The Inside Line

Ross Barnett Reservoir covers approximately 33,000 surface acres. That’s considerably smaller in comparison to the other fisheries our tour visits.

Having competed there years ago, I knew it would be difficult to find fishable waters to myself.

Our fourth stop on this year’s FLW Tour was Lake Cumberland in Burnside, KY. Cumberland is a huge, clear water reservoir and the main lake is over a 100 miles long. 

There are multitudes of creeks with bushes and standing trees as well as main lake areas with big rock and standing trees. It’s pretty easy on the eyes, too. The lake is very vertical with few flat areas.  All three species of bass can be found here but there are minimums to take into account: an 18" minimum for smallmouth, 15" for largemouth and 12" for spotted bass. The fish were fat and in pre-spawn but with the smallmouth requiring an 18" minimum length, you sometimes ended up toss back a fish that weighs 3 pounds or more. Ouch!

When I first saw Toledo Bend on the schedule, I have to admit, I wasn’t too excited. Even though it’s been voted the best bass lake in America the past two years running, I somehow find a way to miss out on all the action.

The 2017 Bassmaster Elite Series schedule is diverse and full of great fisheries across the country. In this piece I'm previewing the second half of the events of the 2017 season and making my predictions for the patterns and weight needed to win.

After experiencing nearly polar conditions at Lake Cherokee a week earlier, I was ready to warm things up on the “Big O.”

Prior to cutoff, I did considerable prep. And I knew the area had been experiencing relatively stable conditions since that time, so I felt what I had learned then would still apply.

Lake Cherokee is beautiful. Like other reservoirs in east Tennessee, it’s deep and reasonably clear. It’s also full of rock. According to the locals, however, it fishes quite differently.

Having zero experience on Cherokee, it looked to be a challenging week ahead.

The 2017 Bassmaster Elite Series schedule is diverse and full of great fisheries across the country. I thought I’d take this opportunity preview the first half of the events of the 2017 season and make my predictions for the patterns and weight needed to win.

Soon, another season of the Bassmaster Elite Series will begin, and with it will come plenty of excitement and anticipation for the 108 pros who will be participating. Each has his strengths and weaknesses, and this schedule is sure to test them both.

With that in mind, here is a preview of each upcoming event. 

My current Bass Cat Eyra, which I plan to replace later this year, is the fifth bass boat I’ve owned. It’s also the most lightly used among the bunch. As I’ve gotten older, not only have increased obligations prevented me from fishing as much, but a decreased sense of urgency combined with greater discretion lead me to treat my boats more gently.

“Dad, can I go inside and finish up my math homework?”
“No, son. I need another hour of flipping and pitching drills from you. You’re not living up to your potential.”

The first time I saw a Scrounger head was while riding with Aaron Martens on Day One of the 2004 Bassmaster Classic on Lake Wylie. At that time, I figured it was just a tool for his distinctive mind, one that he’d continue to use furtively and under very limited circumstances.

What are the two most pleasing bites in fishing?Clearly – to me, at least – you’ve got to put the frog at or near the top for sheer explosiveness, and while it’s a relative newcomer to the scene, no one with any sense could fault you if you placed the Whopper Plopper up there, too.
 

Of all of the new lures I’ve seen this year, one of the ones that I’m most excited to try is Jackall’s Chan Wake, mostly because I expect that fishing it will be a bit like déjà vu all over again

Last week my wife Hanna took her first fishing trip without me, meeting up with her lady angler friends from Tennessee and Wisconsin at Kentucky Lake. It’s a renowned tournament venue, mostly for its summer offshore ledge fishing, but they were there during the “yellow flower” bite and it promised to be a shallow water slugfest.

I first met Ronnie Moore at the Elite Series event on the Delaware River in 2014. I needed a ride to the ramp one morning and somehow ended up in the passenger seat of Ronnie’s silver pickup, where I was treated to a 75 mile per hour run up the road, dodging early commuters and running up on a sidewalk or two as we hauled the mail to get there in time for blast-off.

Now that the folks in charge have officially rejected hopscotch, video hockey and dodgeball as potential Olympic sports, I’ve got one that I’m pretty sure that they’ll like. I think that we should make a competition out of the ability to change out trolling motor batteries on a 36 volt system.