BWS #4 August 18th

I only had one tournament in August and I was looking forward to a break from tournament fishing. I had several guide trips during early August and we mostly fished the offshore schools I've been fishing all summer.  We had decent numbers with about 30 keepers a day and our best 5 were in the 16-18lb. range.  My parents came up for a couple days and wanted to catch some on the Sexy Frog so after busting a few out of a couple of deep schools we headed to a stretch of Hydrilla. My mom had several blow ups on her frog but didn't hook any, my dad caught a few on a Burner spinnerbait and I caught 8 bass on 8 flips to one clump of grass on a Rage Craw but none of them were over 3lbs.  I didn't realize it at the time but that little stretch of grass would prove to be a valuable find when my BWS tournament rolled around August 18th. 

I spent 2.5 days practicing for the BWS one of which I dedicated entirely to grass fishing.  I found one area loaded with fish but they were in a grass mat about the size of a football field and I could only catch them when they came up schooling and the odds of them coming up with in casting distance were slim.  After several unproductive hours I decided to check the stretch I'd fished with my parents.  The stretch was still loaded with keeper size fish up to 3lbs and I expanded my search a little bit and flipped up a 7lber a little further down from where the keepers were hanging out.  My other day and a half wasn't that productive other than verifying a few schools were still in tact and I planned on spending the majority of my tournament hours on the offshore schools. 

At 10am on tournament day I only had 1 small keeper fishing off shore so I decided to check my stretch of Hydrilla.  In an hour and a half I flipped up a limit with a 5lber in the mix and headed back north to finish out the day on ledge fish.  The ledge fish weren't cooperating and I only caught a couple of small keepers and had one in the 4lb range follow my Shadalicious back to the boat but didn't commit.  I weighed in 16.51lbs of Hydrilla bass and was hoping that would keep me inside the top 10.  As the weigh in started winding down several of my fellow fishermen started congratulating me but I wasn't sure why.  I walked over to the stage and to my surprise my 16.51lbs had held up and won the tournament! 

It's not often that 16lbs will win a tournament on KY Lake but I guess when it's your time it's your time and I'll take a win any time I can get one because they are hard to come by.  Fortunately we had 67 boats so the $7000 Triton Gold Money was up for grabs and that will come in handy as I have some traveling to do in October with the Regionals and Championships coming up.