JUNE 2014

When all of the tournament schedules came out last winter I didn't see any BFL's, Rayovac's or Weekend Bass Series events scheduled for June. Initially I was a little bummed out but once I really started thinking about it, I remembered how frustrating June tournaments can be.  The current never moves on the weekends and there are multiple boats on every school on the lake every Saturday and Sunday.  That's when it hit me that I could guide every day during the week under optimal conditions and for the most part have the pick of the litter as far as which schools I wanted to fish.  I had several trips booked in advance but as June drew near I had a few dates left to fill.  I decided to make things interesting and run a promotion on Facebook guaranteeing that 50 bass would come into my Triton or the next trip was on the house!  I quickly filled up my remaining dates and was looking forward to an action packed month of ledge fishing.

My first week of guiding was the week following the Rayovac and Triton Owner's Tournament in which 600 boats had brought in an astounding amount of fish in both numbers and weight.  I was a little concerned that the 600 boat beat down would have the ledge bass in a funk and they might be a little tougher to catch than normal.  I was way off with my thinking as we absolutely smoked 'em everyday that week as we averaged about 100 bass a trip with our best 5 weighing in the mid 20's.
 
It looked like I was going to breeze through June with 100 fish days and 20+ lb stringers on every trip but when I hit the water the following week the water had risen a couple feet, muddied up and the current was rolling.  Just out of coincidence I started that week in the Big Sandy River.  The water was high but clear as the influx of muddy water was from rain further up the system as opposed to local precipitation and the schools were sitting right where they were supposed to be in the Sandy.  After our first six stops that morning we had 25 fish and about 19lbs.  It was shaping up to be another awesome day but when I hit the main lake I noticed something odd.  Not only was I not seeing any schools of bass, I wasn't seeing any form of life on my Lowrance.  Fortunately this wasn't my first rodeo with high water in the summer repositioning the fish so I knew I could still find schools in the tributaries where the water remained clear and the current wasn't as strong.  The bad part about this was that I had five trips that week and didn't know if those few creek schools could sustain a weeks worth of pressure.  Amazingly, my first four trips that week were ridiculous and we averaged about 75 fish a day and low to mid 20's on our best 5 out of only 8 schools of fish.  I only had one more trip before the weekend and I was hoping my poor 8 schools would produce one more day and the water would stabilize over the weekend and give me a few more herds of bass to work with the following week.

I met Brett and Taylor Luther at Paris Landing that morning and Taylor had bought the 50 fish guarantee trip for Brett for their wedding anniversary.  We started off strong and put 6 fish in the boat on as many casts but then Brett and I both lost a fish in the school and they shut down.  That particular school had been producing 40-60 bass a day for me so that kind of put the pressure on to make sure we reached our 50 bass quota.  When we finished the milk run in the Big Sandy we'd only boated 9 bass with nothing over 3.5lbs.  I ran through the other half my schools and we were having trouble getting them to fire and once they did we always had a couple pull off and shut them down before we could really beat 'em down.  Brett and Taylor were a blast to fish with and just to get at me a little bit when Brett would hook a smaller caliber fish he would leave it in the water as long as possible and give it every opportunity to get off and several of them did!  Well played Brett!  The last hour of the day we had boated 32 bass and I was determined to get our quota and on my last stop we got on a roll and put 12 bass in a row in the boat but then we exhausted the school and had to call it a day with 44 bass and only 19lbs on our best 5.  I was a little disappointed that my well over 50 fish and 20lbs a day streak had ended but the Luther's assured me they had a good time and that's my main concern on each and every trip.  Brett told me we could've easily reached our limit if he hadn't intentionally lost several by the boat and I didn't owe them another trip but I told him a deal was a deal and I will be spending another fun day with them here pretty soon.

I watched water conditions closely over the weekend and things were slowly getting back to normal but I still wasn't sure what was going to happen with the main river ledge schools once it did.  The last time the high water repositioned the fish it was a lot later in the summer and the vast majority never returned to their early summer haunts.  When I hit the lake with Brian Chandler the following week, just to be safe I started in the Sandy. Just like clockwork, every school was sitting right where they were supposed to be and eager to eat our Shadalicious swim baits.  Once we reached the main river I scanned a dozen places and was a little discouraged when they were all still void of life.  I knew there was no possible way I could beat on those same 8 schools for another week and show my clients the kind of fishing I wanted to show them.  At about 1pm that day I scanned another main lake school "just for the heck of it" and it had a few bass on it.  We caught several of them and that made me think they were trying to come back out.  For the rest of the day fish were literally showing up by the hour and we absolutely hammered them over the next six hours! I don't think we quite reached 100 fish but our best 5 on my Boga Grip scale were over 27lbs and unfortunately Brian lost one that I estimated to be in the 8lb class, it was a giant!

I couldn't wait to get on the water the next morning and it didn't disappoint.  There was a mega school of fish on every ledge that I've ever seen a school and they were eating like it was late May again!  After experiencing some of the best fishing I've ever seen on KY Lake during and after the Rayovac, I couldn't believe it was possible that the lake was fishing even better the second week of June than then but that was definitely the case.  We ended that day with well over 100 bass, close to 28lbs on our best 5 and again we lost a true giant of a bass right by the boat that would of put us in the low 30's for weight!

My last trips that week were 3 hour electronics trips.  I scheduled 3 different trips that day and these trips usually consist of very little fishing, just enough to give the customer confidence in "catching them when they see them."  On my first trip we fished 3 different schools and at the end of the session our best 5 weighed 22lbs.  My next trip got cut short by a storm but our best 5 in that session off of 3 totally different schools weighed 24lbs!  On my last trip of the day I was determined to get us on another 20lb bag for the third time that day.  I spent a little more time fishing than scanning but we were only able to muster up about 18lbs on that trip.

