5 tournaments, 7 tournament days and it has rained at least 6 hours at each one here on Kentucky Lake. After our torrential rains and mass flooding two weeks ago during the BWS the lakes came up 10 feet one foot below record flood stage. The USCG for the first time ever shut down the lakes on Weds. 5/5/2010 to recreational boating, which they opened more water each day as the debris started spreading out. There was one point on Thursday I thought that you could honestly walk across Lake Barkley without touching water.






The sign pretty much says it all, anyone who has put in at the KY Lake Damn Marina knows this sign. The lakes crested on Mon. 5/10 and the Army Corp. began to draw the lakes back down to summer pool, 359 at a rate of 18-24 inches a day. This meant every day you put the boat in you were looking at a new lake. 

    AFS practice - with the lakes high there was alot of new water and one pattern that seemed to hold true every where at least for me was fishing in peoples yards with either a shallow crankbait or pitching plastics such as an Outkast Tackle "Naughty Bug" and Tru-Tungsten  flippin weight. I wasn't catch the quality of fish that it would take to win but could count on it to catch fish. Flippin bushes is was the other and most utilized pattern that most guys seemed to be running, and with the high water there were a lot more of them to fish the only problem at some points there was to much water as it went forever behind the bushes in threw the woods. I spent Sunday the 9th out on the main river ledges south of Paris without much luck what so ever and nixed that out of the plans. Monday I spent the day flippin bushes and working really shallow with a small bit of success but nothing to get excited about and am starting to get a bit depressed. I was staying with my bro Brent Anderson from Kingston Springs, TN who has a trailer at Buchanan Resort in Paris. While housing down some pizza subs that night he said he had the best day ever numbers wise on KY lake and pointed me in the right direction, which seemed to have the fish still using the old creek channel bank rather than moving up with the water. I spent Tuesday running that pattern and was able to find a couple schools of fish but nothing really big. Wednesday I decided I better take a look at Barkley to make sure I wasn't missing anything over there and I wasn't. 

    Day 1 of the AFS I decided to make the 1hr 15 min run south to the creek that I had found a couple schools in. Being in the middle of the flights I wasn't who else was going to be there but to my suprise no one was even in the area. Starting out throwing a Norman Deep Little N crankbait my 3rd cast I double up with a short and a 15 1/2'' keeper. Then over the next hour I boated 50+ more fish, it was totally insane unfortunately nothing over 2lbs was boated. We worked farther back into the creek to check another school but with the water dropping almost 4 feet since Tuesday all the fish had pulled out to the mouth. I turned around and headed back to the first school and they had moved almost 50yds already also. After relocating them it was a fish on every cast for 20 minutes, it was just stupid, in the next hour I must have caught another 75+ fish but again nothing to upgrade with, but it was an absolute blast from not catching much the last week prefishing to just loading the boat was awesome. I decided as the fishing slowed to check another creek but as I pulled into this one there were 5 boats on the stuff I wanted to fish. We fished through them but only catching a few short fish it was time to go. With only a couple hours left to fish before having to make the long run back I headed north and stopped on a point in front of spawning bay. I told my co-angler I wasn't sure if we would be able to fish it with the wind blowing as hard as it was in on it but if we catch one it would be the right one. After working up the point to the sweet spot I boated a very skinny 17'' smallie which did cull out one of the largemouths. Blowing off the spot while culling we motored back up the sweet spot and after making a half dozen more casts with a fat free shad I bowed up on another fish. It didn't fight much and my co-angler asked if I needed the net and I said I wasn't sure. He came up there with it anyway and as the fish came to the surface he was going to put the net down as it looked like a drum. After doing a double take at it I realized it was a big largmouth and started screaming for him to put the net in the water and boated what would be my biggest largemouth yet a 7-12 beauty.
   



