LBL BFL #4 June 1, 2013

Saturday morning started with a bang when a line of severe storms moved across the lake. Lightening and I dont get along and I was praying I would be out of the line of fire once I reached my first fishing hole. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised that I had it to myself but the storms were coming from all directions. I would normally have taken cover but there were black clouds everywhere I looked so I had to tough it out. I had been on the water guiding enough to know the schools werent showing up until the sun got up good so I told my co angler if we were able to get on one of the good community holes, we were going to stay with it until the fish moved in. After two hours in the pouring rain Id caught one white bass and he had jumped off about a 5lb largemouth. The wind was howling out of the north and the conditions just werent conducive to what I was trying to do. I eventually threw in the towel and changed locations. My next community hole had boats all over it so I headed to my subtle school of 4 lbers. I made a few casts right on my waypoint and nothing happened. I beat around on that place for awhile and finally coaxed a 4lber into biting my football jig but it was a loner. I ran and looked at my other school and they were nowhere to be found and I knew then I had to change gears until the sun came out and conditions got right for the fish to school. I had no shallow tackle in my boat other than a Sexy Dawg so I headed to the back of a pocket and started working around the shore line. My co angler was throwing a spinnerbait and he started catching small bass immediately. I was watching him reel a fish in and I heard a flush in the area of my Sexy Dawg. I turned around and about a 3 or 4lber had just blown it out of the water and then rolled on it again but didnt take the bait. Not long after that my co popped two pretty nice keepers pushing 3lbs each on his spinnerbait so I grabbed my big ¾ oz. spinnerbait and went to work in the shallows with it. After about an hour with no more keepers I was itching to idle over my schools again. I decided to run through them once more and if it didnt work, I would head back shallow. I stopped where I caught my 4lber and fired my football jig out to the sweet spot. My co angler had been paying attention earlier in the day and his football jig landed not far from mine right in the zone! We both set the hook and a 3 and 4 lber went airborne! I guess you know which one of the two had my jig…the 3lber! I thought a school was finally going to cooperate but after thirty more minutes we hadnt gotten another bite. I ran and scanned my other three schools and nobody was home so I headed to the back of a creek and hit the bank with a spinnerbait. I managed a small keeper and a 3lber doing that but I was running out of time. It was hard to believe Id been on the lake ten straight days and was averaging about 20lbs a day and about 75 keepers a day and with an hour left to fish I had four keepers in my Triton. When I ran out of the creek I noticed the wind had shifted around out of the south and the sun was trying to break through the clouds. I headed straight to the nearest school and graphed the area. Just as I was about to give up I spotted a few bass out to the side of the boat on my Lowrance. I swung around and made another pass and they were loaded! Id fished this school in practice and they were very skittish so I asked my co angler not to throw any big baits until I got my fifth keeper. I caught a 16”er on my first cast with a football jig and then we brought an all out assault of 10 XDs down on them! We caught them every cast until we had to leave and though the size wasnt very good I was able to cull a couple of times. I weighed in 15lbs 6oz and managed a decent check in 16th place.


SUMMARY: Theres not much to say about this one. I got to fish everywhere I wanted, the weather and the fish just didnt cooperate. I lucked up and made the right adjustments by going shallow to water Ive never fished and caught a decent keeper and then tapped into that big school right at the end of the day. If it hadnt been for those two things this one couldve been a lot worse than it was. I had visions of only having four keepers in a June tournament on KY Lake and that would not have been a good day. I just thank the Lord I survived the electrical storms and lived to fish another day.