I was more amazed each day with how good the lake was fishing and I had a Renegade team tournament with my good buddy David Gnewikow that weekend.  I'd told him it would take at least 28lbs to win it but I really felt like we could catch that even though I knew it would be tougher with more boat traffic on the lake and less current flowing.  The schools typically don't get set up good until the sun has been up for a while so Dave and I chose to spend the first few hours fishing shallow bars for isolated fish.  Three hours into the day we had a 5.5lber and four fish right at 4lbs each.  At 9am we headed to the depths to try and cull up.  As expected there were boats on just about every school but when we found something open I'd look at 'em on the Lowrance and if they looked right, we'd go to work on them.  With the lack of current the fish were moving around a lot and we never really got a school ignited but we did manage to cull all of our original 4lbers and weighed in 25.27lbs which was good enough for third place.  It took 27 for 2nd and 30 and some change to win it which didn't surprise me at all because I knew the lake was fishing about as good as I'd ever seen it.

Kentucky Lake was absolutely off the charts in June this year.  I took the last week of the month off to stay out of the FLW Tour guys way but I predicted before they got to town, several of them would break the century mark during the 4 day event.  Talking with some of my buddies that were fishing it during their practice, it sounded like it may be toughening up a little bit.  I went out with my dad to set his new Lowrance up the day before they started which is their off day and I noticed the fish were starting to suspend and were getting a lot tougher to catch.  That kind of changed my outlook on the Tour guys breaking 100lbs but they still smoked 'em pretty good and several of them averaged well over 20lbs a day.

As soon as all of the 2015 tournament schedules are released I'll start booking trips for next June.  If the lake fishes even half as good as it did this year, I can assure you, you won't be disappointed!

FLW RAYOVAC PART 2: TOURNAMENT MAY 29-31

TOURNAMENT DAY 1: Things didn't start off real well on day one. I got about the worst draw I could get with boat 104. That meant I was middle of the pack both days and wouldn't be able to get on anything either day if anyone else had found it. Then, I got to my unobvious school that I'd found on my first day of practice and there was a Ranger sitting dead on my waypoint. Taking that place out of play kind of through a kink into my game plan as I'd planned on milking it for an hour or so and then heading south to my shallow schools. I decided to just keep running south and if a community school that had good potential was open, scan them and if they were there, fish for them. I made it all the way to Paris and the first community place I really wanted to hit had a boat on it. The next place I had in mind was open and as I scanned down the ledge a Triton pulled up and dropped his trolling motor and started fishing so I moved on. I made my way down the lake and found an open school that were set up nicely. I knew this school had been out for awhile and I made a critical mistake. Every one's favorite bait to throw on a school is a crank bait and after they've been cranked for several weeks they become very aware of what a 6XD looks and feels like. Knowing this, I should've started with a different presentation but I didn't. I fired my 6XD out and burnt it through the school from several different angles and could feel the bait hitting the bass but never had a bite. Once I alerted the school of my presence they were impossible to catch on other presentations. As I was packing up to leave, the school came to the surface chasing shad and I was able to launch my 6XD right into the frenzy and pick up a 3.5lber and a 2.5lber but that was all I got off my first stop of the day. I was within a few miles of one of my shallow schools that I was really counting on and as I made my way there I glanced over into a creek that had a 17 or 18lb school in it. There was a boat sitting where they had been hanging out but where I knew they were headed was wide open. I pulled in and scanned the ledge and found the school. I fired out my 6XD and caught a 3.5lber on my first cast but that was it. I tried several different baits with no luck and then I switched angles on the school and changed colors on my crankbait and picked up another 3.5lber. A couple cast later my All Pro Blaster doubled over and I said "giant!" The fish came up by the boat and it's mouth looked like a 5 gallon bucket! My co angler scooped her up into the net and I thought for a minute it was an 8lber. Upon further inspection, she was still very thin from the spawn and only weighed 6.75lbs. That gave me a limit that weighed about 20lbs and I knew it was time to start targeting bigger fish. I headed to my first shallow school and there wasn't a boat in sight. I started near my waypoint and slowly worked down the bar with out a bite. I had another waypoint about 100 yards away where I'd caught fish in the past and I almost fired up my Mercury and ran to that waypoint but at the last minute I decided to just fish my way to my other waypoint and it was a good decision. I made it about 75 yards up the bar and a fish smoked my 6XD but missed it. My next cast I caught a 5lber! My co angler caught a couple 3lbers and a 4lber and then the action slowed. I grabbed a silent 6XD and fired it out onto the bar and loaded up on a big fish. The fish was swimming right at the boat and when she got several feet away she went air born and I just pulled her towards the boat and while she was in mid air my co angler caught her in the net. It was another 6lb class fish and I was feeling pretty good about things. I still had another shallow school of big fish another 25 miles south so at 10:30 am with 24lbs in my live well, I headed that way. As I approached the flat I was relieved to see there wasn't a bass boat anywhere around. I did notice a mussel diver boat in the area but what could that hurt right? As I got closer and closer I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The mussel diver's boat was right on my waypoint and his air bubbles were coming up right on the shell bed my fish were supposed to be laying on! What a way to lose a school in a tournament....to a mussel diver! I had a little place close by where I'd gotten some bites in practice so I beat around there for about 45 minutes and the diver never emerged. I finally eased back towards my waypoint and while the diver had moved off of the exact spot I wanted to fish, I never had a bite once he'd been down there crawling around. I was a little bummed out, but I had a good limit of fish in the boat and still had several hours to try and upgrade. I wanted to spend some time scanning a few places that hadn't had any fish on them in practice so I finished the day doing that plus I fished a few stumps and a couple of schools but never was able to upgrade and ended the day with 24lbs 2oz and was tied for 8th place.

