Kentucky Lake FLW

(Paul was an ounce better today (11-03) and moved up to 48th.) It was a struggle. I only got two bites on the spinnerbait fish. One was a 3-pounder I lost, which hurt. I had to totally abandon what I was doing at 11:00, and I went cranking. I fished a point out on the river that had a lot of current coming around it. It was a new place. I caught a 3-pound smallie, another keeper smallmouth, a Kentucky and a largemouth, all in the same place.

I was fishing the spinnerbait around yellow wildflowers in a flooded pocket behind willows and bushes. The fish were in 2-3 feet in the flowers. That's a known pattern for Kentucky and Barkley lakes.

The crankbait was a Mann's 20+ in citrus shad. I fished it on a Quantum medium- action 7-foot PT rod, Quantum PT 650 reel and 10-pound Trilene XT. I fished it in 7-9 feet. You had to have the big crankbait because the current was so fast it pushed a small crankbait too quick and you couldn't get it down.

(John had 2 fish for 3-07 today and fell to 97th.) I had two 15-inch fish that weighed 3-07 -- can you believe it? I caught a bunch of shorts too, probably 10 or 12.

I was flipping and throwing a spinnerbait and buzzbait. I was trying to get to the bank in as many places as I could, but in a lot of areas I couldn't. The water keeps coming up and up, and the fish are just really scattered. You fish for a long time and then all of a sudden you find them, and I didn't find a group of them.

At home when I fish at Buggs Island when it's flooded, the best stuff usually is when you get close to the bank, if not right on the bank. The majority of the fish I caught today were that way -- except for the keepers, which were suspended in willow trees in 7-8 feet of water. I was doing pretty much the same thing yesterday.

All the fish I weighed were caught on a prototype Leverage 1/2-ounce black/brown jig. I fished it on a G. Loomis 904 flipping stick with a Shimano Chronarch Superfree reel and 25-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon.

I learned that if you go to Kentucky Lake after they start spawning, you better be finding some fish out on a point or a ledge. It seemed like every other person I talked to caught 50 fish on a Carolina rig but only had 3, 4, 5 or 6 keepers. I caught fish, but I didn't catch near that many.

I hope I didn't hurt myself too much in the points. If I catch them decent at Wheeler, I should be in (the championship) no problem.

I caught them all on a spinnerbait today, a Mann's 3/8-ounce Classic spinnerbait with Colorado blades. I had one good fish, about a 3 1/2-pounder, and the others barely bumped. I only caught 6 keepers all day.

I probably should not have left the spinnerbait fish, but I went and started trying to crank and Carolina-rig, and still couldn't get anything going. I know that's how a lot of the big stringers were caught, but I just can't run into them.

(John is in 36th place with a 12-13 limit.) I scraped, scratched and clawed every fish that I caught today. I had one spot where I caught 3 squeaker largemouths and one that weighed almost 6 pounds. Except for that one fish, I wouldn't have had much at all.

I caught probably 15-16 fish, and had 5 keepers. I lost 2 keeper largemouths. One of them was 3 pounds. I know because it jumped off right at the boat. But that's fishing. I weighed one 14-inch spot.

Tomorrow I guess I'll just run and gun the areas I know are holding some fish, and try to catch as much as I can. The weather didn't affect me today, but if it continues to be cloudy I might change a little. If it gets sunny tomorrow, that should help my flipping bite.

I didn't have a very good day. I checked my deep places and all the fish were gone. I never had a bite where I had schools of fish. I'm hearing that some guys are still catching them deep, but mine left. I really tried hard to catch them today, and I didn't catch a keeper -- and I had two places where I'd catch one about every cast on Saturday.

So I guess the extra 2 feet of water got them. That's why I waited until today to go back to them. I guess I'm going to be long-rodding like the rest of them. But I have a few spinnerbait fish I'm hoping will hold up.

I'll probably have to flip some, but it's really hard on me when it's like this. I just can't get the mental fix to stay on it. I get frustrated thinking the fish may be someplace I can't get to. But I know that's probably how the tournament will be won.

I'll be curious to see the weigh-in tomorrow. If some guys catch them deep, I'll have a hard time understanding why mine left. They may have just repositioned to where I couldn't find them.

I realized last night that I had not fished the same place twice the whole time I'd been here. So today I went back and checked 5-6 areas where I'd caught fish. Two of them still had fish, and the water had come up too much for the rest to be good.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and it hasn't rained in 5-6 days. Most of my fish are coming flipping, but I don't think the rain will affect them too much.

I've mainly been fishing deep, and I've found 3-4 places – one real good place if it holds up. I have to check it in the morning. But I haven't been catching any real big fish. Just keeper-sized fish, around 12-14 pounds, which would allow me to get a limit and then go flipping to try to catch a big one or two.

On Sunday I had a good day, but nothing concrete. I probably could have had 14 pounds or so. I caught them on a spinnerbait.

I've been catching a limit every day, but one. I looked back and I don't think I've ever gotten a check in rising water, so I'm trying to break that hex here.

The past 2 days have been my toughest so far. I didn't catch a keeper today. I caught about 12 short fish, and half were 14-inchers. I've been fishing different areas pretty much the whole time I've been here. I've been trying to establish a pattern rather than finding one little red-hot area, and it seems like different ends of the lake have different patterns going. With a lake this big I guess you could figure there would be more than one pattern going in different areas, but it's messing me up a little.

Today was my sixth day of practice, and I think the fishing has progressively gotten slower, for me and most of the people I'm talking to. I talked to some people who were catching them really well when they got here, and they're struggling now. So (the slowdown) is kind of uniform.

Tomorrow I'm going to go back to a couple of areas where I caught fish, where I'm thinking about starting. I'll see what happens and how it's changed. I'll see what I can figure out. Maybe some of the areas I caught them in could be good. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.