Scotty Pennington

I was so excited to fish this event.  I have always wanted to go to Kentucky Lake and this year, the lake has been on fire. Every tournament this year had been taking 20 lb stringers to win and it was mostly power fishing, something I excel in.

Before the tournament, I really researched the lake and figured that the lake would fish both shallow and deep.  I upgraded all of my crankbaits to deep divers, and made sure I had a great selection of 10" Berkley Power Worms on hand.  For the shallow bite, I knew that the lake had a resurgence of grass and I was hoping for some great top water action with Berkley Bat Wing Frogs. 

During the week, the deep bite became virtually nonexistent.  There were millions of shad everywhere on the lake and you could catch 50 fish a day up shallow around the grass.  The problem was that only 2-3 of those 50 would be keepers.  I started working my way out to deeper water to try to find where the bigger fish were, and I found that they were holding on the scattered grass ledges that had deeper water close by.  I could work the areas with a frog and also an Excaliber Swimmin Image when the fish were schooling.  I also worked a Berkley Power Shakey Worm, 7" in the "General" color to catch fish on the edges of the grass.

The first day of the tournament started with a change in the weather with a strong north wind.  This made the frog bite tough, but I managed a descent bag of 12lbs.  The second day brought on an even stronger wind.  The frog bite was dead, but the shakey worm bite turned on and I managed a 13lb bag.  I made my second cut, in as many tournaments, in 17th place.  The final day, the wind died down, but due to the Corps pulling water every day, the fish backed off and became very scattered.  I could only catch 2 keepers and I fell to 25th overall.  The two top 25th places that I secured have put me into 11th place overall in the points chase.  I really need a top 5 at the Texohma event to secure a spot in the Bassmasters Classic.  Any decent finish and I will secure a top 10 spot and a coveted invitation to fish the Bassmaster Elites.

Winning Pattern: The winner announced that he too was focusing on the scattered grass, but he had much deeper water close by.  He was punching the grass with sweet beaver imitations.