TOURNAMENT DAY 2: I had a good feeling I would get a shot at the unobvious school I'd wanted to start on the first day since I had a little better boat number. I headed straight to it and it was wide open. I pulled up to my waypoint and fired out a 6XD and loaded up on a 3.5lber but the fish jumped straight out of the water and threw my bait. After about 20 more casts I hadn't had a bite and I was a little concerned that losing that fish so close to the school may have shut them down which happens often when you lose a fish right in the middle of an active school. About that time the Ranger boat that had started there on day 1 showed up and I could tell he was frustrated I'd beat him there. He shut down and watched me for a minute and I thought surely he would show me the same respect I showed him on day 1 and not move in on me. I could tell he wanted there badly but he eventually did the right thing and idled about 100 yards from me and just started fishing. A few minutes later a camera boat arrived to get some pics of the day 1 leaders for FLWOUTDOORS.com. I told him I'd jumped a fish off on my first cast and wasn't having any luck since. I told him I was about to leave and then I saw the guy in the Ranger up ahead of me bow up on a fish. I told my camera guy that in the three years I'd been fishing this school I'd never seen them get where that guy caught that fish but for the next 45 minutes he and his co angler caught one on every single cast! It was a hard thing to stomach and I don't know if the school swam over there after I lost that 3.5lber or what, but I had to suck it up and move on. I headed towards Paris and there were boats on absolutely everything. I finally found a couple of places open and scanned them with my Lowrance but never saw a fish. At 7:30 I'd reached the school I started on the first day and they were open and they were loaded. I asked my co to not start with a crankbait as this was the school I'd turned off the day before by cranking them. I picked up a Shadalicious swimbait on a 3/4oz jig head and fired it right into the school. I caught fish on my first five cast and had about 14lbs in the boat. I spent another half hour there but never upgraded so I moved on. I headed to the creek school that I'd caught my big one out of on day 1 and there wasn't a boat around but neither were the fish. I went ahead and fished the area and picked up a 3.5lber but that was it. I headed to my best shallow school and when I got within sight of it there were boats everywhere! I eased in to see if there was room for me to slip in with them but they were scattered about every 25 yards down the bar. I didn't want to totally bail on it because it had the biggest average fish of anything I had so I made a short run to a channel ledge where I've caught some in the past so I could keep an eye on the bar and see if it ever opened up. I fished for an hour or so and actually hit a school of fish that we beat down with a 6XD but they were all 3lbs or less and wouldn't help my cause. I kind of lost track of what was happening on my shallow bar when we started catching fish but once the action slowed I glanced over and it looked like it had thinned out a bit. I ran back to it and there was only one boat left but he was sitting dead on where I'd caught them the day before. His boat was pointing north so I eased in south of him and fished towards him and he immediately turned towards me. I fired up and ran north of him and once again, he swung around and turned towards me. For those that don't know, this is the nice way of saying, "you're not going to fish here!" I got the message and looked at my coangler and said, "we have to make something happen." I decided to head back north and if I could find an open school, just work them over and try and get some big bites out of them. The first open school wasn't one I've caught a lot of size out of in the past but I only had 15lbs and I knew every pound was critical. I caught a few on a swimbait and culled by ounces. When they shut down I was still seeing them on the sonar so I pulled my drop shot out and caught a couple 3.5 lbers. This got me up to about 17lbs and I decided to gamble on some big fish places the rest of the day. I headed to a shallow creek channel ledge where I've caught big fish in the past but I'd never found a school of big ones there. I caught a 2.5lber on my first cast with a jig and it was on! We caught them every cast for an hour and I was culling constantly but only by ounces. I knew there had to be a few big ones in the school so I pulled out a Bottom Dweller spinnerbait and started working around the school. I finally found an angle they liked and I caught a 4.5 and a 5 on consecutive casts and I thought I was about to put 25lbs in the boat! I culled up to about 19lbs, got lined back up and I knew I was one big one away from sealing a top ten slot but they started just slapping my spinner bait. The next thing I knew my co called for the net and I scooped up a 6lber for him that he caught on the jig. I want my co anglers to catch fish and I never try and hinder them from catching fish but I knew that fish would've been a game changer if it had been on the end of my line instead of his. I tried to shake it off and a few minutes later he popped another fish in the 5lb class! I could see my chances of another big day and the top ten cut slipping away as time was running out. I never culled the rest of the day and ended up with 19lbs 2oz and was in 9th place at the time I weighed in. I went to a local restaurant and watched the rest of the weigh-in online and with about ten guys left, I got bumped to 11th place and missed the cut by less than a pound!

SUMMARY: What an awesome but at the same time frustrating tournament. I had no idea what we were heading into since I hadn't tried to catch a lot of fish in practice. I thought 21lbs a day would win and 18lbs a day would make the top ten cut. When I had that good bag the first day I really thought I'd be in the top three but barely made the top ten. I knew then I needed to catch them big on day 2 but just had a few things go wrong and couldn't make it happen. The bottom line was that I didn't figure out how to catch that 4lb average. I think I was the only one in the top 20 that weighed in 3.5lbers both days. The other guys were averaging 4lbers and I wasn't. If I had 4lbers to go with my 5 to 7lbers both days, I would've made it easily. It's hard to complain about catching 44lbs of bass in a couple days and putting 5 grand in the bank for doing it but it would have been a real honor to make a cut with such an All Star line up of off shore fishermen. As I predicted, the Pickwick guys which are all Tour Pros as well, dominated the top ten. A lot of people don't know that ledge fishing isn't what I consider one of my strengths. I actually had never caught a bass deeper than six feet of water until 2008. I've worked very hard at it since then and I've learned a lot. I feel like I can find them as good as anyone but I'm not the best at catching them and getting the most out of the school. I learned a lot from this tournament about what I need to work on and I've been on the lake guiding almost everyday since the Rayovac and have already learned a few new tricks. Hopefully if the Rayovac comes to town in late May or June again next year there'll be a KY Lake guy holding the trophy on Saturday!

