By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Tom Redington was completely honest with his day-1 co-angler at last week's Kentucky Lake Central Rayovac. He informed the gentleman that they might not catch any fish all day.

"I told him I was either going to catch 25 pounds or I was going to blank, but I wasn't going to fish shallow," the Texas FLW Tour pro said.

He came up 3 ounces shy of the 25-pound mark that day, but the bag laid the foundation for his eventual victory. He caught 21 1/2 pounds on day 2 and a hefty 27 1/2 on day 3 to prevail by 2 pounds over ledge-fishing master and fellow Tour angler Randy Haynes.

His 71-13 total earned him $40,000 cash, plus a new Ranger boat. The bounty helps to offset a difficult first half of the Tour campaign in which he finished no higher than 85th in three events.

Here are some of the details.

Practice

Redington determined early in practice that he wasn't going to flip the shallow vegetation, even though a lot of fish were still close to the banks. He gambled that many would very soon begin heading for the deeper haunts where they'll spend the summer and he'd have a lot of the prime locales to himself, as much of the field would be congregated around the skinny-water bushes.

"The first day I tried a number of transition spots, but for three-quarters of the day it wasn't happening," he said. "Then I went shallow and got into the shad spawn and I was pretty excited about that. I was throwing topwaters and swimbaits and catching good-size fish, but that was all done on Monday (3 days before the start of the event)."

Knowing that the larger females are often the first fish to head for the ledges, he began graphing secondary points near the mouths of the spawning pockets. Early on he'd see only one or two dots (representing fish on his screen), and he'd make a cast that usually resulted in a bite. The first one he got was a 6 1/2-pounder.

"By the next day I started seeing three or four dots. By (Wednesday) there was eight or 10 and I found one place with 20.

"There's usually not a lot of private water on Kentucky Lake, but I saw everybody from Tour pros to locals graph over it and then leave, maybe because they saw so few fish. The didn't see enough to even stop."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 24-13
> Day 2: 5, 21-09
> Day 3: 5, 25-07
> Total = 15, 71-13

Redington's ledge-fish wouldn't bite moving baits on the morning of day 1, so he switched to a Texas-rigged worm and had a limit that might've weighed 15 pounds by 7:30. When the reaction-bait bite picked up, he used a swimbait to upgrade into the 20s. Late in the day he picked up two kickers – one over 6 pounds and another that topped 5.

All the while, he was seeing more and more dots on his graph.

Additional fish had arrived in the deeper water for the start of day 2, but the stormy weather seemed to put them in a funky mood. He ended up catching a lot of 3 1/2- to 4-pounders and one that was close to 5.

He was in 2nd place going into the final day, about a pound and a half behind Haynes. He'd pared his milk run of a dozen or more locales down to just three and he bounced between them throughout the day, throwing nothing but the swimbait.

"I knew I was going to have to smash them, so I didn't even pick up the worm rod," he said. "The whole day I was going after big fish, and early on I got some good ones. I got dialed in to where the best quality was, I wanted a huge spawning pocket, but the river ledge had to be close to it.

"Those three spots were within a couple miles of each other and I just played hopscotch on them. I'd beat on one until they stopped biting, then I'd move on to the next one, and I just rotated through them all day."

He had three 4-pounders, a 5 and a 6 1/2 in his box as check-in time drew near.

"I felt like I needed one more good one and with 5 minutes left, some locals let me back on one of the spots – I told them I'd just make five casts and then I had to go. On my last cast I caught a 5-pounder and my co-angler got one, too.

"It turned out I didn't need that fish – it only gave me about a pound – but I liked my chances a lot better after I caught it."

Winning Gear Notes

> Swimbait gear: 7'4" extra-heavy Dobyns Extreme swimbait rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (7.2:1 ratio), 20-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 3/8- or 3/4-ounce homemade jighead, 6" unnamed swimbait (pearl white).

> He used the heavier jighead when the fish were close to the bottom and the lighter when the gray skies caused them to suspend higher in the water column.

> Worm gear: 7'4" heavy-action Dobyns Extreme worm rod, same reel and line, 3/4-ounce Lake Fork Tackle tungsten bullet weight, 5/0 Lazer TroKar worm hook, 10" Lake Fork Tackle straight-tail or 11" ribbon-tail worm (plum).

> He opted for the ribbon-tail worm when fishing around brush and the straight-tail in more open water.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Jumping ahead of the curve and getting out on those ledges and having the fish coming to me. On day 1 I could literally look 5 miles north and 5 miles south and there wasn't anybody else out there."

> Performance edge – "In three tournaments with the Dobyns extra-heavy rod, I've yet to lose a fish that counted. Those post-spawn fish were jumping and cartwheeling and I could get them to the surface, I'd reel as hard as I could and just ski them across the top."

Much of the tackle referenced above is available at the BassFan Store. To browse the selection, click here..