and its one of my favorite things to do during the pre spawn. I figured out pretty quickly the grass was left over and not new growth which the fish will still use but it makes it a little tougher to fish. I like the grass thats just sprouting because its nice and crunchy and that Redeye shad will snap right out of it and thats usually when it gets annihilated! The left over grass is soft and loose and its very tough to get rattle bait through it. Not only was this grass soft and loose but it was still pretty tall which made it tough to get a bait over it as well. As I worked my way down the bar I was a little disappointed in the condition of the grass and plus I discovered it was really scattered and clumpy. I like a good edge when Im fishing a Redeye shad in the grass in the pre spawn so you can parallel the outside edge and when you find that little indention or point in that edge, thats usually where the girls will be sitting! Even though I found every reason not to like this first stretch of grass, I still managed to catch about 16lbs out of it with a 5.5lber in the bunch. It was a decent start but still not what I was looking for. I figured I would struggle to find any grass on the bars that had been exposed to the current over the winter but quickly figured out I was wrong and every single bar I fished was covered up with hydrilla and none of it was in very good shape. I never caught another keeper the rest of the day. I decided not to fish Friday because I knew I was going to fish about 25 brush piles with the umbrella rig during the tournament plus a few Redeye holes that produce a big bite or two for me year in and year out.


BFL TOURNAMENT: I knew we would have a stout North wind during the tournament because we always do but Ive fished in plenty of big waves out on the river and wasnt too concerned. The wind was howling from the get go and I left KY Dam at 6:45 and didnt make it to the Paris area until 8:15, it usually only takes about 40 minutes to get up there. I stopped on an old faithful Redeye spot and it was somewhat protected from the wind. I had an inch of snow on the front deck of my Triton and the wind chill was in the 20s and I had a feeling it was going to be a grind trying to catch them on a Redeye Shad in a foot of water in those conditions. I was pleasantly surprised when I hooked up with a 2.75lber on about my 10th cast of the day! I dropped my power poles and made several more casts to the same area. Just as I was about to move on, I loaded up again and drug a solid 3lber into the net. I spent another 45 minutes in the area but never had another bite so I headed to my first brush pile. This spot had four foot waves crashing in on it and I never even made a cast, I just headed to the next one. I spent about 15 minutes on that place with the rig but never had a bite. The waves were getting bigger and it was taking me forever to get from place to place and next thing I know I was all the way to the Danville area where Id caught my grass fish on Thursday and hadnt had a bite since my first stop. I pulled up to the sweet stretch and put the poles down and started fan casting the Redeye shad around the grass. I spent an hour inching around the bar and had one bite and my co angler caught one short fish! It was 11 am and I still had 20 brush piles I needed to fish and with the waves getting bigger by the hour, it was obvious my game plan was falling apart. I only got to hit two more of my brush piles and I stopped on the place I started on my way back and picked up one more 3lber. I weighed in 3 fish for 8lbs 12oz and finished 51st.


SUMMARY: This was the worst tournament Ive had on KY or Barkley Lake in several years and I cant remember the last time I didnt have a limit in a tournament on these lakes. I was extremely disappointed in my showing because I love fishing in March but at the same time, I felt like I had a plan that could produce the class fish I needed to win. Where I screwed up was not factoring in my travel time between brush piles in those big waves. That being said, the only thing I wouldve done differently was spent another day practicing looking for a group of fish where I couldve at least caught a quick limit which wouldve at least been enough for a check and kept me in contention for a points title.

 

ROUGH START!

Well my 2013 tournament season started off with a bang. A couple days into my annual, month long Guntersville visit, my old trusty suburban started acting up. I vowed to have a new ride to start the season after truck problems totally took me out of the game at the BWS National Championship on Sam Rayburn last fall but I thought I'd try and squeeze one more trip in. It was only the alternator but it was something that had to be dealt with and the deciding factor in me cutting my trip three weeks short! I headed home and straight to the nearest Toyota dealership and I am now the proud owner of a Toyota Tundra. The few days I did fish weren't much to write home about which seemed like another good reason to come home and get everything taken care of so I could be ready for a fast approaching, very busy KY Lake tournament schedule. I was catching about 18lbs a day running around throwing a Red Eye shad but I was getting very few bites and 18lbs on Gville in February might get you a sniff at a check.