FLW RAYOVAC PART 1: PRACTICE MAY 24-26

At the beginning of the year I wasn't even sure if I was going to enter the Rayovac due to the fact the 350 boat Triton Owners Tournament was going on the same week. I knew that 99% of the bass population would be schooled up offshore and nowadays it seems everyone knows how to find all of the schools and I also knew it would be a very frustrating tournament trying to find a place to fish that didn't have a boat sitting on it. I also do a lot of guide business before the TOT and I hated to gamble on tournament winnings as opposed to making guaranteed money guiding. A month or so before tournament time, I knew I'd be sick if I didn't enter, so I registered for the tournament. 

As the end of May drew near, I'd thought a lot about how big of a cluster it was going to be with 600 boats trying to fish schools. I also knew the field would be full of the best school fishermen on the planet, the majority of which, in my opinion, hail from Pickwick Lake. Pickwick has a fraction of the schools we do at KY but they hold massive numbers of bass. Everyone finds them and they have 100's of baits rained down upon them every day and are at times seemingly impossible to catch. I really believe the Pickwick guys are the best school fishermen in the world and I also believe there are a couple different reasons why they're so good at what they do. First of all, they are experts at figuring out a way to catch the better quality fish out of schools that have been heavily pressured and secondly, they don't mind fishing in a crowd for the most part. I on the other hand, am not an expert at making the bigger fish bite out of a community hole school and I absolutely will NOT fish boat to boat with someone. With all of this in my head, I knew those boys would be hard to beat because it was setting up perfectly for what they're best at. At the same time, it hit me that if a guy had a smart game plan, he could possibly do really well. Once I started looking at it from that perspective, I couldn't wait to get practice underway and start putting together a plan to out think my competitors as opposed to out fishing them.

PRACTICE DAY 1: I had made up my mind that if I were to have a chance to win, a few different things needed to happen. I needed to spend the majority of practice searching for shallow schools that couldn't be found with a Lowrance. I also have a few places that aren't community holes that the fish use for short periods of time each year and when they get there, they're definitely the right kind. The catch to this is, I never know when they're going to show up and I don't know how long they'll stay when they do. I decided to only fish shallow bars and ditches during practice, scan a few community places along the way just to see how many schools were heading out and how many fish were in them and most importantly keep a close eye on these few "secret" spots I know about.

I headed to Paris Landing on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and needed to get my Mercury broken in first and foremost. I headed towards KY dam and figured by the time I got back to the Blood River area I'd have enough time on my engine and I could start my search. On my way back south I got to the Jonathan Creek area and decided to scan a few places. I found two schools and caught 20lbs out of them pretty quickly. I knew immediately that if I could catch 20lbs north of 68 bridge, the north end had to be on fire because I don't think I've ever caught a limit that far north! As tough as the north end of the lake has been the past few years, I assumed that if it was that good, the south would be even better. I spent the rest of the day fishing my way back to the Blood River area covering as many shallow stump bars and creek ledges as I could and never had a bite. Before I called it a day I ran by one of the "secret" holes I mentioned and it was absolutely covered with bass. I never even checked up, I just put my Triton on pad and headed to the ramp. Finding these fish that early in practice would make for a stressful few days. I didn't know how long they would hang around and I knew the longer they were there, the better chance there would be of someone else finding them. I just tried to put it out of my mind so I could start fresh on Sunday morning.

PRACITCE DAY 2: I spent day two from Blood River to Danville and again cranked and jigged my way around every shallow structure I could find with no success. I did a lot more scanning that day and I was seeing some interesting things. One thing I noticed was that the schools that had been out on the river for a week or so were getting more numbers in them everyday and the creek schools were moving further out of the creeks. I also noticed that places that hadn't had any fish on them, had a few showing up. The thing that I was most excited about though, was that a lot of places didn't have any fish on them yet. These things told me that new fish were coming out everyday and they were moving a lot. I felt like this could play into my favor because most people wouldn't fish anything during the tournaments if they were void of life in practice and I could possibly find an untapped school once competition began.

PRACTICE DAY 3: It was Memorial Day and the lake was wild with pleasure boaters and fishermen. I figured this would be a good day to fish the shallow stuff from Danville to New Johnsonville so I headed out, picked up a 6XD and never let out of it until the sun was setting. It made for a long and at times boring day but I found what I'd been looking for, two schools too shallow to scan and holding the biggun's! On the way in that day the current was ripping and I hadn't made a single cast to a school of deep fish in three days. I decided to pull up on a giant community hole and make up for a long three days of not doing much catching. I caught them every cast for about an hour and had several 4 to 4.5lbers during the flurry. 


With more and more Triton owners showing up on the lake everyday, I decided not to practice anymore the rest of the week. I was really disappointed in what a lot of them were doing during practice. I've never seen so many guys just pull up and almost run over the top of you while your trying to scan a ledge. I already knew if anyone saw someone else catch a fish that place would be history and that's why I chose not to make a cast on a school during practice and I caught very few out of the shallow schools I found. It's really sad that so many people find there fish by watching others and it's a little scary to think about where it's headed. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if GPS and Structure Scan were banned for life after what I saw that week.

So, heading into my biggest tournament of the year this is what I had to go on. One unobvious school of fish that I'd found five days prior to the event with a history of not lingering around very long, two shallow bar schools with some big ones in them but I wasn't sure how many and if all that didn't pan out, I had enough confidence in my Lowrance that I could find a fresh school during the tournament. I felt like I'd accomplished what I'd set out to do during practice and while it was somewhat of a risky plan and/or approach, I felt much better about it than relying on community holes like I have the past two years.

MAY- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

May was a crazy month with lots of things going on both good and bad. I've gotten way behind on my blog so I'm going to catch up thru the last week of May and then have a separate entry for the FLW Rayovac.

May began with KY Lake a foot above summer pool and falling. An old friend of mine, Britt Franks, had asked me to fish the Budweiser out of Perryville with him and luckily I had an open weekend. Britt owns All Around Industrial Inc. and back when I walked out of my day job to fish, he offered to sponsor me for a year and that sponsorship is a big reason I'm still in business. We both have hectic schedules and rarely get to talk anymore much less fish together so I was really looking forward to spending some time with my old buddy. 

