Great fishing advice for Kentucky Lake a click away
BIG CAT QUEST ON PICKWICK
IF YOU DO ANY BASS fishing on Kentucky Lake at all, you should find a few minutes this week to do some reading on flwoutdoors.com.
You can start as early as 6 p.m. today.
By then, the FLW Tour Major that began Thursday on Kentucky Lake should be over — and when those kinds of tournaments end, local anglers have a wonderful opportunity to learn a thing or two from the best anglers on the face of the planet.
Unlike local bass tournament winners who are ultra-secretive about their tactics because they usually have another tournament there the following week, professional anglers on the major tours know they’ll be hundreds of miles away next week.
They don’t mind telling you where and how they caught their fish — and since they’re all working for sponsors, they usually tell their stories with incredible detail.
When you listen to professional anglers talk from the weigh-in stand, it often sounds like an abbreviated infomercial. They give brand names, sizes, colors, model numbers, etc.
But you shouldn’t tune it out. If anything, you should take a tape recorder to make sure you don’t miss a single bit of the sales pitch.
Or, if you can’t make it to the weigh-in, you should do like I said above and become a regular on websites like flwoutdoors.com and bassmaster.com.
You’ll be amazed how much good information you can gather.
For example … For complete coverage of the Bass Pro Shops Big Cat Quest tournament held Saturday on Pickwick Lake, visit midsouthoutdoorsblog.com .
When the EverStart Series visited Kentucky Lake last month, tournament winner Randy Haynes revealed at the final day’s weigh-in that he caught most of his fish just south of Paris, Tenn., using a Strike King 6XD crankbait and a 1- ounce Strike King jig.
That’s not terribly detailed information, but most local tournament anglers would sooner sink their own boats than divulge tidbits like that.
Second-place finisher Sam Lashlee was even more specific, telling the weigh-in crowd that he caught all of his fish on “creek- channel drops and river ledges” using a “Strike King 6XD crankbait, a 5XD crankbait, a Strike King Sexy Dawg, a Strike King three - quarterounce football-head jig with a Rage Tail trailer and a Strike King Rage Tail Thumper Worm.”
It gets a little annoying sometimes hearing anglers repeat the name of their sponsors over and over. It’s like hearing NASCAR drivers repeatedly mention how well the Crisco Cooking Spray Pontiac ran after a race.
But trust me, you can extract valuable bits of wisdom — and you don’t have to wait for the next big tournament. You can visit one of the above -mentioned sites any time to browse the archives for tips on how to fish your favorite lakes.
And remember, the information I included above came from the anglers on the EverStart Series. That’s an incredibly competitive tour, but it’s a step below the true giant tours like The Bassmaster Tournament Trail and the FLW Tour.
The bigger tours are frequented by the best of the best, and they give information that will definitely help you catch more fish on your favorite fisheries.
So take a look at flwoutdoors.comaround 6 p.m. today.
The anglers from the FLW Tour caught 200 limits and more than 3,000 pounds of fish during the first day of the Kentucky Lake event — and by this time next week, they’ll all be on their way to Plattsburgh, N.Y., for their next event on Lake Champlain.
They know things, and they won’t mind telling.
To reach Bryan Brasher, call (901) 529-2343 or e-mail brasher@commercialappeal.com. Visit his blog at midsouthoutdoorsblog.com or follow him at twitter.com/bryan_brasher.