For Kentucky smallmouth in the heat, turn your back to the banks

August 29, 2008 by admin

“We’re going to live or die on one hole,” Lynn Lane had told a tournament partner. By noon, the latter was looking more likely, with neither a bass in the livewell nor a missed hit to lend hope. Lane stuck with his guns, however, and at 12:30, after six hours of fishing, he got his first bump. By 2:30, when he and his partner had to head for the weigh-in, they had an 18-pound limit in the boat.

The difference?

Current.

Tennessee Valley Authority began running enough water to create current over the bar that Lane was fishing, and the fish turned on as if someone had hit a switch. Such is the nature of summer smallmouth fishing on Kentucky and Barkley lakes, where Lane guides and competes in tournaments and has fished all his life.

Lane, who typically fishes for largemouths and smallmouths together more so than he targest one species, does most of his summer fishing with his back to banks. “Out on the deep structure near the main river channel is where you’ll find the most fish — and usually the best fish — on these lakes,” he said.

“That’s not to say you can’t catch a few fish off boat docks,” Lane said. “You can. However, I catch most of my smallmouths from deeper water.”

Lane concentrates on structure along the main Tennessee ad Cumberland river channels, primarily through the lower ends of the lakes. He catches more smallmouths from Kentucky Lake than from Barkley, but his biggest smallmouth, which weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce, came from Barkley.

“They both have plenty of smallmouths. I think I just fish more smallmouth spots on Kentucky Lake,” he said.

The two primary types of features that Lane focuses his summer efforts on are ditches that dump into the main river channel and bars or humps that rise out of or very near to the channel. He often will position his boat over 40 feet or more of water in the main river channel and cast his offerings to structure that is 25 or 30 feet deep.

Lane always looks for a hard bottom, which he can recognize on his graph, because a hard bottom indicates that current regularly washes an area. For smallmouths, he specificallly prefers a bottom of gravel or chunk rock. “There’s just something about rock and smallmouths,” he said.

In addition to his mainstay bars and ditches, Lane targets smallmouths in a couple other types of places. First, he said that barge tie-offs in the lower end of Kentucky Lake always have smallmouths around them. In addition, he pointed toward main-lake pockets along the east bank of Kentucky Lake. A wash sometimes forms in the backs of steep-sided cuts, and the result is a subtle bar where the gravel settles.

“It might only be a rise of a foot or two in 14 or 15 feet of water,” Lane said, “but these areas really hold the smallmouths sometimes.”

Lane’s No. 1 summer tactic, far and away, is dragging a Carolina rig. He C-rigs an Exude B-A Hawg, which is a 4-inch creature bait, typically sticking with a few basic colors. He pointed toward junebug, green pumpkin and watermelon seed as good bets and noted that he abides by the often-stated premise of fishing darker tones on darker days or in stained water.

While Lane’s basic retrieve is a simple dragging motion, he will vary the speed that he moves the bait, the length of each dragging stroke and the amount of time he pauses his offering. “There are times when I will let it just sit there for 20 seconds or more after I bump a stick or a rock. Other times, I’ll hop it along steadily,” he said.

Upon arriving at a spot, Lane sometimes will make a dozen or so casts with a crankbait or a spinnerbait. “That will pick up the most aggressive fish,” he explained. After that, he’ll pick up his Carolina rig rod, which he typically will continue throwing until he leaves that spot.

When Lane specifically has big bass in mind, he sometimes turns to a tactic that Kentucky Lake anglers call “stroking” a jig. “You cast out over the structure, let the bait fall all the way down and then jerk it up off the bottom, almost like you are snagging,” he said. “Then you watch the line as teh bait sinks, looking for a slight tick. You typically won’t feel the strike.”

For stroking, Lane uses a 1/2-ounce black and blue jig tipped with a a black and blue Exude Craw Chunk. “It will wear you out,” he said, “but it produces some really big bass.”

For all offshore bass fishing, Lane looks for the current. If one lake is running more current than the other, he’ll almost always opt for the current. Likewise, he’ll scout spots to see how much current there is, as different spots run more according to which generators are running

“Our current isn’t like in a regular river. It’s very subtle,” Lane noted. “It makes all the difference, though.”

By Jeff Samsel

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