I try to keep things in perspective and Zippo BASSfest at Kentucky Lake presented by A.R.E. Truck Caps was a good example. After the tough practice I had, finishing 28th sounds good, but after pulling up to a spot on Day 1 and catching over 22 pounds, and to be in the Top 10, it was disappointing to drop each day.
In the first two days of practice, I didn’t find a single school of fish. I finally found some fish on the third day of practice but I had a strange, new experience at this tournament and I’m still not sure what happened.
I found a place in practice that I really didn’t consider that good. I made a couple of casts and caught a couple of fish, but I wasn’t expecting huge results.
Well, I pull up there the first day of the tournament; I literally make five casts with a Bomber BD-7 crankbait and catch five fish for 22 pounds, 7 ounces. I catch three, I lose a big one and on my fifth cast, I catch two at one time.
At that point, I’m thinking about fish management, so I left and went looking for other schools. The second day I made myself a deal: I said I’m going to leave after the first five I catch. I pull up there and I catch five for 17-13 and I leave.
I really tried to manage that area because I thought that even if I didn’t have a chance to win, it would at least give me a really high finish and some good points. But here’s where it gets strange.
We had Friday off and I was excited to get out there on Saturday and really pound that area and see what lived there. I fished it early, I fished it in the middle of the day, I fished it at the end of the day and I never had a single bite off that spot.
I don’t know if those fish were just using that spot as kind of a staging area, or if somebody fished it on the off day and caught a lot of them. I really don’t think someone fished it. They wouldn’t have been able to catch them all. I still would have picked up a few randomly.
I think that school of fish just left.
And that takes me back to Thursday. I wish I would have just sat there and pounded them and got the biggest bag I could get. But you just never know until it’s over.
I got what I needed off the spot on the first day, but on the second day, I got 17-13 in five casts and I left for two reasons. First, I didn’t want somebody to see me sitting there. Second, that was first thing in the morning and I thought I’ll save the rest for Saturday and surely I can find some other schools throughout the day and cull up. I did find some other schools, but I wasn’t able to cull up.
If I could do it over again, knowing what I know now, I would have sat there Thursday and tried to catch everything that was there to get the biggest bag I could have gotten off that spot.
I mean, who would’ve thought that on our day off those fish would move?
Well, enough of that. Let me tell you a little about my BASSfest experience. I looked for fish in that 20- to 28-foot range, but I ended up catching what I weighed on ledges in 14-18 feet of water.
The BD7 in citruse color produced most of my fish, but I also caught several keepers on a drop shot with a YUM Kill Shot nose-hooked on a 2/0 Trokar drop shot hook and a 1/2-ounce weight. I tried other baits and caught some fish on a jig, a worm and a big spoon, but as far as what I weighed, they came on a crankbait and a drop shot.
I never found what we call a mega school. It seemed that the bait was everywhere, so that made it hard to narrow down where the fish would be.
One thing that I found interesting was all the fish feeding on the cicadas that had fallen on the surface. In a 50-yard radius you’d see hundreds of those insects on the water.
The cicadas were everywhere, and I think they affected fishing somewhat. But, despite all that activity, it was hard to stop what I was doing and target those fish feeding at the surface because I didn’t know how big they were.
BASSfest, as a whole, was a very enjoyable event for me and probably the biggest thing for me was the one-on-one interaction with fans. On Friday, the Top 50 were off the water, and we got to hang out with fans.
I enjoyed the fact that these folks who take fishing so seriously got to talk with their favorite pros and ask questions. I think this is one of the things that make BASSfest great for the sponsors and great for the sport.
I want to close by congratulating my travel partner Edwin Evers for his win at BASSfest. I could tell when we got there that he was going to do something special.
He had a focus that I haven’t seen in a long time. That’s what it takes to win at this level.