MURRAY, Ky. – Increasingly, carefully laid strategy is becoming a key to winning multiple-day bass tournaments on Kentucky Lake.
Gone are the days when an angler could camp on one or two spots for three or four days and haul in the winning catch. Even if you had one ledge to yourself for four days, chances are your own fishing pressure would tap out the supply of lure-weary fish.
Plus, we are now in an age where `secret’ holes become `community’ holes overnight. Having a hot spot to yourself in a multiple-day bass tournament is a luxury that lasts about two days, maximum.
Pros who are the best at this game take this into consideration before the tournament begins. They assume that nothing is sacred: everyone knows where the `community holes’ are and they fully expect to see other boats on them.
So instead of using their practice time to check obvious, popular ledges, they spend practice days idling Kentucky Lake’s massive network of ledges trying to find one or two little gold mines off the beaten path.
Come tournament time, the idea is to play “musical ledges” with the other boats on the community holes during the first couple of days without touching those little hidden gems off the beaten path. Then, just about the time the community stuff gives out from fishing pressure, retreat to the smaller out of the way places in hopes that fishing the new water can deliver the win.
As days three and four of the Stren Series event on Kentucky Lake comes into view, chances are the leaders will be pulling out the aces in the form of little gems they have been saving.
The three top leaders have admitted to having “a little something” they’ve been saving for the finals. And with fishing pressure mounting in the popular Paris area due to other tournaments and weekend anglers, now might be the time to pull out those stops.
“I’ve been saving some places and I sampled one of them yesterday and never got a bite.” said Billy Schroeder of Paducah, Ky., currently in second place and highly regarded as one of the best on Kentucky Lake.
“So you kind of get caught between going back to the places that produced or fishing the `new’ places you found in practice.”
Current leader Mike Ward of Paris, Tenn., also has some places he has been saving, but he is not as confident about them.
“The problem with finding new places in practice is you don’t know the subtleties and timing of them,” Ward explained. “Every ledge has a particular way it needs to be fished at certain times – timing is everything. I know those intricacies on some of the more popular places because I’ve fished them for so long. But I don’t know those details about these new areas I’ve found, so it’s a risk. But when it pays off like you planned, it’s pretty thrilling.”
The day three weigh-in of the Stren Series Central Division event on Kentucky Lake will begin Friday at 1:30 p.m. at Kenlake Marina.
Friday’s conditions
Sunrise: 5:54 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 65 degrees
Expected high temperature: 86 degrees
Water temperature: 83 degrees
Wind: SE 5 to 10 MPH
Day’s outlook: cloudy, rainy, 70% chance of thunderstorms