I had a guide trip the day before the tournament and decided to use it as practice for the Bud. Britt had been practicing way south of New Jville and was catching some fish but didn't feel like they were the size we needed to compete. I headed to Jville and flipped all of my favorite areas without much success. With the water falling I really felt like the islands would be our best bet as the fish would pull out to the outer willows and bushes as the water fell. I kept the trolling motor on high and finally hit a stretch of island that produced several fish over 4lbs for my client. I had a pretty good idea that if he was catching fish with the Motor Guide on high, I could Power Pole down and pick it apart in the tournament and catch a pretty good bag. 

Britt and I headed straight there Saturday morning and the action got underway immediately and lasted all day. It was one of the most fun days of flipping I've ever had. We had 20lbs by 8am that included a 6.5 lber that Britt pulled over a willow, around a bush and then pinned it to another willow for 5 minutes while I busted my Triton through a jungle to get to her! It was without a doubt the coolest landing of a fish I've ever seen and one that doesn't make it into the boat very often in a tournament. Although we landed some fish we probably shouldn't have out of the thickest, nastiest cover I've ever attempted to fish, we lost three giants that would've given us the biggest bag I'd ever been involved in flipping. We still caught around 75 bass with our best 5 weighing 23.60lbs which landed us in 3rd place. Britt came up to me at weigh in, took his shoes off and dumped them on the deck of my boat.....they were full of willow bark! That should give you an idea of just how far back in the junk we were. Power Poles and All Pro Rods Flippin' Sticks played huge roles in this one.

The following week I had 4 trips scheduled and an ABA WBS out of Moors. I came down with a terrible sore throat and fever after my 2nd trip and had to cancel my other two. I went to the Dr. on Friday and got a shot of the good stuff so I could fish the tournament on Saturday. I decided to head to Barkley for one last weekend of flipping and I made it about 15 miles that morning and blew my engine! The last time I blew an engine in a BWS was in 2010 and I used it as motivation and won that tournament. I told my co angler we were going to make it happen and I trolled into the closest pocket and started flippin'.  Within an hour I'd lost three fish over 3lbs in the worst looking pockets I'd ever seen on Barkley lake and that took the wind out of my sails. I ended up landing one keeper the rest of the day and I just pitched it and got towed in. Thanks Odom's Blue and Gray Marine and Mercury for getting my boat running as good as new and back on the water in a very short time.

The next week I went out with a good friend of mine in preparation for the FLW Tour he'll be fishing in late June. We scanned all of the places that should have fish on them when he comes back and found 8 schools that were already out. I had a BFL coming up that weekend so I decided to head to the best of them which also happened to be the furthest south. When I arrived, my buddy Rodney Clawson was already there so I decided to scan a place or two close by until Rodney left. I never saw any fish on my Lowrance so I headed to a bar nearby that I knew would have the big ones headed to it soon. I fished a long section of the bar and my co angler lost a giant on a Strike King 6 XD. I dropped a waypoint and spent the next few hours cranking that section and managed to catch 17lbs 3oz and finished in 11th place.

The following Monday I was riding around with another FLW Tour Pro friend and pulled up on the section of bar I'd fished in the BFL just to see if they were still there. We caught over 25 lbs in ten minutes! HA! Typical fishing, always catch 'em when it doesn't count. That place would end up playing a big role in the Rayovac the next week but I'll get to that in another entry.

So, May was very busy and very interesting to say the least. I had several guide trips towards the end of the month and the fish were coming out to the ledges by the hour. I could actually watch the schools get bigger from day to day and I had a good feeling it was setting up for a slug fest in the upcoming Rayovac both with the fish and the 400 Triton Owners that were coming out of Paris the same week.

Stihl's Reel in the Outdoors, LBL BFL April 12, April Fishing in General and Tom O'Bryants Unbelievable Month

I have lot's of stuff to ramble about this week and it all sort of ties in together so instead of writing four separate blogs, I've decided to try and pack it all into one and keep it as short as possible so no one falls asleep on me while reading.

It's no secret to those that know me that April and I don't mesh very well on KY Lake unless the water reaches flood stage. I can go from lost to catching 20+ lbs overnight if that water reaches the shoreline cover. I've worked hard since my first year of fishing the BFL's on KY/Barkley Lakes back in 2006 to try and understand low water April fishing better. One thing that definitely stands out is that April is always, without a doubt, the lowest winning weight tournament of the year in the LBL division of the BFL's unless of course, the water is in the bushes.

I think one reason I stumble this time of year is the fact that I really, really, really don't like fishing the bank on KY Lake. I like fishing shallow, I just like to stay out in the middle to fish shallow. Barkley is a different story, I have some banks that are a flipper's paradise over there that I have a ton of confidence in but usually it's just a smaller grade fish on average you catch as opposed to KY. That's why this year I decided to be a little more open minded and try and overcome my hatred of bank beating leading up to this tournament.

Another thing I've learned for sure over the years is that I have to be content with "only" being around 2.5 to 3lb class fish this time of year. I say "only" because normally that size fish WILL NOT win or come close to winning on KY Lake. One year I thought I could only catch around 14lbs on KY Lake so I gambled and went to Barkley without practice and only caught a few keepers, 14lbs made the top 5 in that event. That's why this year I had told a couple of my buddies to remind me before this tournament that if I could get around 3lbers, I could end up doing really well.

PRACTICE: I was coming off of a 3rd place finish in the ABA WBS in which I caught my fish shallow but still somewhat offshore on a Redeye Shad and was hoping that would hold up for one more week. I had a guide trip last Tuesday and realized the fish had made yet another move and I knew then that it was inevitable that I was going to have to fish the bank!

