Top 10 baits and patterns from a spawn time showdown on Kentucky and Barkley
CALVERT CITY, Ky. – The talk before the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Plains Division event on Kentucky and Barkley lakes was mainly about the revitalized smallmouth population dominating most recent tournaments. It came true again this week as the bronzebacks were the star species, contributing to many great finishes.
There were many ways to catch them, but targeting spawning fish with forward-facing sonar proved to be the winning method and was used by others that made the final day. Largemouth were also a factor and some traditional springtime tactics proved effective.
1. Lawrence leads the spawning smallmouth charge
Winning another Toyota Series event on his home waters, Jake Lawrence did it in wire-to-wire fashion once again. He was dominant, catching spawning smallmouth on the north end of the lake with the help of his Garmin LiveScope.
“All the fish I caught were spawning, close to spawning, or just finishing up,” he said. “Most of them were in the 4- to 7-foot range on what I’d call shelf banks, where a flat dropped into a secondary river channel. This gave the fish close access to deeper water. This week, I dialed it in and figured out the pattern as the tournament went on, which is what you always want, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Lawrence caught his fish with a combination of a Strike King Coffee Tube with a 1/8-ounce Jenko Trick Tube Jig Head to fish the tube on a “Stupid Rig” and a 3.25-inch Jenko Booty Shaker Swimbait in blueback on a ¼-ounce ball head. He also mixed in a drop-shot. Forward-facing sonar was critical in his decision on which one to throw and the swimbait was more of a search tool and a way to fire up the bedding fish.
2. Bartusek was in his element
Minnesota pro Adam Bartusek made the most serious run at Lawrence and his bags got better every day, culminating with 19-6 on the final day. All of his bass weighed this week were spawning smallmouth.
“All week, I ran to deep bedded fish that I had found in practice,” he said. “I spent my practice driving around looking at my Humminbird SideImaging and marking stumps and beds. During the tournament, I’d bounce from one to the other and you didn’t have to stay long because they would bite it immediately.”
His top bait was a custom-made miniature tube in which he inserted a 3/8-ounce Owner Ultrahead Football jig head. He would also mix in a Z-Man Finesse TRD in Drew’s craw on a ¼-ounce mushroom jig head.
“That football head snagged less and has a strong hook for those mean Tennessee River smallmouth,” he said. “You’d have to drive the hook home and hold on for dear life because of how hard they were fighting.”
3. “LiveScope King” Gill does it again
Fresh off of a runner-up spot at the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals on Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma, Drew Gill picked up right where he left off and secured another excellent finish. He caught them this week on Kentucky Lake the same way he did in Oklahoma.
“I was targeting bed fish and fry guarders in shallow water with my forward-facing sonar,” he said. “It was very similar to last week, and I was targeting rocks, trees, concrete, and anything in the water. The fish were concentrated in small areas, and I found them in short pockets or creeks off the main lake.”
Gill said he had a roughly 3-to-1 ratio of largemouth to smallmouth and that they were in the same areas.
“Every once in a while, you’d catch a brown one,” he said.
His primary baits were a 5-inch Yamamoto Senko and Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Hit Worm Magnum, both in green pumpkin varieties. He fished them on a No. 4 Gamakatsu Finesse Wide Gap Hook and would insert a 1/16-ounce weight into the Hit Worm to Neko rig it.
4. Tubes and bars were the ticket for Fields
Young Ethan Fields, who fishes for McKendree University, had a solid week with consistent smallmouth bags each day of the event. Targeting spawning smallmouth with a tube bait was his primary tactic, zeroing in on stumps in the 5- to 8-foot depth zone.
“I went into practice by graphing all of the bars because the smallmouth have been living there all year,” he said. “I was lucky enough to find a bunch of them with stumps and smallmouth beside them. I fished them all during the tournament with my trolling motor on high and would pitch to every stump. Either they would bite or not, and I would keep moving.”
Focusing on the mid-section of Kentucky Lake, Fields employed a 1/8-ounce jig head with a Strike King Coffee Tube in road kill.
5. Lovin all-in on smallmouth
New Concord, Kentucky’s Harbor Lovin also spent his time targeting spawning smallmouth with the help of his forward-facing sonar. His bite got better as the event progressed.
“I was mostly targeting spawning smallmouth; and before the event, I wasn’t sure they were spawning yet,” he said. “It seemed like all my fish locked on during the event. I stayed on the north end because I didn’t want to make the long run with our windy weather and the low water conditions.”
With a long history on the lake, he said it was a perfect storm for what transpired this week.
