CHRISTMAS FOR KIDS CHARITY TOURNAMENT
The Christmas for Kids Tournament turned out for me to be one of the most miserable days on the water I can long remember. I had been prefishing with my friend Seth Peavler who fishes on the Murray State University Bass Fishing Team and he had put me onto a school of fish on the south end of Barkley. On Wednesday, we trailered down to Devil's Elbow to launch. A couple of minutes later we arrive at an outside bend in the main creek channel that was covered with a shell bed. Seth and a buddy of his had sacked a big bag on this spot two weeks prior, so we decided to see if the school was still there. I was throwing a 10 1/2 inch Zoom Ol' Monster in plum and Seth was fishing a football head jig.
It wasn't long until we both hooked up, and we enjoyed about an hour of putting fish in the boat. Eventually we decided not to sore mouth anymore fish and made a move. I had elected to concentrate on the south end of Barkley due to the FLW Tour launching out of KY Dam. I figured most of those guys would head south on KY and for the most part I was right. We only saw a couple of pro's in the area and none of them were ledge fishing, they were all flipping brush up shallow.
The second spot we decided to check was a bluff bank right next to Linton, which would prove to be a great find - just not for the reason the reader might be thinking. Right across from the mouth of Linton sat a Wal Mart boat with FLW Pro George Cochran. I made the remark to Seth something to the effect that there wasn't enough water on those bushes to hold any fish. Just about the time I got the words out of my mouth, Gentleman George flips a 3 1/2 pounder in the boat. So much for my wisdom. I admit I found myself wondering if I should take a hint from George and head to the bushes myself, but I was pretty set on staying with my ledge fishing gameplan.
We spent several hours working various ledge spots with only a few shorts to our credit. We wrapped things up in Little River, but failed to find anything promising.
Thursday morning, we head back to the same area. We continue to check ledges and intentionally stayed away from the school of fish we had found. After a few hours of exploration, we head back north and as we go by our spot, my heart sank as we spied a Nitro Z9 sitting right on the sweet spot. We sat down about a quarter mile or so north and fished this saddle between two islands. After seeing a large fish boil on some shad I send a Strike King Sexy Spoon that way and dropped it right in the middle of the distrubance. Not a full second after it hits the water a large bass hammers it. I set the hook and the fish goes airborne, spitting the spoon. Encouraged by seeing that large fish, we continued to work this small area, but with no more takers. At least if Mr. Z9 is on my primary spot, I've got a back up.
We decided to idle around Mr. Z9 and head to the opposite end of the ledge, some 250 yards or so from where he was set up. We give him a wide birth as we idle out into the channel and I'm sucking down a bottle of water. We set up on the other end, not so much to fish, but to see how hard Z9 was going to work that school. Eventually he leaves and we work our way up to the spot and decide to stay there and guard it without catching fish. Minutes later, Mr. Z9 goes streaking by yelling obscenities at us for stealing "his" spot. He does this mulitiple times. Later, I found out he was fishing a tournament out of Lake Barkley State Park 5 miles away and I was out of KY Dam Village some 40 miles away. I fully expected him to beat me to the fish, but at least I had one back up spot.