Joe Thomas and I have been trying to get together for awhile now and film a show and every time I'm whackin' those ol' biggun's, he's busy. I told him the water would be in the bushes soon and it would make a great show and he said he really needed to do something before that. Wouldn't you know the first time I get to do a major T.V. deal, it's during my absolute least favorite time to fish my favorite lake. I really wanted to have a good day because I wanted Joe to want to come back and film again when the fishing is on fire.  We headed out Wednesday morning and I was just praying something good would happen.

We ran through my Redeye Shad places just to make sure another wave hadn't moved in and I caught a nice smallmouth pretty quickly . Unfortunately that was the only "t.v." fish we caught off of that pattern and we both knew it was bank time. I explained to Joe that I hated fishing the bank but the fish should be on the first available cover closest to the bank so we headed to my favorite creek, that is if I have to venture into a creek. The first piece of cover we came to I pitched in and caught a fish pushing 4lbs and while we were messing with that the wind blew us closer to the bank and Joe popped one on a square bill in the 4lb class.  Long story short, we ended up putting a little pattern together and while we didn't catch a ton of keepers, everyone we caught was in the 3 to 5.5lb range which they said would make for a great show!  I was very relieved that they were happy with the day and it was an absolute blast filming with Joe and Jimmy the camera man.  After just a little while in the boat it was like we'd known each other forever and I look forward to doing it again especially when we can do something fun as opposed to throwing at gravel banks all day! I also got a little excited about what we found that day believe it or not and I had a good  feeling that if the fish were on those type banks on KY, Barkley may just be the ticket for me to break the April curse.

I spent the next two days on south and even further south Barkley and the fishing was phenomenal.  I wasn't catching giant fish, but I caught 15 to 18lbs both days within a few minutes.  I shook off the majority of the bites I had but when I set the hook they were anywhere from 2.5 to 6lbers.  I was getting anywhere from 50 to 75 bites a day and by 2 p.m. Friday, I was headed home to get all of my  Rodents out of storage and get ready to go to work on them Saturday morning.

TOURNAMENT:  I made a short (for me) 50 mile run from Moors Resort to my first stop and couldn't wait to get the action underway.  We caught a couple short fish real quick and I knew it was about to happen.  As I made my way down the bank, bites were few and far between and other than a small keeper my co angler picked up, every fish we caught wasn't even close to 15".  I decided the only thing different that day compared to practice was that the sun wasn't on the bank yet so I made a short run to another good stretch of bank that the sun was beaming down on.  I made it to the end of the stretch and had only caught one short.  I fished over to the other side of the pocket and as I worked my way out I saw a white flash under the water.  I trolled in for closer inspection and I saw about a 3.5lber and a 2lber hovering over a bed.  I dropped my Power Poles and made a quiet pitch to the bed and neither fish moved.  After a few pitches I finally popped the female in the side with my bait and she slowly swam out of the bed and the male back peddled up under some branches.  That's when it hit me that the fish were right smack in the middle of the spawning ritual and the only way to catch them is to pester them into biting.  On a clear lake this wouldn't have been that big of a deal but on south Barkley, it's not an option.  If I had it to do over again, I would've immediately headed back to KY Lake and tried to salvage the day but I noticed in practice the better fish I caught in this particular pocket had some blood on their tails and the fish I caught 25 miles further south didn't.  That made me think that just maybe those more southern fish were still a day or two behind and I could still catch 'em if I fished thoroughly enough.  I made another 25 mile run south and picked every little piece of cover apart and ended up catching one keeper the rest of the day.


SUMMARY:  Believe it or not, I wasn't as bent out of shape over such a horrible day as you would think.  I've been burnt on this same deal before and it's just part of it sometimes during the spawn.  I've had a very blessed season so far and can't let one bomb in a tournament get me down. The main thing I was upset over is not setting the hook on the 50 to 75 bites I was getting in practice.  Had I known they weren't going to bite on Saturday, I would've been sure to let them all know I was there on Thursday and Friday. Congrats to my good friends Jeff Archie, Jackson Ryley and Terry Chastain on top 10 finishes!

This is an entirely different subject but when a guy does what the guy I'm about to talk about has done they deserve some recognition.

A lot of people may have never heard of Tom O'Bryant because he doesn't do the social media thing, or the team deal thing or the fancy jersey thing but what he does do is flat out catch 'em!  He and I became friends a couple of years ago when we dueled it out for the "W" in a couple of ABA WBS events.  The first one was August 2012 and Tom had me beat fair and square but a fish care penalty cost him the win and I ended up with the trophy and the fairly substantial Triton Gold/Mercury check that came with it.  Tom was the first guy to congratulate me and I really respected him for that.  Our next tournament was the two day event and Tom was in first right ahead of me after day one.  His fish didn't bite on day two and for the second time in a month I edged him out and once again he was all smiles and the first to congratulate me.  We went through the same thing last year in the two day event and Tom lost the fish to beat me but I landed every bite I had and once again edged him out.  The point I'm trying to make is that at that point some people would be ready to strangle me and making all kinds of excuses as to why they didn't win but Tom just isn't that way.  He's got the same smile on his face when he catches 8lbs as when he catches 34lbs like he did a month ago.  What he's done the past month is pretty incredible and hasn't gotten a lot of attention because it has been in smaller tournaments that don't get the publicity the BFL's and WBS get.  He's caught five bass over 10lbs the past month, three of which were in competition!  He won a Sportsmen's Digest team event in March with 33.94lbs and had a 10.24 and a 10.98lber!  Yesterday he weighed in 28+ and had an absolute freak that weighed 11.84lbs.  There are a bunch of guys on this lake that a lot of people don't know because they don't play the Facebook game or write articles or wear fancy jerseys that can flat out catch fish as good as anybody on the planet.  These are the guys that don't care about the glory they just fish solely for they're love of our sport and I just want to give a shout out to all of them, especially Mr. O'Bryant.

Me and Joe Thomas Reelin' in the Outdoors!

TOM THE GIANT SLAYER!

