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WHAT A DAY! (Report 4/29-30/16)
Wow! What a day I’ve had!
The short version:
I had 15lbs and finished 1st place. We caught between 40-50 bass and 3-4 limits of keepers. Incredible.Here’s how it happened:
I actually wasn’t planning on fishing originally because this tournament was supposed to be on May 7th when I will be at Kentucky Lake for my “main” fishing trail. However, the tournament got moved to 4/30 and my wife had a girls outing planned. Perfect timing! So, Thursday I decided I was going to fish. However, I had been on Tim’s Ford the week before fishing a tournament so I hadn’t actually been on Priest in about 12 days. A lot can change in 12 days. I had found them moving up two weeks ago on one bank when I went from 0 to 2nd place back on 4/16 in the last Heartland with an hour to go in the tournament. Friday morning before work (I can fish from 545-8 if I need/want to on weekdays SOMETIMES), I grabbed a fishing buddy and headed out. I went back to the last spot I’d been nearly two weeks ago and THEY WERE STILL THERE! Unbelievable. In an hour we caught a limit and about 15 more short bass. We moved around some and upgraded a few times and ended up with a limit of about 12lbs in just 2 hours. (Some pics below of the better fish).The morning of the tournament I was fishing with a different guy because my friend ended up having to work. I told him about where and what we had done so naturally we started in the same area. I was worried I had perhaps “sore-jawed” too many on Friday. Not the case! We took off up the river to the new “honey hole” (after a VERY quick first-stop at a topwater bank just around from the launch ramp). First cast on a topwater, BOOM! Short but close. Ended up having a small limit (involving a 12.5″ & 13″ spotted bass) in about an hour. I would add what would be our big fish of 3.58 next. Then, I culled a 13″ spotted bass with a 14″ spotted bass (a GIANT on Priest for me anyways). The bite started to slow down and we would finally get rid of that last spotted bass at about 9 o’clock.
This is when our luck changed. After this point I would proceed to lose a approx. 3lbs largemouth, 2.5lbs largemouth, and my partner lost another 15.5″-16″ largemouth in the 9-12 timeframe. We ran up and down the river and caught short fish but everytime we stuck something that would upgrade we seemingly had no luck landing the fish. Days like this happen. I just knew I had cost us money losing that 3lbs+ fish. At 12:30 we decided to make a decent run and fish one more spot mid-lake before the tournament ended at 2:00. What a move this would be!
We pulled in and immediately I hooked a short fish. Then I proceeded to lose another upgrade fish of about 2.5lbs. UGH! Then, my heart would break. Casting in about 1ft of water I hooked into what would look to be a 5lbs largemouth. She jumped and jumped and on the third jump, there went the bait flying through the air. NOOOOO!!!! I was so mad at myself. I don’t think I was doing anything wrong but I could not keep the fish on the line today for whatever reason. I knew I had blown the tournament. That’s when my partner, who had been quiet most of the day, decided to pick up my slack. In the next 30 minutes, maybe not even that long, he would proceed to catch three 3lbs largemouth, three 15″ largemouth, and a short fish. We had managed to cull everything but our big fish in less than 30 minutes with about 10 minutes of fishing time left. I said we had time for one more run down this 50-yard stretch of bank before heading back. At this time our shortest fish was 16″. On the famous “last cast” he managed to stick another one on the shaky head, a 16.25″ largemouth which upgraded the 16″ just slightly. Unbelievable!We headed back to weigh-in shocked that this day had happened. We knew we had a decent bag and I was only imaging what could’ve happened had I not lost all those fish. I just knew it was gonna cost us. Turns out, I was wrong. We had 15lbs and 2nd place was 10.5lbs. In fact, our culled limit would’ve gotten 3rd place. Honestly, I think the limit of fish we lost would’ve gotten 2nd place.
I’ve been blessed in the month of April. I’ve fished 5 tournaments (each Saturday this month) on 2 different lakes and managed to win money in all 5 events. Today, the 5th event was the Heartland Anglers tournament out of Stewart’s Creek. I honestly think if we would’ve landed everything we had on today that our total would’ve been something close to 19lbs. That would be my personal best for Percy Priest. It’s not often you can say you lost an entire limit of keepers and still win the tournament. We had bad luck but still overcome it to take home the win. I’m still shocked.
Basically I found two productive banks in the river that have had fish on them. We worked these stretches back and forth flipping, pitching, and casting. We caught them on a variety of lures and retrieve patterns. When something slows down, switch to something else.
WHAT A DAY! (first two pics from Friday morning | last 3 from tournament today)
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22 Replies
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Awesome consistency! Keep it up!
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Awesome job guys!
