HOT HOT HOT!
The weather has been hot to say the least since Memorial day weekend and the fishing has been just as hot. June is the kick off to the ledge fishing and it has been game on. The BASS Elites were here the 2nd week of the month and I spent a couple days watching the pros at work. You can tell that there is no reservation on using gas as these guys would run 20 miles to fish a spot for 15 minutes and run another 20 miles. For the most part no one was on any out of the secret spot but fishing pretty obvious stuff you could see on a paper map or chip. When it's your tournament it's your tournament as evident by KVD catching a 5lber right away the 3rd morning in the back "see picture below" The yellow spot on it's back is his crankbait.
Jamie Fralick puts on a clinic while I talked with him with a spoon. Billy Mccaghren also pulled in to share the spot.
Our 3rd BASS Weekend Series tournament of the KY Lake division was this past weekend. We launched out of Little River which is about 30 miles south on Lake Barkley. I've never spent much time down there and decided to spend my time prefishing the upper portions of KY and Barkley Lakes. Prefishing for me was hit and miss as I was fishing to shallow most of the time. The better fish had moved out into the 18-20 foot zone rather than on top of the flats. They would be up there to feed and you could load the boat quickly with a crankbait if you caught them up there feeding but with the water temps reading between 85-90 degrees the fish had pulled back off the tops of the flats. This is something I had been told, for about a couple weeks but just never put it togther until I fished with Wayne Winters from The Cabin Bait and Tackle during a tuesday night derby that we won fishing deep. Not knowing Barkley that well I spent a day in the boat with Lance Freeman a young kid that has grown up fish Barkley and learned what I should be looking for and how to fish it. These two lakes fish somewhat a like but are also very different. Barkley has the ledges and points like Kentucky does but tends to fish much shallower with less hard spots such as rock and shell beds and more brush and wood cover. After spending monday and tuesday on Kentucky and weds. on Barkley I went back to Kentucky on thursday only to get blown off by a severe afternoon thunderstorm, which seem to happen daily, after only a few hours of fishing. Everything thus far that I have caught has been on a Outkast Tackle weedless T-2 football head dragging it across hard spots on the ledges with a few fish mixed in on a crankbait. Never being to the south end of Lake Barkley and the meeting being down there as well I decided to put in at Little River on friday and spend 8 hours checking likely spots down there. It sucks not catching much when prefishing but on some occassions it does help eliminate water as was the case for me on the lower end of Lake Barkley. I only boated one keeper bass with 30 short fish and I mean short fish as in the 11-13 inch range. At hour meeting on friday night I drew a gentleman that was fishing just this tournament to get out and fish at least fish one for the year. This really helped take the pressure off as he wasn't expecting to go out and catch 20lbs and load the boat all day. It was beautiful at our 5:15 take off put 20 minutes later we had a wall cloud in front of a cold front pushed down the lake with 30 mph north winds. This made it almost impossible to fish the main river ledge we had started on so I headed for a creek to fish a road bed that should be protected, well not so much. Though better than out in the main river she was blowing through there pretty hard also. After a couple hours the wind layed down and I ran to what was going to be my number two stop, this was another main river ledge in Barkley. I started out with a crankbait on the first pass but not a single bite as my co-angler boat one on a tube. I then switched over to the T-2 football head and boated two quick small keepers and he boated a solid 3 1/2lber and another small keeper on a C-rig. After a couple more pass without any keepers I decided it was time to run to Kentucky Lake. When we got over there the wind had switch to the south at 25 mph, NICE! We checked 3 points in front of creeks with some bites but I only boated one small keeper to give me 3 little swimmers. I then decided to run out and check the ledge that Wayne and I had won the tuesday night derby on and after on hour without a bite and battling the wind and waves from the poker run I had enough and ran to another point in the mouth of a creek. I had stopped short and was in 20' of water throwing up on it dragging my football head across mussle bed when my co-angler misses a bite right under the boat. I blew it off and made another cast up on the point and he says he missed another bite under the boat. Well I maybe kind of slow but after that second bite I pulled the boat out into 25' of water and made a long cast up to the edge of the point and began to stroke the jig down it. With in a couple casts I bowed up on a 3 3/4lb fish, a couple cast later I bowed up on another 3 3/4lber what and attitude changer those fish were, as I was getting pretty upset at the day thus far. Over the next hour I culled up two more fish and my co-angler culled up one. With only a half hour of fishing left I decided to run out and check the big fish spot one more time. I wasn't able to land a giant though I did manage to cull up one more before it was time to make the run back. In the end I weighed 5 for 15.45 good for 12th place and a $277 check my first BWS check here in Kentucky hopefully the first of many to come.
