Small (mouth) Distraction

My focus has been a little split for the past couple of days. It's something that sometimes happens when a big tournament is going on. And it's especially likely to occur when the pros are catching whopper smallmouths. I find myself spending too much time peeking at BASStrakk, the Bassmaster blog, the FLW Twitter feed, pros' facebook pages and more, wanting to know what the fish are doing and who is catching them and of course wanting to see photos of big brown fish.

I suppose it's somewhat of a vicarious fishing thing.

This week it's been a double whammy because the Elites are fishing Lake St. Clair at the same time as an FLW Rayovac Series event is going on at Erie, out of Sandusky. The fishing has been good, and they are catching a lot of big fish. Adding intrigue, friends are in major contention in both tournaments, and on the BASS side, the Angler of the Year race and Bassmaster Classic qualifiers continue to take shape.

I'm still getting my writing done. It's just taking longer than it should. I'd write more here, but I need to check on the weigh-ins!

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.