justinrose40

Kentucks, some people love them, some people hate them, and others don't care. I say if it will bite my bate and fight like the devil to get off the hook, bring it on.

I've been fishing since I was a little kid, and I don't remember exactly what drew me to fishing in the beginning. But as I grew up, I know that it was just the time spent outdoors with my dad and friends that made me grow to love this sport. Spinnerbait fishing in timber is my favorite technique, but the thing that keeps me up at night, is thinking about a slack line at night under a black light. Just watching ever so closley for the slightest jerk to bounce the line, and then the feel of a solid hookset. It is amazing to me that so much joy and pleasure can come from something as simple as a jerk on one end of the line waiting on a jerk on the other end.

I fish several different types of jerkbaits, but my go to would be the X-rap from Rapala. They didn't hit it as good last year on my home lake, but 2 springs ago my partner and I caught a lot of fish in the 4-5 pound range and even a couple over 6 on a clown X-rap in muddy water and silver in clear water. When I was first learning how to jerkbait fish, someone told me that when the bite is more aggressive and you miss a fish to try and rip the bait away from them as quick as possible. I thought he was crazy, it seemed to me that the obvious thing to do would be to pause and hope he took it again. Turns out he was right. When the bite is aggressive it drives them crazy to miss the bait and see it trying to get away. Good Luck, and hold on tight.

My Uncle used to live in NC, and fished Lake Sutton alot. There are some nice fish in there. He kept trying to get me to come down and fish it with him, but I never got the chance. He lives here now in South-Eastern Kentucky, but we still talk about making the trip. I'm glad to here that some other clubs are starting to do this, at least on a limited basis, and that the over all opinion is good. It is not as thrilling as packing them up to the scales, but it's a lot better for the fish.

I am really good at congratulating my partner when he catches a big fish. I've been in the boat for a lot, and I like to always make sure they appreciate what they've done and know how much I'd like to be in there shoes, just once. I'm pretty good with the dip-net too, I've had a lot of practice.

I fish in a small club of about 30 members. We fish 12 tournaments a year in South-Eastern Kentucky and North-Eastern Tennessee. You can enter each tournament as a boater or non-boater and you draw for your partner. During the tournament if you catch a keeper fish you measure it and your partner witnesses, and you record the length and immediately release the fish. We have a conversion chart that converts length to weight, sometimes it's over and sometimes it's under but it is the same for everyone and it evens out pretty close. The tournament is an individual tournament, so the man in the boat with you is fishing against you. We don't fish for much money mainly bragging rights and points. You receive points each tournament based on your finish and at the end of the year each anglers best 8 tournaments are added up and we have a banquet honoring the top 6 anglers and the Fisherman of the Year. It is a fun method for small clubs, and very good for the fish, especially during the spawn. I was wondering if any other small clubs have adopted this technique, or what anyone thought of it.

I am just now starting to experiment with swim baits on my home lake, it is a clear deep lake, and it is stocked with around 200,000 trout a year. I think that the smallmouth are feeding on these trout a lot, so I am interested to see how the swimbait will fair. But I can not imagine putting down my grub. The grub has always been a hot bait on the Laurel Lake in the spring time. I have a lot of sucess on the 3" bass pro shops spring grub, wish they still made the 4", but the 3 does good too. It all comes down to confidence, and I have a lot of confidence in my grub, but I'm willing to give the swimbaits a chance.

My personal best is a 20.5 in the picture below caught on Laurel River Lake in south-east Kentucky. I seen 6 over 20 caught in the same day once by my fishing partner on the same lake, but I only mustered up one keeper that day. We didn't have a camera, wasn't expecting that kind of catch. But I got to see a good show that day, and got a reel good workout on the dip net.

My personal best on Laurel is a 20.5 incher weighing in at just over 5lbs. It's the one in my profile picture. The best day I've ever been a part of was in spring 06. I only had one smallie over 18 inches, but my partner that day had 6 over 20 inches, 2 of which where over 22. The only one we weighed was one of the 21.5 inch fish and it weighed 5.54lbs. So we guessed the six fish bag to weigh between 33 to 36 lbs. A truly remarkable day. Of course it didn't happen in a tournament though, just a couple friends out fishing. He caught 14 total fish, 8 were legal keeper smallmouth. Every fish came on the same bait, he only had two of the baits and he loaned me the extra. I caught my keeper and then the bill broke off of it, and I never caught another fish while he kept on slaying them.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't expecting a lot of replies but hoping for any info. I've never been to Reelfoot, and have no idea what to expect, we're hoping to figure it out when we get there, so any help is appreciated. I will post my results when I get back from my trip, and hopefully I'll have something to tell.

It took a while, but it seems that Laurel Lake is finally starting to catch up to its big brother Dale Hollow. I work on the lake and have had the opportunity to watch a lot of the spring weigh-ins and I've seen the size and number of smallmouths weighed in the past few years go through the roof. Spring 08 it seemed like you had to be in the upper 20s to have a shot at winning a tournament. I can remember not too many years ago when 20 pounds made you a sure winner, now it takes 20 just to finish in the money. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife have done a great job managing Smallmouth on Laurel Lake. For a long time now there has been a 18" size limit on Smallies, and they have recently added a 2 fish per angler slot limit. This makes the huge bags being weighed in in the spring even more impressive, since you can only weigh in 4 Smallmouth and have to pick up a Largemouth or Kentucky somewhere else. I was wondering if anyone else fished Laurel much, and had noticed the recent upswing in Smallmouth numbers and size.

Me and three others are going to Reelfoot the last weekend in March for the first time. I have always wanted to go to this lake, and the opportunity finally arose. We are not really worried about the size or numbers of fish we catch, we are really just looking to have a good time and catch a few bass. Does anyone have any information on this lake for this time of year? Where to fish, what on, or what color? We have heard that the northern part of the lake is best this time of year so we are camping and planning to fish the upper blue basin, but were willing to fish anywhere if anyone has any suggestions.