ABA Weekend Bass Series KY Division Barkley Lake, April 5

I had all intentions of practicing on Barkley for this one especially after I'd called my dad to come up last Monday and get in on some of the umbrella rig action that was taking place and we only caught ten fish all day. I couldn't believe just two days after catching fish until my fingers bled, we could barely get a bite on any of my offshore schools. Luckily a couple of the ones we caught were the right caliber and my dad ended up boating a 4lber and a 6lber that day. 

Tuesday was the second Sportsmen's Digest Series 1 event of the year and I decided to spend that day "making sure" my umbrella rig deal was over. I fished from Paris to New Johnsonville dropping A bomb's on every place I could think of and at 11 a.m. I had one bite, a 2.5lber. I spent another hour really working one of my productive areas from last weekend over in hopes of relocating the school. I fished from the river channel to the back of a pocket and never had a bite. At about noon I was almost convinced that I wasn't even going to catch a limit of bass after catching 15 limits just a few days earlier. I pulled out my old trusty Redeye Shad and headed to the shallows and ended up catching 18.62lbs which landed me in 5th place and I had 2nd big fish with a 5.20. The key thing I learned from this tournament was that if a 5.20lber was the 2nd biggest fish caught in a tournament featuring some of the best New Johnsonville fishermen alive, the "biggun's" were definitely on the move.

Since my track record in April on KY Lake is far from stellar (unless the water hits the bushes), I was definitely planning on spending my practice time on Barkley after Tuesday but my guide trip the next day on KY changed my tune. I figured I'd take the guy out and whack a bunch of 3lbers on a Redeye Shad and then head to Barkley on Thursday and Friday to try and figure something out for the tournament. My client could only do a half day so I met him at Paris Landing at 11 a.m. and we headed to the place I'd caught a few in the Series 1. I gave him my all time favorite spring rattle bait, the Chili Craw Redeye Shad and told him it was THE bait he needed to be throwing because every fish I've weighed in this year on a lipless crankbait has come on that very bait. He started fishing and asked me why I wasn't fishing and I said it was his trip and I wanted him to catch the fish. He told me that was like us going to play golf and me just keeping score so he wanted me to fish. I pulled another Redeye Shad out in Sexy Shad that I'd thrown some the day before and not had a bite on thinking that would give him the best shot at catching the fish. My third cast with the Sexy produced a 2.5lber. He commented that he thought his bait was supposed to be the magic color and I assured him that it was. A few casts later I bowed up on a pretty good one. I swung it into the boat and it was pushing 5lbs! By this time he's really on my case about how his bait was supposed to be better than mine and again I explained to him how I'd caught so many on the Chili Craw that the paint was chewed off and I hadn't had a bite all year on Sexy Shad. I tried to swap baits with him but he said at that point he was determined to catch a fish on the "magic" color. I power poled down and fan cast around for a few minutes and then I hooked into something I couldn't move. At first I thought it was a stump but I could hear my line singing as it was cutting through the water and just as I said "this can't be a bass", an absolute toad tried to exit the water but she was just too big to get much air and my Redeye came flying back at us! He looked at me and said "that was a ten!" I assured him it wasn't a 10lber but it was definitely in the 8-9lb class and I was just thanking the good Lord we weren't in a tournament! To make a long story short, we caught 'em pretty dang good the next few hours and yes, he did finally catch some on the Chili Craw but I never heard the end of how I gave him the color the big ones didn't want and all that good stuff. It was all in good fun and we ended the day with about 22lbs and could've had substantially more had I landed the giant.

Even after the pretty solid thrashing we put on them on Wednesday I was still skeptical about running that far during the tournament. We were launching out of Barkley Lodge, 80+ miles from where we were catching our fish and those shallow Redeye fish tend to be very undependable. One day their big, the next day their small, the next day their gone, the next day their medium sized, etc., etc. I still wanted to get some time in on Barkley and if I didn't figure anything out over there, I'd roll the dice and make the run to my Redeye fish on KY. That night I found out there were several other tournaments on south Barkley that weekend and that's all I needed to hear. I made up my mind to make the run to KY Lake.

TOURNAMENT: I made the 80 mile run yesterday morning in just over an hour. There was a big college tournament going on at Paris and those guys were all over the bank I was fishing but they weren't on the little flat where the fish were holding so I felt like I was going to be in good shape. I got lined up and dropped my power poles and caught a short fish in just a few casts. A couple casts later I hooked a solid 3.5lber. I smiled at my co angler thinking we were about to unload on 'em but I never had another bite. After trying several baits from several angles, I just couldn't get them going so I made a move. I pulled up on the stretch where I'd lost the giant on Wednesday and pretty quickly put another 3lber in the boat. I slowly fished the bar dropping my power poles and fan casting different baits around making sure I gave every fish around a fair chance to ride in my new Triton. I made it right to where I'd lost the big one Wednesday and hooked a fish! It pulled a little drag and I thought I had hooked another monster but it ended up being a foul hooked 3lber. My next cast I caught a fish pushing 4lbs and that was it for that stretch. I fished another area mainly to give my other two places time to rest and never caught anything. I made it back over to where I started and caught a 2.75lber on my first cast which was number five. I was relieved to catch a limit but I was a little disappointed in the quality. My very next cast one smoked it and it was another good one pushing 4lbs but it came off about half way to the boat! I can't complain because that's the first fish I've lost all year in a tournament but at the time I had no idea how critical that mistake was going to be. I ended up culling once more that day with a 3.25lber and had to leave to head back at 1 p.m. I had a long time to think about my day as I made my way back to Barkley Lodge and really I couldn't think of anything I would've done differently. I felt like other than losing that fish that only cost me about a half pound I'd fished pretty efficiently considering I only had 4 hours to work. My main goal at that point was getting a check to pay some of my gas bill and when I weighed in I learned something a little disturbing. I was in 2nd place with 17.40lbs and 17.50lbs was leading. That's when it really set in that the one I lost could very well come back to haunt me. I was just hoping that somebody would weigh in a big stringer so I wouldn't have to think about losing the winning fish and I finally got word that Harry Barber had a good bag and was probably going to win it. When Harry weighed in he took the lead and eventually won with 17.75lbs! I like Harry a lot and was happy for him to win but man I couldn't quit thinking about letting that 4lber get away. I ended up 3rd and got my Toyota Bonus Bucks again for the 5th straight event so that was a good thing.

