Dan Morehead has fished Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley for nearly 40 years, so it stands to reason why the native of nearby Paducah was a little peeved at himself after weighing 10-10 on day 1 of the Kentucky Lake FLW Tour Major. He was buried in 115th place, more than 8 pounds out of the lead.
He threw out his day-1 plan and started fresh on day 2, catching 19-04 to rise 87 spots and salvage a 28th-place finish, his fourth Top-30 result in five outings this season. Still, it wasn’t enough to wash the bitter taste out of his mouth.
“Am I proud of myself for making that big of comeback and getting a big check? Yeah, that’s all great and good, but on my home lake, I expect more,” he said. “I fully intended to be fishing in the Top 20 (on day 3) with my buddy (Terry) Bolton and then let whatever was going to happen happen. I don’t know how many more opportunities we’re going to have for them to come back home for a ledge-fishing tournament the first week of June. It just doesn’t come around very often.”
He started the tournament in Barkley because that’s his comfort zone out of the two lakes.
“I knew there would be no other competitors over there and Barkley’s always been where I used to fish all the time. I felt like I knew it pretty good,” he said. “I went over there and they weren't pulling any current. I could see the fish on the graph, but I couldn’t get them to bite. I made my milk run and hit some of those places about three times. Where I made my mistake was I should’ve abandoned Barkley about 10:30 (on day 1) and gone to Kentucky. I just kept telling myself that I knew the lake good enough that I would keep moving and hit new spots until I found a school of them. It just never happened.”
He spent all of day 2 on Kentucky Lake and was able to get on some unpressured schools with a football-head jig and swimbait program. He went through about 60 fish total.
“When you get to this level of competition it all comes down to the decisions you make,” he said. “I made a bad one and paid the price for it.”
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