CALVERT CITY, Ky. – Since taking a nose dive in the late 20-teens, Kentucky and Barkley lakes have been back on the upswing. Last year’s Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats event showcased them during the smallmouth spawn in late April when Jake Lawrence won with 57 pounds. This year, the Plains Division will kick things off with a prespawn tournament, that should produce top-end weights and see a lot of smallmouth and largemouth brought to the scale.
Last week might have been better, but this week should be good
Running parallel to each other and flowing north into the Ohio River, Kentucky and Barkley have a storied tournament history. On the Cumberland River, Barkley is smaller, and has a historically better shallow fishery, with more wood on the banks and that sort of thing. The last lake on the legendary Tennessee River chain, Kentucky is massive and known for just about everything, though the ledge fishing got the bulk of the press in the heyday.
This week, with both lakes in pretty good shape and a burgeoning smallmouth population, the anglers should find pretty good fishing.
“This is going to be a really fun tournament,” said Lawrence. “Last year, with the way everything set up and the timing of everything the event was right in the middle of the smallmouth spawn. Things were a little funky, and a little bit off. This year, we’re about six weeks earlier than last year, and there a lot of fish coming out of their winter patterns and are in the prespawn staging areas near the bank.”
Terry Bolton agrees the lake is in good shape, but suspects we won’t see results quite on par with the Phoenix Bass Fishing League event held at the end of February.
“There was a lot of fish shallow two weeks ago, and I think there are still some, but the water drop and the lack of rainfall, it keeps a lot of those fish off the bank and offshore,” Bolton explained. “They’ll get up there on the bank occasionally, but a lot of them are sitting where your boat is. So, I think it lends itself more to a structure-type event – I think the winner will find something off of the bank. I’m not saying they won’t catch some on the bank, but I think their winning fish will be something away from the bank.”
Mix of techniques expected to play
Both Lawrence and Bolton expect to see a pretty diverse Top 10.
“I think you’ll see a gamut,” said Bolton. “I think everything from Alabama rigs, to your jighead LiveScoping baits, lipless crankbaits, jigs, jerkbaits. I think you’ll see a little bit of everything, all the true players, plus the newer, LiveScoping stuff too.
“I think these fish are in little packs, a couple fish pull up on place, and when you’re there you catch one or two of them and you roll on to the next,” said Bolton. “I think the guy who wins will probably have 15 or 20 spots, but may not catch them off the same ones every day.”
Lawrence expects a big mix as well.
“I think Rat-L-Traps, spinnerbaits, and ChatterBaits will all be pretty strong,” Lawrence said. “I predict it’s going to be more of a pattern-type event rather than finding a mega school of bass. They exist, but they’re so hard to predict. I think the winner is going to have to juke and jive and fish the conditions, and target whatever looks right.”
Notably, Lawrence gave some love to Barkley, a lake he once ran about 70 miles away from to win his first Costa FLW Series event back in 2018.
“(Lake) Barkley hasn’t been talked about much the last few years, but this is the time of the year that it really plays,” Lawrence said. “There is so much natural wood there – laydowns and logs – any bass that wants to be on a piece of cover is going to be caught on Barkley. I’m not sure the tournament will be won there, but it is definitely going to play a big role and I think that we could see up to half of the Top 10 end up coming out of Barkley.”
What does it take?
From a weight perspective, this event should be solid all around, though Kentucky Lake isn’t back to the glory days, both smallmouth and largemouth populations are really good.
Lawrence thinks that it’s going to be a good tournament for everyone.
“I think overall the weights will be similar to last year – I believe it’ll take 59 to 63 pounds to win this one – but the weights are going to be a lot better a lot further down into the field,” Lawrence said.
Bolton agrees and looks forward to a strong showing from the brown bass.
“I think it’s going to take around 60 pounds,” said Bolton. “I think that the winner will predominantly have smallmouth in their bag. I’m not saying you can’t catch a 20-pound stringer of largemouth, but I don’t believe you can do it three days in a row. Our largemouth population is still lagging behind, I think to do well you’d better have two or three smallmouth in your bag every day.”
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