SUMMARY: These low weight tournaments drive me nuts! These are the tournaments that you have to capitalize on and this is the 2nd tournament in less than a year out of Barkley Lodge that took 17lbs to win and I was right there just a few ounces out of it. There's a fine line between fishing to win and being stupid and I leaned towards the stupid side in this one. I was bummed out that my fish weren't the size I was hoping for and I got a little sloppy trying to land them. I sort of took it for granted that they were "just" 3.5lbers and not the kind of fish you win with but when it was all said and done, they were the winning fish I just didn't know it. This is something I definitely need to work on. I have it in my head that you have to have 5+ lbers to win a tournament and I don't put the TLC into landing lesser quality fish. Unfortunately this isn't the first time I've made this mistake. Oh well, it could've been worse, I'm just thankful to make it through another event safe and sound with a top 5 finish. Congrats to my friend Harry Barber on the "W" and my good buddy and Guntersville legend Ed Gettys on his 4th place finish.

ABA Weekend Bass Series TN Central Division KY Lake, March 29

My good buddy David Gnewikow and I fished a team tournament out of KY Dam Marina last weekend so we decided we would practice separately. I had a horrible day on the north end of the lake managing only 3 keepers. Dave figured out a pretty strong umbrella rig pattern down south so we decided to spend our tournament there. We caught a ton of fish but never caught any big ones and ended up 13th with 17lbs. I had an electronics trip Monday and had no intentions of fishing afterwards but it was such a nice day I decided to make a few casts. I decided to play around with the pattern Dave had figured out in the Paris area and the third place I hit produced a couple of 3lbers and a 7lber. I found a couple more places that day and when it was said and done my best 5 weighed over 26lbs and I felt like I had really fine tuned the pattern.

I had a guide trip Wednesday and spent the day trying to expand on what I'd found Monday and by the end of the day we'd caught 40 or 50 bass, several stripers in the 15-20lb range and our best 5 largemouth went about 23lbs. After that, I was so dialed into what I needed to look for I decided to not even practice for the upcoming ABA WBS.

TOURNAMENT: After a beautiful week of low wind, sunny skies and mild temperatures, a big cold front rolled through Friday night and Saturday morning. We launched out of Paris Landing Marina into a cold steady rain and a steady 20 mph north wind. Strong current and a stout north wind create some giant swells on KY Lake but I knew from past experience the bite would be on fire in those big waves for the guys that were willing to fight it all day. My first stop was what I thought was my best school but after a half hour I'd caught a handful of stripers and three bass. One of them was pushing 6lbs but it definitely wasn't as good as I was hoping. I made a short run to my next best place and it was on! I caught a largemouth or smallmouth on every cast for about 20 minutes and when I'd exhausted the school at 8 a.m., I had around 21lbs. My next stop was loaded with 2 and 3lb class fish and after catching at least one on every cast for awhile, they shut off and I never upgraded. With the waves getting bigger by the hour I had a decision to make. Should I run around trying to fish everything I'd found earlier in the week, or stay close and rotate through the three places that had already produced for me that morning? I really felt like the two places I'd started on had the potential to produce the winning fish so I decided to spend the day bouncing back and forth between the two. I headed back to where I started for round two and I was catching a striper on every cast. I knew the bass had to be close by so with each cast I moved a littler further up onto the flat and suddenly I had slack knocked in my line four times on one retrieve! I knew then I'd hit the school and my next cast produced a 3 and a 4lber. I made a quick cull and fired out another cast and caught another fish over 4lbs. This went on for awhile and then I hooked my biggest fish of the day, a 6.54lber. The action finally slowed so I headed back to my other little honey hole about a mile away and while the school was still busted up from my earlier assault, I did manage to cull twice. It was 10:45 a.m. and on my scales I had over 25lbs. I caught another 18 to 20lb stringer or two as the day went on but never was able to upgrade again. I'll never complain when I have a 5lb average but this day and age on KY Lake you never feel sure you have a tournament won unless you have over 30lbs and some days your not safe with that, but with the conditions we had that day I thought I may have a shot at the "W". I got in line to weigh in and before I ever made it to the stage, Craig Dowling weighed in 29.08lbs! I knew I didn't have enough to overtake him but I honestly didn't even care. I'd had a blast out there bouncing around on those five footers catching 3 to 6.5 lbers all day. Before the scales closed another 29.08lb bag was weighed in and I ended up 3rd with 25.82lbs and claimed my fourth Toyota Bonus Bucks check in as many tries.

SUMMARY: Absolutely, by far, the most fun I've had in a tournament in a long time. There's just something about fishing in such horrible conditions that most people think it would be impossible to even catch a bass and just thumpin' 'em all day long! I even had to cull an 18lb limit of smallmouth which was pretty cool because I've never even caught a limit of smallmouth in a tournament before.

I've mentioned several times before that every good finish I have, there seems to be a critical piece of equipment that made it possible. This time it was no doubt my new Triton TRX, Mercury Pro XS and MotorGuide 109 trolling motor. I ran around like a mad man all day in those giant waves and my boat and engine got me everywhere I needed to go safely and comfortably. The deck on the new TRX looks like an aircraft carrier and I stood up there all day with waves breaking over the bow and never missed a cast. Last but not least, my MotorGuide 109 allowed me to stay right on my waypoints and quickly return when I blew 100 yards away while culling or rigging baits. Thanks Triton, Mercury and Odom's Blue and Gray Marine for allowing me to run the best tournament rig in the industry!