Awesome Dec. on KY Lake and 2013 Overview

Well, 2013 is here and tournament season is right around the corner. I'm ready to get started and will discuss my 2013 plans a little later, but for now, I have to talk about December! After I returned from my disastrous trip to Sam Rayburn, I spent a couple weeks getting my 2012 Triton/Mercury cleaned up to sell and getting my 2013 rig ready for action. Around the first of December the gentleman came to buy my boat and wanted to take it for a test run so I told him to bring an umbrella rig and we could catch a few after he drove the boat. I only fished KY Lake a few days last winter but it was ridiculously easy to catch bass on a rig just fishing down the shoreline. I assumed this year would be no different but after fishing four stretches that were prime in 2011, we hadn't caught a fish. I idled around a point searching for a school and was explaining to him what I was looking for and just before I pulled the plug on the operation I spotted a few fish suspended right off of a main lake bluff wall. The water was 32ft deep a half a cast away from the bluff and the fish were sitting in about 16ft of water. Had I not been talking to this gentleman I would've already turned around and would have never seen this group of fish. We fished for a few minutes and each caught a 4lb largemouth but we had to call it a day to go finish up his paperwork at Odoms Blue and Gray Marine. I didn't know it at the time, but I had just tapped into what was going to be some of the most phenomenal bass fishing I've ever experienced on KY Lake. Once I got my old ride sold, I was chomping to get my 2013 21 HP on the water! I had a few guide trips I had to cancel over the course of the year and I'd told them if the weather held up we would make them up this winter. I called the three gentlemen and told them I had some openings, decent weather was in the forecast and I thought we could catch a few. I figured if nothing else I could get my new Mercury broken in. Luckily, they were all available and we booked the dates. The first day I took a loyal client and friend from Indiana named Mike. I started right where I'd left off the week before and it didn't disappoint! I couldn't seem to coax one into biting but Mike caught two 3lbers, a 4.5lber, a 5lber and a 7lber on our first stop. Though I never caught a fish I was learning from the experience and immediately started thinking of similar places that might fit the pattern. We didn't just crush 'em that day but in six hours we ended up finding a few more schools and had about 24lbs on our best 5 with a 10lb striper in the mix! My highlight of the day was catching two over 4lbs on one cast with my Strike King Titanium umbrella rig! I had a few days before my next trip and I knew there were a lot more schools with a lot bigger fish in them that I needed to find before I took another paying customer. I called my buddy Zach Parker and we hit the lake for about four hours the next day. We looked for all new water and though we only found three new schools, I popped an 8lb 2oz largemouth out of one of them plus Zach had three smallmouths in the 4lb range. We ended that day with about 25 bass and around 24lbs on our best 5. Two days later I had another client roll into town and we spent the first half of the day fishing the stuff I'd already found. At noon, we'd caught 23 bass but none were over 4.5lbs, although we had caught a couple limits of 4lb class fish. We took a lunch break and spent the second half of the day looking for new schools and it was the right decision! We found three new schools and caught over 40 keepers out of them with our best 5 weighing over 27lbs! We had 15 smallmouths in the mix and two of them were over 5lbs. The biggest of the day was a 7lb largemouth I caught while he was fighting a 5lb smallmouth. Great day of fishing and my client told me it was the best day of fishing he'd ever experienced which is the best thing a guide can ever hear! I had a few days off before my next trip and I knew I had enough fish located to get me through one more trip so I was just going to lay low until Sunday when my trip was scheduled. Thats when Zach called me and told me there was a small tournament coming out of New Johnsonville that weekend. I told him we'd watch the weather and if it was going to be nice wed fish it because I knew there wouldnt be many boats and I wasnt willing to fight the elements all day for a small tournament. As Saturday drew near, wouldn't you know it, the front started heading our way and the 25mph winds were forecasted for tournament day. I finally talked Zach into bailing on the tournament but he came over to hang out Friday night anyway. As we sit there rigging Swimmin Caffeine Shads up for our next outing, he kept working on me about fishing the tournament. Finally, at around 10pm, I gave in! We started rushing around getting our gear ready and after a few hours sleep we headed to Jville. Most of the fish wed found were in KY water and the few schools I'd found in TN were still 35 miles from take off. We obviously HAD to make the run and after an 8:00 blast off time and a 35 mile run in 3 and 4 foot swells, we finally made our first cast at 9:00. It was quite a chore fishing the main lake in that kind of wind and it was pretty hectic for the first hour but at 10:10 exactly, I weighed our 5 best on my boga grip and they weighed over 27lbs. Im not sure how many we caught but we basically caught fish for a solid hour unless we stopped to cull and we'd blow 100 yards down the bank and I'd have to idle us back to the school. We decided to change scenery after that and when I got us lined up on our next spot we both bowed up on good ones! Zach had his close to the boat so I let mine swim while I netted his. His was 5lbs on the nose but wouldn't cull! I had given mine too much slack and when I caught up to it she was headed to the surface! I saw a glimpse of her and then she was gone, but all I can say is she was full grown! Our next couple casts we were getting slammed by fish but they weren't hooking up. I finally popped another 5lber that wouldn't cull and then it was over! They completely vanished! There was an absolute pile of fish there because we could actually feel our baits swimming through them but we definitely did something they didn't like! I had one more place I really wanted to hit so we made our way there and we actually caught a limit of 4lbers off of it but at that point they weren't doing us any good. We pulled the plug on the 4lbers and ran back to the place where we'd screwed the school up. We beat on those for about twenty minutes but never had a bite so we made our way back to where we started the day. After ten minutes without a bite we were beginning to think the fish had just totally shut down for the day but then Zach bowed up on another 5lber! We got it into the boat but once again it was just a tad lighter than our smallest fish which was almost 5.25lbs. I got us back in position and I loaded up on a stud! I eased her up to the side of the boat and Zach dipped her up. It was another 7lber! It was noon, we had around 30lbs in the boat and we had a long run in rough water so we decided rather than pushing it to the limit and beating those fish up on the way back in that rough water, we'd just head back south. We fished around a little in the New Johnsonville area until weigh in but never had another bite. Our best 5 weighed 30.63lbs and our two biggest were 7.13 and 7.19lbs! It was a very fun day of fishing and I'd like to thank Zach again for talking me into going. I knew that was going to be hard to follow up on my guide trip the next day but I still had several places we didn't even touch during the tournament so I had a feeling we still had a shot at a good bag of fish. We only fished 3 hours on Sunday and had around 25lbs on our best 5 with the biggest being a 6.25lber. Not a bad day but at the same time it was going to take a lot to excite me after the day Zach and I just had. I only fished one more day after that and it was just for a couple hours when I went out with Zach to break his new Mercury in and hunt for a few new schools. We caught several 4 to 4.5lbers but we just werent seeing the size and numbers we'd been seeing. I'd called it a day and was sitting down playing on my phone when Zach decided to check one last place. His first cast on that last place resulted in a 3lber and an 8lber on one cast! After we weighed and photographed his 8lber, I decided that was worth getting up for so I chunked my rig out beside his. We both bowed up and when the dust settled I had a 3lber and he had an 8.25lber! Thats the first time I've ever seen back to back 8's on KY Lake! It was awesome. Unfortunately he got hung up on his next cast and it scattered the school but those two giants gave us over 27lbs for the day! It was a difficult decision, but I headed home the next day to spend a few weeks with my family for the Holidays. I've thought about those big 'ol fish every day since I left and thought it may help get it out of my head to write about it! Strike King has hit a homerun with this new umbrella rig they have coming out. Its perfect for lakes or states where you can't throw 5 hooks.


