LBL BFL #1

 I planned on fishing the Redeye Shad all day but when I passed by the point where I’d caught the 9lber last week, I couldn’t resist. I spent about 30 minutes there and never had a bite. I stopped on the school of 2lbers where I’d finished my limit in the BWS and  quickly cranked up a limit of small keepers. Once I got a limit, I headed south of Paris to a creek that’s a refuge area and had been off limits up until the weekend of this tournament. There were a pile of fish on a point at the mouth of the creek and I was able to cull all of my 2lbers with a little better sized fish, but not much better. Once we exhausted that school, I headed further south to a little slough where I’ve caught them pretty good in April on my Redeye Shad. It didn’t take long and I hooked a decent fish in the 3lb range on my Redeye. The fish made a run towards the back of the boat and I used its momentum to swing it into the boat. Just as the fish left the water, my co angler was pulling his Arig out of the water and a 4lber ate his rig! I’m pretty sure that 4lber had followed my fish to the boat and led her right to my co angler’s bait! Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes so I made a quick cull and went back to chunking my Redeye Shad. I fished a little further into the slough and something hit my Redeye so hard, it knocked slack in my line. When I finally caught up to it, a 6lb class fish came to the surface and spit my bait right back at me! That was a very tough break but I shook it off and kept on fishing. I caught a few more small keepers in the slough and decided to fish back out to where those bigger bites had come from. I’d gotten so shallow my Motorguide was in the mud and I made the mistake of stomping the foot pedal to force it to turn. That’s when my bad luck got worse and the steering cable snapped. The good news was I had a spare trolling motor, but the bad news was it was in my Suburban in Benton, KY! It was only 10:30 but I knew the rest of my day was shot so I tried to make the best of it and I idled back out to where I’d lost the big one and let what little wind there was blow us through the area and drop my Power Poles if we hit a hot spot. We drifted through the area with no luck so I idled to another stretch and made a drift through there. I didn’t make it far and just as my Redeye Shad got within sight, an absolute tank rolled up and engulfed it! I didn’t have much line out so I eased back on the fish and kept her hooked for two head shakes and she came unbuttoned! That was the final nail in the coffin! I’d lost two 6lb+ sized fish and my trolling motor in 45 minutes. I ran back north to where I’d caught my Redeye fish in the BWS and drifted around out there for the rest of the day but never caught anything that would help. I weighed in a measly 13lbs 5oz and finished in 48th place.