Here is my take on this past season here on Ky/Barkley:

Spring: The only normal thing we had this spring was in late Feb and first few days in March...the early prespawn Smallmouth bite was good. Then came the flood...lol. The flood in March and the unusual weather patterns affected the LM and SM bite for the remainder of the spring. The SM bite virtually shut down after the flood hit (not nearly as good in March as normal). The Largemouth bite was good all spring...but one had to versitile and know how all the water and weather conditions were affecting the shad. The fish moved in..the fish moved out..the fish moved in..the fish moved out.etc...lol. We had a LM spawn that was strung out all the way into the end of May. Overall, my observation of the spring LM bite is that it was good, but never as many fish concentrated in spawning areas at the same time...this was not a bad thing if you knew how to keep following the fish...but it frustrated may anglers that I talked to. Barkley was a mud hole for the most part in March so I concentrated more on Ky Lake this spring but did have some good days on Barkley in April and May.

Summer: The ledge bite was great this year on Ky Lake. I found it to be just fair on Barkley. Most of the ledge bite this year was dominated by slow moving techniqes (dragging jigs, Texas and C-rigs) but we did have some good crankbait and spinnerbait bite early on. Had a lot of good fish on ledges this summer..lots of short fish too...but many days with some big fish...had 7 fish over 7 lbs on the ledges this summer..that in my book is a good summer. The grass bite was good, especially down south toward Paris. Frog bite was awesome in June.

Fall: The fall bite was short lived for the most part. The water temps stayed up too long and it put the fish stuck in transition..the young shad made the transition first as normal...but the adult shad were stuck between deep and shallow and just as they started to move shallow, the artic fronts hit us and the water temps dropped like a rock (early this year). Had some really good days on numbers back shallow on the fall bite with topwaters and senkos fishing the young shad schools, lots of short fish and some good keepers but never really saw the schools of big fish back shallow because the adult shad schools were hanging out in the channels between the flats and mouths of the creeks. The main lake grass bed fishing early this fall was very good with topwaters and spinnerbaits and remained that way until the water dropped too low and pulled the shad off the flats. Overall, I would rate the fall fishing as good but not nearly as good or lasting as long as normal. Most of our fall (late October and November) was spent ripping spoons and lipless crankbaits under the big adult shad schools that were hanging out on the creek channels off the flats). The fall bite as it were, was over early this year.

I would say this past year was a good year..and a challenging year...looking forward to the coming year and hoping we will get the weather patterns more back in line with what we normally see here in early spring and late Oct and Nov.

By the way, I will doing my seminars at the West Ky Boat and Outdoor Show next month on spring bass fishing here on the big lake.

Also, I am teaching classes this winter here on how to eliminate water and find the bass....if you had problems following the bass this past spring with all the water level changes and unusual weather patterns...this class will cure that problem.