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Well done, BassMan! You’re definitely leading the unofficial AOY standings on PP this year. Time for you to stop sandbagging on how well you’re dialed in before they tournaments, I’m not buying it anymore! Hah! 😉
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quote blockel:Well done, BassMan! You’re definitely leading the unofficial AOY standings on PP this year. Time for you to stop sandbagging on how well you’re dialed in before they tournaments, I’m not buying it anymore! Hah! 😉
Haha! Hey, I actually was dialed in on this one after Friday mornings experience. Just was fortunate again I guess.
Unfortunately for me, I won’t be back to Percy Priest until July. My other tournament (and other things) calls me away until we return in July for night tournaments.
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Speaking of…. I’ll be going to Kentucky Lake this weekend. I always go the first week of May just about every year to go flipping. However, this time I’m going to be in a tournament on Saturday. I’ve heard the bite has been unusually TOUGH for Kentucky Lake this time of year. Water isn’t going to be deep in the bushes if it’s there at all as the predicted level for this weekend is 359.2. Why has TVA been such a pain in the rear this season? They kept Priest unusually low. Just about 5 weeks ago Kentucky Lake was at historical lows with entire creeks becoming mud puddles and marinas and boats sitting on the ground.
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I’m going on my first KY Lake trip next weekend for a couple of days. I hope you whack’em so you can tell me where to fish. 🙂
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quote Krogers79:I’m going on my first KY Lake trip next weekend for a couple of days. I hope you whack’em so you can tell me where to fish. 🙂
Will do!
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Here’s your report Kroger:
I fished Kentucky Lake/Tennessee River out of New Johnsonville on Friday and Saturday. We had heard the fish were kind of all over the place. The flipping bite was there but it was very sporadic. On top of that, the water was only at 359.4, which is summer pool, but it is a bit low for the “bush bite” to be on fire. It can be difficult when the water is that low. You must be very accurate with your flips and pitches to be successful. We started off flipping bushes in the river (on islands and along the banks) with some success on Friday morning. The water had the perfect about of stain to help increase chances of a successful day. Typically, I don’t want it to be too clear or too muddy. It needs that Old Hickory Lake standard stain color to the water. We caught 4 fish out of the bushes on our first stop including a 4.5lbs largemouth. All of the fish were keepers. Then I went to try and find a “Plan B.” We went to the mouths of the creeks and any bridges we could find in the backs of the creeks and we cranked and flipped rip-rap rocks, pylons, and nearby bushes. On the crankbait alone, I had a limit in about 1 hour of fishing. We went up and down around the New Johnsonville area throughout Friday catching at least one fish every where we stopped. I had confidence that we would at least have a decent day of fishing the next day. At the end of the day we had 14.5lbs and caught over 3-4 limits of keepers. Fishing was slow but everything we caught was solid with the exception of no “big fish.”
The next day we took out of New Johnsonville at 6am for blast-off. There was a 100+ boat tournament to the north out of Paris Landing and another one out of the south around Perryville. In addition to that, there was another small tournament at New Johnsonville boat ramp as well. It was going to be crowded. Crowded was an understatement. When we got to our starting spot somehow the change in the wind had muddied up the area. This wasn’t going to help our chances. Plus there were boats everywhere but luckily we squeezed in and found a 16″ keeper on one of the river island bushes. We also caught a short fish. We then went to the mouth of two nearby creeks to crank and only caught short fish. We tried flipping again and didn’t catch a thing on two more islands more north around Harmon Creek. So, beginning to get worried, we ran down towards New Johnsonville and stopped to fish bridges and docks with a crankbait (“Old Hickory style”). We managed to catch another keeper and some short fish. This is where it got tough. For the next 3+ hours we didnt get a BITE flipping bushes. We knew the bigger fish would be in the bushes but we knew it was going to be slow and tough after about 10am. Besides the crowded of bass boats, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was going to be tough to get a flipping bite. On top of that, the water had been pulled down to 358.9 overnight. Even less water to flip in! Around 12:00pm I was mindlessly flipping the 1000th bush of the day (it seemed) without a bite and suddenly my line came running out the moment I tossed it in. I set the hook and a huge bucket mouth thrashed out of the water. My partnered netted my 5lbs largemouth! Whoa. Where’d that come from?! We keep flipping but were running out of time, we caught two more fish, a 15.25″ largemouth and a 14.90″ largemouth. He was just 1/16 of an inch short but we couldn’t make him measure.
By the end of the day we managed to win 4th place and big fish (after a 0.5lbs penalty for a dead fish). We were only 1.50lbs from 1st place. Missing that one fish killed us, as I knew it would. The day before we had 3-4 limits of keepers and only caught one short fish all day. The next day was the opposite story. The bite slowed down even more and we couldn’t hardly catch a fish long enough to keep but we managed to find the big fish at least. It was a fun trip all-in-all.