“The lower water completely changed how this event turned out because there were plenty of green fish in the bushes before,” he said. “It’s a low flow year with low rain and we’ve got water clarity we don’t normally get. This allowed the smallmouth to spawn a little deeper than normal and it was just like fishing for them in Michigan, where they spawn in 8 to 12 feet of water.”
He used various 3.5- to 4-inch tubes in green pumpkin shades to catch his fish and utilized a 3/16-ounce Jenko Trick Tube Jig Head to fish the tube on a Stupid Rig. He also used a Jenko Big T Whirly Bird, a jig head with a built-in metal prop.
“The Trick Tube head gives the tube a nice, circular fall and is very weedless,” Lovin said. “I like the spinner on that jig head because it gets them excited and you could see them on your graph; and if they were small, you could move on. I fished it with a Jenko Big T Fry in the smokeshow color and used a bright pink jig head.”
6. Cole Floyd fishes his way
Cole Floyd was one of the more consistent anglers in the field, posting 15-6, 15-4, and 14-0 over the three days and he did it with all largemouth; fishing his style while also besting his dad by one place.
“I was running south and fishing the home waters, targeting shallow wood on lead-in channel banks,” he said. “The big key was wood, any wood with some water on it. You had to cover a lot of water because the bushes weren’t in the water how I wanted them to be and it made it a lot tougher to adjust.”
Floyd primarily fished a white 3/8-ounce Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Swim Jig with a matching Strike King Scounbug trailer.
“Most of my weight came on the swim jig around wood and the yellow flowers,” he said. “I also caught some flipping a Strike King Rage Bug in moon juice on places where the water had cleaned up. I fished it on a ½-ounce weight and 5/0 Hayabusa FPP Straight HD Worm Hook.”
7. Steve Floyd also fishes his way
Having two Floyds on the final day was neat, but both made the Top 10 to make it even cooler. Both did it fishing exclusively shallow for largemouth, just like they’ve each done many times before on Kentucky Lake.
“I made a long run, past Danville Park each day,” Steve Floyd said. “I focused on shallow pockets and caught most of my fish on wood.”
His top tool was a Strike King Rage Bug in green pumpkin, pitched on ½-ounce weight in shallow water, but the frog also played a big role.
“The second day in the rain, I caught them fishing a white Strike King Popping Perch around shallow bank grass and laydown logs,” he said. “That’s how I caught the 6-10 (the biggest bass of the event). That was really about it, it was a 15-bass-a-day type of deal, and I wish the water was higher so there would be more fish up there.”
8. Long runs for green ones pay off for Stanley
Another largemouth-or-bust angler, Alexandria, Tennessee’s Matt Stanley, was all-in on the largemouth this week and posted consistent weights in the teens by fishing near New Johnsonville.
“I’ve caught maybe five keeper smallmouth on this lake in my life, so it was largemouth all the way,” he said. “I was fishing dirt shallow, as shallow as I could get the boat. I fished anything I could find in the water; I caught one off a tire – the key was anything lying in the water.”
To catch his fish, he went simple with a 3/8-ounce Dirty Jigs No-Jack Swim Jig in blue glimmer and he paired it with a pearl white Xcite Shadnasty swimbait as the trailer.
9. Big swings work for Knight
Clint Knight kicked off the first day of the event with a solid 17-15 bag, which had him in second place, only to bring in four bass the second day and rebound again with a 16-2 limit on the final day. His up-and-down event was due to the conditions and his fishing style.
“I’m known for swinging for the fences and throwing a big bait and that’s what can happen,” he said. “The first day I caught that bag that was almost 18 pounds in 20 minutes on an 8-inch albino pearl soft swimbait. They were firing and once I caught the limit, I came closer to the dam because of all the wind.”
He returned to his areas near Paris on the second day without success, but decided on a different approach on the final day.
“I fished those same areas as slow as molasses,” he said. “I caught them on a Carolina rig with a ¾-ounce weight and a Yamamoto Senko on the back. I also fished a 3/8-ounce green pumpkin jig with a big bulky trailer to slow it down even more.”
10. Jelinek finesses for success
With his second-straight Top 10 in the Plains Division, Missouri, pro Brad Jelinek is narrowly leading the points. Also a rookie on the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals, Jelinek fished new water every day on Kentucky Lake for this one.
“I just got here from Eufaula, and I was pretty low because that was not a good event for me,” he said. “In practice, I started running spawning pockets and started catching some decent fish. I was fishing from takeoff down to Paris and hitting new water every day. The more I do these, the more I realize that you have to find new water constantly and that you can’t keep going back to the same places.”
Jelinek went with finesse to catch his fish, both a 3/8-ounce 6th Sense Divine Shakey Head with a 6th Sense Clout Worm in bluegrass magic and a drop-shot with a 6-inch morning dawn finesse worm.