2013 TOURNAMENTS: Now that thats out of my system, lets talk about 2013. As far as tournaments go, I'm going on my annual February trip to Guntersville for a couple of BFLs or BWSs and maybe an open or two, plus I already have a few guide trips booked there. I'll head back to KY in March and kick off the LBL BFLs March 2 and then it will be pretty busy from there with BFLs, BWSs and the Everstart in June. Im going to squeeze in a couple of opens again this year and possibly fish a team trail with my good buddy Dr. David Gnewikow. Unfortunately, the BWS and BFL regionals are the same week of October this year and BFL is going to Guntersville which I'm quite fond of so I will probably end up going that route if I'm fortunate enough to qualify. The Midwest Team Challenge is coming back to KY Lake this October so Zach and I are going to be hitting that up again and that about does it for my tournament schedule.


 I also picked up a couple of new sponsors for the 2013 season and I'd like to thank them for their support. TH Marine, who makes all the goodies we run on our boats like hotfoot pedals, gauges, alarm systems, G Force trolling motor cables, oxygenators and of course the 10" Atlas Hydraulic jack plate that I can't live without to name a few. I was also fortunate enough to get in with Lowrance Electronics this year who just released their new GEN 2 HDS Touch screens! If you haven't seen these things yet check them out because its going to be the next big thing. The biggest issue myself and others have had with Lowrance in the past is the slow processing speed and the fact they werent very user friendly while navigating through your different screens and menus. From what I've seen so far with the Touch, thats a thing of the past. You can change pages with a tap of the screen and it loads in the blink of an eye. Side imaging is also built in now so no more having to install additional gadgets all over your boat! I am very excited to be running the new HDS Touch 12s in 2013.