GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. – The second stop of the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Plains Division is underway, taking off out of Moors Resort and Marina on Kentucky Lake. Of course, as with any Kentucky event, Lake Barkley is a nearby option as well, and word is it may be more of an option than usual in this go-round.
Lately, the offshore smallmouth spawn has been the name of the game in spring events on Kentucky – that’s going to be the case again in this one. But it’s not the only game in town, and the restrictions on forward-facing sonar will force anglers to develop broad game plans.
Setting the stage
Over the weekend, Levi Kohl and Will Gordon won the Jet-A-Marina event on Kentucky Lake, and they sacked up over 23 pounds to do it. Per Kohl, expectations are high for this one as well.
“It’s fishing pretty good. The fish are up there getting ready to spawn or spawning. It should be a pretty good tournament,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a mix – catch a couple big smallmouth each day and catch a couple largemouth. I really think that one of the days, a really good bag is going to come from Barkley – it’s been fishing really good the last few weeks.”
Jake Lawrence helped to expose the offshore spawn to a national audience, and he’s also looking forward to this event. Were he to win, it’d be his third Toyota Series win on Kentucky Lake in March or April.
“It depends on how you want to look at it,” Lawrence said. “It’s fishing great if you had ‘Scope all day, as far as spawning smallmouth. The largemouth, you can go up there and get a pile of bites. It’s really good to see – with every year, there seems to be more largemouth in play. So, that’s always a good thing. But it’s kind of frustrating to catch a big one right now. When you do catch one, it’s kind of random.”
As for the offshore smallmouth bite, Lawrence is a big fan but acknowledges that it isn’t easy to get it 100% right in three hours three days in a row.
“There’s a pile of them out there, but you make one or two bad moves, and you catch 14 pounds instead of 20,” he said. “There’s going to be guys that have multiple 20-pound bags found, myself included, and I don’t know that I can catch that every day. One thing I will say this year – and it can’t just be me – there’s a lot of little ones. Which is good for the fishery, but if you stop on one of those stretches, you can jack yourself up pretty bad.”
The Barkley potential
Both locals, Kohl and Lawrence, are not planning on taking a crack at the fish in Barkely. But both think it could factor into the event – the key is, it could provide consistent action without the need for modern sonar.
“It would not surprise me if three guys in the Top 10, maybe even half, catch some fish in Barkley,” Lawrence said. “There are way more carp there than Kentucky Lake; when the bass have to be deeper than, say, 4 feet of water, they’re really wigged out by the carp. Kentucky Lake, you can fish and get around that; you can find where the carp are not, and that’s usually where the bass are to some degree. This couple-week window is when the fish get ready to spawn and are spawning, and they get really shallow. They’ll go back there and get really catchable.”
In 2019, when the fishing was very bad on Kentucky Lake, Jake Morris ran to Barkley to win the Costa FLW Series Central Division opener. Throwing a spinnerbait, Morris won by more than 5 pounds, and he only needed 10 bass over three days to do it. Now, though it might be a little complicated, Lawrence loves the idea of someone getting fancy and mixing both lakes.
“A guy could potentially win it in his three hours ‘Scoping,” Lawrence said. “But it could very well happen where a guy strategizes and stays on the north end of the lake, knowing there’s going to be a lot more pressure. After their three hours, they’re going to be able to run to Barkley.”
There could be even more in play
Besides spawning smallmouth offshore and largemouth on the bank in Barkley, the two big lakes could offer up some other patterns. Case in point is last year’s event, which was won by Fisher Anaya. He exploited a group of smallmouth, smashing big bags on Day 2 and Day 3 – catching fish that weren’t even thinking about the spawn. In the same event, Sam Lashlee ran about as far south as possible and fished current for big largemouth and smallmouth, nearly winning.
When Andrew Nordbye won the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals event in 2024, he caught a bunch of spawning smallmouth, but he also caught some kickers on more current-oriented locales. Even in that event, with forward-facing sonar allowed all day and no high water conditions, Kevin Meunier ran down toward Paris and made hay with a swimbait and a shaky head on bars.
So, in this one, look for a lot of bags in the upper teens and low 20s, and look for plenty of smallmouth. But don’t be too surprised if something new shows up. Spawning smallmouth could carry the weight, and Top 10 Baits could be all minnows, but there’s a chance that this year’s version of the “new” Kentucky Lake looks different yet again.
Follow along
Takeoff and weigh-in are free and open to the public daily at Moors Resort & Marina at 6:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. CT. This event is hosted by the Kentucky Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau. You can follow along with all the coverage at MajorLeagueFishing.com.