Blowing off the spot again, during all the celebration and what a natural high, we motored back up the sweet spot and after making a couple more casts with the crankbait I picked up the new T-2 football head by Outkast Tackle and began dragging that across the point. The school was fired up and again the bite was on! It was literally every cast for 15-20 minutes then slowed to every other or every 3rd cast, and was able to cull up a couple more fish, what an unbelievable day of fishing and my thumbs are raw but who's complaining. At weigh-in I had 5 that weighed 17-2 good for a tie for 10th place which is the cut line to make the final day. 

    Day 2 - You can pretty much guess where I am going to start. We ran down there and just in the nick of time as another boat was wanting to get on it also. Fishing wasn't quit as fast as yesterday but I manage to boat a couple decent keepers and dozen short fish before deciding to move to another point close by. Pulling up on the point I began throwing the T-2 again and boated a couple more short fish. My co-angler starting throwing one also and put his first keeper in the boat a nice 3 1/2lb smallie. It didn't take him long to box his 2nd and 3rd keepers a couple 15 1/2'' fish. I was still catching shorts on a regular basis and about every 30 minutes he would boat solid keeper. With him now having a decent limit and I still only have two fish we ran to another 3 points where we caught a couple more shorts but nothing to help. With only about an hour left to fish before the hour run back we pulled back up on the starting point. With the wind blowing 35+ out of the north it made it difficult to fish to say the least and twice as hard while trying to run the trolling motor. I managed only to boat some more short fish while my co-angler boated to more 3lb class fish at this point I am extremely frustrated and ready to start break rods, why such a great day yesterday and have this happen today is all I can think of. It was time to go and we made the run back which wasn't pretty with my attitude and the big north wind push against a north current. We got back to Malcom Creek with 20 minutes left so I left pulled up on a point with no one on it hoping for the best. After making a half dozen cast I bowed up on a 4 1/2lb smallmouth bass which helped lift the spirits a little bit but it was time to go and we checked in with 5 seconds to spare! After such a high from yesterdays numbers and that big fish and a top 10 placing I finished the day with 3 fish for 9-7lbs today and slid to 41st place which did keep me in a check. My co-angler weighed in a 15+lb bag which would have kepted me in the top 10 but everything happens for a reason. So for my first year fishing a triple A tour I cashed to checks and qualified for the Invitational tournament this fall at Lake Wheeler in November. 

    My buddy Doug Pietzrak and travel partner who also moved down here to KY sacked a big 21lb bag on day two of the AFS and his kids for the College fishing tournament that 40 of us boaters took out on Sat. won their event with 6 fish for 24lbs. So I talked him into fishing a team tournament going out of Kuttawa on Sunday. We got there early to sign up and get registered and of course it was raining. We went out boat 97 out of 115 teams and ran to a rock jetty on a whim but only caught 3 shorts but it did tell us the fish were still on the same pattern. We worked our way around the lake fishing the same pattern as it looked like many of the other teams where doing also, cranking main lake points. Doug started us out boating a 16'' largmouth then I added a 5lber and then a nice 3lb fish. Doug then added a couple 3lb fish of his own and  we were feeling pretty good about the day. Then we added 4 more 5lb fish over the next couple hours and had all the fish we would weigh-in by 11:30 and still had 4 1/2 hours left to fish. Luckily we had our fish early as there was no one around us and as the bite slowed tremedously after that also. As we started looking for other areas to try we began to run into boats everywhere. We did manage to boat a couple more quality 3lb fish and a few shorts but needing a 6lb fish to cull was a big hill to climb. Knowing we had a great bag but not sure what we really had we head back for checking to make sure we made it on time and even checked in 15 minutes early. When we arrived we could hear that 22lbs was leading and second was 21lbs which made us neverous as if we really had what we thought. We loaded the boat and bagged our fish up and head to the scale. Bring them up with both of carrying the bag turned a few heads and when they dumped them in the tub the tournament director said we have a tournament leader and once they put them on the scale he was right as our 5 fish went 24.94lbs which was 2 1/2lbs over second place and Doug and my first KY win.