Jamie Fralick puts on a clinic while I talked with him with a spoon. Billy Mccaghren also pulled in to share the spot.
Our 3rd BASS Weekend Series tournament of the KY Lake division was this past weekend. We launched out of Little River which is about 30 miles south on Lake Barkley. I've never spent much time down there and decided to spend my time prefishing the upper portions of KY and Barkley Lakes. Prefishing for me was hit and miss as I was fishing to shallow most of the time. The better fish had moved out into the 18-20 foot zone rather than on top of the flats. They would be up there to feed and you could load the boat quickly with a crankbait if you caught them up there feeding but with the water temps reading between 85-90 degrees the fish had pulled back off the tops of the flats. This is something I had been told, for about a couple weeks but just never put it togther until I fished with Wayne Winters from The Cabin Bait and Tackle during a tuesday night derby that we won fishing deep. Not knowing Barkley that well I spent a day in the boat with Lance Freeman a young kid that has grown up fish Barkley and learned what I should be looking for and how to fish it. These two lakes fish somewhat a like but are also very different. Barkley has the ledges and points like Kentucky does but tends to fish much shallower with less hard spots such as rock and shell beds and more brush and wood cover. After spending monday and tuesday on Kentucky and weds. on Barkley I went back to Kentucky on thursday only to get blown off by a severe afternoon thunderstorm, which seem to happen daily, after only a few hours of fishing. Everything thus far that I have caught has been on a Outkast Tackle weedless T-2 football head dragging it across hard spots on the ledges with a few fish mixed in on a crankbait. Never being to the south end of Lake Barkley and the meeting being down there as well I decided to put in at Little River on friday and spend 8 hours checking likely spots down there. It sucks not catching much when prefishing but on some occassions it does help eliminate water as was the case for me on the lower end of Lake Barkley. I only boated one keeper bass with 30 short fish and I mean short fish as in the 11-13 inch range. At hour meeting on friday night I drew a gentleman that was fishing just this tournament to get out and fish at least fish one for the year. This really helped take the pressure off as he wasn't expecting to go out and catch 20lbs and load the boat all day. It was beautiful at our 5:15 take off put 20 minutes later we had a wall cloud in front of a cold front pushed down the lake with 30 mph north winds. This made it almost impossible to fish the main river ledge we had started on so I headed for a creek to fish a road bed that should be protected, well not so much. Though better than out in the main river she was blowing through there pretty hard also. After a couple hours the wind layed down and I ran to what was going to be my number two stop, this was another main river ledge in Barkley. I started out with a crankbait on the first pass but not a single bite as my co-angler boat one on a tube. I then switched over to the T-2 football head and boated two quick small keepers and he boated a solid 3 1/2lber and another small keeper on a C-rig. After a couple more pass without any keepers I decided it was time to run to Kentucky Lake. When we got over there the wind had switch to the south at 25 mph, NICE! We checked 3 points in front of creeks with some bites but I only boated one small keeper to give me 3 little swimmers. I then decided to run out and check the ledge that Wayne and I had won the tuesday night derby on and after on hour without a bite and battling the wind and waves from the poker run I had enough and ran to another point in the mouth of a creek. I had stopped short and was in 20' of water throwing up on it dragging my football head across mussle bed when my co-angler misses a bite right under the boat. I blew it off and made another cast up on the point and he says he missed another bite under the boat. Well I maybe kind of slow but after that second bite I pulled the boat out into 25' of water and made a long cast up to the edge of the point and began to stroke the jig down it. With in a couple casts I bowed up on a 3 3/4lb fish, a couple cast later I bowed up on another 3 3/4lber what and attitude changer those fish were, as I was getting pretty upset at the day thus far. Over the next hour I culled up two more fish and my co-angler culled up one. With only a half hour of fishing left I decided to run out and check the big fish spot one more time. I wasn't able to land a giant though I did manage to cull up one more before it was time to make the run back. In the end I weighed 5 for 15.45 good for 12th place and a $277 check my first BWS check here in Kentucky hopefully the first of many to come.
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