What's the skinny on Kentucky/Barkley Lakes

[Dave Stewart]

Mark: I am a firm believer that when fishing LM that you go find the fish and then fish them. Now I have to run and gun now and then if I am doing teaching trips or tournament preps...but those trips are not designed to catch a lot of fish..they have other goals such as seeing a number of good spots and patterns for the tournament folks or showing a number of different areas and techniques for the pure learning trips. But, when I am just out there with a client to catch fish we are not going to do a lot of running...if you know the fish are there, you just have to wait them out and try to figure out what technique is going to work on them today. Now when I am fishing SM I do run and gun because they like to travel...but I may hit the same spots a number of times during the day to try to catch them up there feeding.

The best example I can think of is to watch the guys on the BASS Elite tour or FLW tour on tv...you don't see a lot of running and gunning...they go out in practice and find what they think are the best fish and they fish them...they always have that back up plan in case of weather/condition changes but rarely do you see those guys fish more than a couple of spots during the day and many times during the entire tournament. Now some folks like to run and gun and that is their thing...some even do well now and then doing it...but it is not my style...I just don't see a lot of sense in leaving fish to find fish if I am trying to put fish in the boat.

[Col Forbin]

I took some nasty weather to show me about not running I was fishing a tournament earlier in the year out of mid barkley, and wind picked up something awful about the time of take-off. Instead of running to Ky (as I had planned and 90% of the rest of the fishermen did) I decided to go down to a small bay that was sheltered from the wind. I fished that bay all day slow and methodical and culled about 15 fish. I was the only one with a limit that day, and had two over 6. After thinking about it I knew if the weather had been better I would have fished several spots, and not had near the luck of really concentrating on one. Now in tournaments I rarely will fish more than 3 spots in a day, and will give each one at least an hour, especially a ledge holding some baitfish.

Now when it is jerk bait season I will hit a ton of spots, and may not fish half of them. I just cruise a series of about 10-15 points and only fish the ones holding baitfish. I will hit some of them 3 or 4 times a day (Dave taught me that trick earlier this year, and it works for spring smallies).

[fishing4kids]

Mark: I am a firm believer that when fishing LM that you go find the fish and then fish them. Now I have to run and gun now and then if I am doing teaching trips or tournament preps...but those trips are not designed to catch a lot of fish..they have other goals such as seeing a number of good spots and patterns for the tournament folks or showing a number of different areas and techniques for the pure learning trips. But, when I am just out there with a client to catch fish we are not going to do a lot of running...if you know the fish are there, you just have to wait them out and try to figure out what technique is going to work on them today. Now when I am fishing SM I do run and gun because they like to travel...but I may hit the same spots a number of times during the day to try to catch them up there feeding.

The best example I can think of is to watch the guys on the BASS Elite tour or FLW tour on tv...you don't see a lot of running and gunning...they go out in practice and find what they think are the best fish and they fish them...they always have that back up plan in case of weather/condition changes but rarely do you see those guys fish more than a couple of spots during the day and many times during the entire tournament. Now some folks like to run and gun and that is their thing...some even do well now and then doing it...but it is not my style...I just don't see a lot of sense in leaving fish to find fish if I am trying to put fish in the boat.

Mark-GonFishn,

I did exactly what Dave is saying here I fished two spots all day went back and forth. There was no need to look else were. I left mid day (when the bite died) to find a kicker but ended up catching it later were I caught the others just off the ledge a little shallower.
Eddie

[mhall]

Good thoughts Guys for sure. Yea I do run and gun alot on my smallmouth as Dave said they are roamers for sure. But also like Dave said I can hit a spot do a little damage then leave, come back later and catch fish again sometimes. Largemouth tend to be more of a home body and that's where I need to teach myself to be more patient and stick with a spot, and this at times will apply to the smallmouth also. Didn't mean to highjack this fella's post but this is some good stuff right here.