Kentucky Lake Practice day #2

Well, Let me first apologize for not updating on a regular basis.

Friday my Dad and I practiced on Kentucky lake south of the 68-80 bridge. We launched in the Blood River and fished around in the mud soup for about 1 hour. Needless to say, I was getting very discouraged. Especially since my right hand man and tournament partner was back at the hotel with the flu. By flu I mean endless fever, gut wrenching pain, and lung shattering coughs.

Dad and I decided if we were going to make any sort of progress in our tournament practice, we needed to find some clearer water. Nick talked to a guide the night before named Tadd Ladd who is also a friend of his and throughout the conversation, Tadd told him that the LBL (east) side of the lake was going to be clearer and warmer and not to be afraid to look shallow. We headed over there and still managed to suck up the earth!! At about 11 am we headed back to the end of ginger creek to the buck brush just for the heck of it. Boy was that the best move I ever made. Dad and I proceeded to catch or shake off about 6 fish. Mind you we only caught 3 the day before. We recognized about 300 little black birds diving under the water we assumed feeding on minnows. At first I was a little pessimistic on our pattern and proceeded to check another creek to perhaps solidify what we found and maybe put something together for tomorrows tournament. The back of the other creek also had little black birds feeding on minnows and about 25 bass that made our thumbs look like hamburger. At about 2pm we decided that we had enough proof that the fish were back there and decided to go get Nick for dinner and register for the tournament. At the time, we weren't sure if he was going to be able to fish, but if he didn't maybe Dad could stand in for him, or worst case scenario, I fish by myself. At the registration we managed to spend about $300 in new Ranger clothing and a few other necessities. Nick bought me a real nice ranger jacket and when I thanked him for it, he responded "Thats alright, I will tell you why I bought it later." Sigh, man this vacation is getting expensive but when we overheard we were getting almost 8 inches of snow at home, we decided to spend our sorrows away. After registration we stopped at the store and gassed up, pick up some bottled waters, and I think Nick bought out the store in flu medicine.
That night we put together our tackle and a nice strategy for the next day. Nick informed me that I was driving the boat and running the trolling motor. I felt very comfortable with his decision but a little nervous. I began psyching myself out b/c noone else I saw was fishing in the brush and I overheard someone at the marina talking about how much fish love jigs in this lake and how he was catching as many as he could on main lake and secondary points. You know what they say about dock talk and how you are supposed to ignore it, well a few times that night I was having mental battles with myself about wether or not our day was a fluke, or if I was really on to something. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but this wouldn't have been the first time I caught them good in practice and flunk in the tournament.

Stay tuned and I will post our detailed tournament day results as well as some interesting drama.