A Bigger Ghost Minnow

Rebel's 2 1/2-inch TD47 Tracdown Ghost Minnow has long been one of my absolute favorite lures, especially for trout streams, but also smallmouth streams, ponds and assorted other settings. It casts crazily far, offers super versatility in terms of how it can be worked and has a narrow profile that matches a minnow and looks like an easy meal. It's pretty small, though, so it's limited to settings where I'm content with a fairly small offering.

Last year, Rebel delivered a bigger version of the Tracdown Ghost Minnow. Everything about the TD57 matches its little brother, including the six colors it comes in, but this Ghost Minnow is 4 1/2 inches long. I snatched some up as soon as I could get my hands on them, and have been using them ever since. So far, I've been delighted and have used the bigger Ghost Minnows to catch a lot of fish in wade range of situations. They cast great, even on baitcasting gear, and the weighting allows them to manage current extremely well.

I'm actually the most excited about throwing one of these dudes during high flows in a big cold-water tailwater that's home to big brown trout. I haven't gotten to do that yet, but I have caught a couple of bass on them from the tailwaters of Wilson and Kentucky dams, so I've seen how nicely they perform in the big water.

Either size of Tracdown has a tight wiggle with a straight retrieve but gets very erratic when you jerk it, so the possibilities for presentations are virtually limitless.

I leave today for a trip that will include several days of fishing, and you can bet that I'll have plenty of TD47s and TD57 in the car!

Tennessee River Time

Randy Haynes brought the biggest bag of the 3-day Rayovac FLW
Series Event on Kentucky Lake on the final day to win the Tennessee
River slugfest. FLW photo.

Nothing about this weekend's Rayovac FLW Series event on Kentucky Lake was a surprise. It was a slugfest, it was won on ledges, and Randy Haynes tallied the biggest three-day catch.

Ledge season brings some of the best fishing of the year to the Tennessee River, and it's time when the best of the best really shine at what they do. Everyone knows that events will be won on ledges this time of year, most pros know what to look for and what to throw, and many rotate through many of the same spots, all catching a bunch of fish. Yet the same guys do little things better than anyone else and figure out what it takes to find the best schools and fish them the right ways to bring in bigger bags than anyone else.

Randy Haynes has now won seven events with FLW, and six of them have been on the Tennessee River. He was the guy many pros would have picked to win, and he did, with more than 75 pound over three days and a tournament best catch of 27-10 on the final day.

Haynes had no single spot. In fact, he fished a different area yesterday than the first two days and he worked about 40 different ledges. He also rotated systematically through four lures. The best ledge fishermen have great instincts about when to stay and when to go and are masters at boat positioning and figuring out patterning subtleties. They see stuff no one else can quite put a finger on and figure out how to apply what the see.

This weekend's action leads into mighty important month on the Tennessee River and a serious spotlight on summer ledge fishing. The FLW Tour visits Pickwick next week and Kentucky Lake later in the season. Those two events wrap up the season, so an Angler of the Year and quite a few qualifiers for the Forrest Wood Cup will be decided on the ledges in June.

Between the dates of those two events, the Bassmaster Elite Series will visit Chickamauga Lake. Also a Tennessee River impoundment, Chickamauga has less quality ledge habitat than Pickwick or Kentucky Lake, but the current bass population is loaded with big fish.

Kentucky Lake Learning

Mark Rose had barely gotten words out of his mouth explaining how bass tend to behave during the fall and talking about where the fish should be when he set the hook into a chunky bass that gave credence to what he had been saying. Not that his words about bass need credence. In recent years Rose has established himself as one of the finest anglers on the FLW Tour, and big river impoundments like Kentucky Lake are his specialty. Still, it's fun to watch the bass cooperate and back his words.

I didn't fish today. Instead, I spent a full day learning about bass behavior and fishing tactics from top bass pros. It was a great day of learning and doing photo work on one of the finest bass lakes in the nation. Each of the four guys I spent time with provided a little different perspective, with all four giving me great material for stories.

Although we spoke mostly about tactics, I learned much more about the lake itself today -- thing that will help me with stories about Kentucky Lake and with future fishing trips. Both are good things because Kentucky Lake is a popular destination to write about, and it's also one of my favorite places to fish.

Tomorrow starts with more of the same, except with crappie pros instead of bass pros, but by late morning, Nathaniel and I will be bidding Kentucky Lake farewell and pointing the truck toward Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Both Top Bass Tours Competing this Week

Texas Pro Matt Reed is bound to be happy to be competing on Toledo Bend this week.

A big weekend of competitive bass fishing began this morning, with the Bass Elite Series making a stop at Toledo Bend and the FLW Tour fishing Kentucky Lake. Both are huge reservoirs and storied destinations with long histories of competitive bass fishing. It will be fun to see how both lakes produce, which strategies and lake areas emerge as tops and how the respective angler-of-the-year races are effected by these two events.