Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by mhall
No where even close to fishing professional or even some small tourney trail for I am not that good. Spent a LOT of hours on the water at Ky and Dale over the past 3-4 years and know certain parts of each lake very well and that is where I fish (Basically from First Island north to Illwill on Dale, and North KY on the LBL side from Rhodes to Smith Bays), that is a lot of water that I don't fish. It also does not hurt when you are buddies with Steve Headrick, the guy with the best overall knowledge of Dale Hollow alive today (in my opinion) plus know Dave Stewart pretty good as well. Both of these guys have helped me tremendously on both lakes. Spent many of a day going to Dale in particularly and not getting a bite. Back in 2004, I remember one weekend where I left Frankfort at 2am, drove to Hendricks Creek and FNF all day long without one single bite, drove back to Frankfort and got home around 8pm, Had no intentions of going on Sunday, unloaded the boat and put the cover on, got in bed around 10pm for about 5 minutes and decided to go back, set the alarm for 1am, got up and went back, fished all day long and never got a bite, took out at dark and drove back to Frankfort. Many days like that to get to where I am today on Dale and KY. I don't remember who said it to me but someone told me 4 years ago when I first started fishing, "Make every day on the lake a productive day on the lake". I can't count the times when the fish are not biting where I have just drove around with my map in hand looking at points, dropoffs, dragging C Rigs with 1 oz weights and no hook to just see what was on the bottom. Summer fishing is pretty basic, find some deep flats located next to deeper water and if there is any cover present then fish will inhabit this area at some time during the cycle. Find enough of these to where you can get several that are similar and when you catch a fish run those spots to try to get a pattern. In Dale Hollow case, add grass to the mix and learn to fish the grass (which I did for the first time Monday) and you will catch fish. I could probably drop the trolling motor and go straight down the bank and catch a few fish, but I don't fish that way. I ran 17 gallons of gas out of my boat on Monday alone, at 3 MPH per, that is a lot of running and gunning. When you find the flats or points that should be productive, find the sweet spot with the area and if fish are present anywhere on the flat or point they will be on the sweet point and fish it first, no takers then move to next spot. If taker then slow down and fish all around it for others. This is how I fish. Good Luck