I used to fish barren a lot before i bought a lot at nolin and started fishing tourneys in 99 and my first tourney was at barren in april. It rained,sleeted,snowed but the winner fished hogback which is right across from baileys point campground there are 2 points that face each other. One side is shallow and the other side is super deep. The winner of tourney fished the deep side with stanley wedge 3/8 baby bass spinnerbait and had a winning weight of 21.06 pds. I thought....man am i fishing against pros ? Lol. After that tourney there was no total weight surpassing 15 pds per tourney. Anyway i was fishing in 1991 on the shallow side in mid april just for fun trolling minnows and caught a 4 1/2 pd smallmouth. Come to find out there are a lot bigger smallmouth in there. Barren has a lot of great fishing spots but hogback is my personal favorite. Good luck and hope you catch some big'uns.. Later jc