We flipped 1/2oz bullet weights with brush hogs, Berkley Havoc pit boss, rage craw, and 3/4oz jigs (black & blue and a secret color combo I’m not going to share I’ve used for a couple years down there).
The big fish kept my money-streak alive another week and it’s now up to 6-straight weeks! Woo!
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My next stop… Center Hill 5/14 out of Hurricane Bridge…. dun dun dun. I’ve never done real well there and I haven’t been in 3 years.
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Nice job! I’m looking forward to Friday. No pressure…we are just fishing.
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I’m hoping a solid week of 80 degree temps will pull the fish out deeper and the rain may cause them to generate some current which is a TN river recipe for success. We have two boats going over Thursday and I think the other guys are going to start shallow. I’m going out on the main river and mouths of creeks and throw my summer staples to see if we can get something fired up.
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Actually just got a last minute invite to the Sherwin Williams Paint tournament on Old Hickory on Thursday. Haven’t been there since March. Hopefully I can find them.
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quote TNBassMan10:Actually just got a last minute invite to the Sherwin Williams Paint tournament on Old Hickory on Thursday. Haven’t been there since March. Hopefully I can find them.
I’ll be out on OH with a buddy, and it’s probably been March since I’ve been out there as well, so let us know if you figure anything out! Where are you guys launching?
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Well, KY lake was good to us. We caught fish doing about everything you can do on a lake. We flipped bushes Friday morning and had good success with good size, but not giants. We threw frogs around lily pads in Birdsong and had a lot of fish blow up on the frogs. I can’t count the number of times they would blow up and the frog would disappear. I would rare back to set the hook and jerk the frog half way to the boat. I attribute that to using 20 lbs fluro vs. 65 lbs braid. Live and learn. The bite slowed about 10 a.m. and we fished around for a couple more hours before putting the boat on the trailer and resting for a few hours. We got back on the water about 3:30 and fished until about 6:30. We focused on the deeper bite and our first spot was an old railroad bed. We idled around the point and fish were stacked. We backed out to 40 ft of water and went to casting 6xds and spoons up to the flat. I immediately caught one that was about 3 pounds. About two casts later, I was brining my 6xd up to the top and one slammed it and started peeling drag. I fought it for a bit and finally got it to come to the top…8 lbs drum. We idled over to the other side of the channel where the RR bed continued. We started throwing C rigs onto the flat in about 5 feet of water and fish were slamming the rig, but weren’t connecting. Finally I got a good bite and set the hook on a 2.5 lbs chunk. My partner caught one about the same size and then we never had another bite.
Saturday morning was interesting. We went back up to the railroad bed and focused on a grass flat down the ledge a bit. I started throwing a spook and they were hammering it. We ended up catching 6 keepers on spooks and belly weighted swim baits. Once the sun got up, they shut down and we moved further up lake (big mistake). As we came off plane nasty clouds started rolling in and the wind went from about 6 mph to about 15 mph. I told my partner we needed to head back toward the ramp. We decided to stop at the flat where we caught the 2 on C-rigs on Friday. As I went to pick my rod up, the wind started gusting to about 25 mph out of the NW and was producing 3-4 ft rollers. We cranked up and headed south. We stopped behind an island that had some buck brush on it and flipped a few bushes out of the wind (big mistake). We couldn’t tell exactly how bad it had gotten until I saw one of my buddies coming down the lake and he speared a wave and his boat completely disappeared behind a wall of water. He made it back to the ramp and said he was going home. I told him we were headed that way as well. As we got out from the behind the island we realized those 3-4 ft rollers were now 5-6 ft rollers (30 mph sustained winds and TVA pulling 27,000 CFMs). We went off in the first trough and you could barely see over the top of it. I grew up fishing the TN river and have never seen anything like this…much less driven in it. I made the mistake of coming off plane and waves were coming over every part of the boat and panic began to set in. I got back up on plane and started to the other side of the channel to hopefully gain some relief from the wind…no deal. I told my partner that if we were going down, we were going down at speed. We were able to bridge most of the peaks, but we popped a few and let me tell you…I had the headaches of all headaches when we got to the ramp. I had another buddy that was 10 miles up lake and couldn’t get back. So we had to trailer my boat up to get his partner and bring him all the way back to New Johnsonville to get their truck and trailer. We packed it up and came back to Murfreesboro after that. I had a buddy text me Sunday morning and say it must have been really bad as a bunch of boats fishing the Austin Peay tourney out of Paris left at 10 a.m. because it was so dangerous.
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