2nd: Kevin Snider
> Day 1: 5, 15-11
> Day 2: 5, 22-02
> Day 3: 5, 11-11
> Day 4: 5, 17-03
> Total = 20, 66-11
Snider, a relative local, fished deep all 4 days. The wind hurt him bad on day 3, but he rebounded and caught the second-best sack on day 4.
One possible regret: He gave winner Chad Grigsby some of his homemade worms, and Grigsby whacked them with it. Another: Grigsby won fishing mid-depths, and Snider thinks he may have fished too deep.
About his own pattern, Snider said: "I really do think I fished too deep. I'd get a big bite every now and then, but Kentucky Lake just wasn't fishing like Kentucky Lake should this time of year. I know the lake real well and they just weren't out there. I probably should have changed up. The pattern was really throwing cranks on main-lake points, but I was out on the deep river ledges.
"I think because the lake got to be 13 feet high, that really put the fish behind. Even the big fish I was catching would usually have a gut on them by now, but they didn't. It was a mistake on my part – not thinking about it a little better in practice."
He fished a Zoom Ol' Monster worm, a jig and a homemade swimbait. He threw the worm on a football-head jig. About his homemade swimbait: "It gets the big ones. I weighed my two biggest ones on day 4 on it, and I lost one fish the first day that was 8 or 9 pounds."
> Worm gear: 7'3" heavy-action/fast-tip homemade rod (Castaway blank), Shimano Curado 200E7 casting reel, 10- and 12-pound Gamma Edge and Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbons, 1/2-ounce homemade football jig with 4/0 Bass Pro Shops XPS wide-gap hook, Zoom Ol' Monster (plum) and 12" homemade paddletail worm (plum).
> Swimbait: 7'6" heavy-action Bass Pro Shops Bionic Blade rod (10 years old), same reel, 15-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, homemade 7" swimbait (1-ounce internal weight, translucent-white).
Jay Yelas made the gutsy decision to fish shallow.
3rd: Jay Yelas
> Day 1: 5, 18-11
> Day 2: 5, 16-10
> Day 3: 5, 15-03
> Day 4: 5, 12-02
> Total = 20, 62-10
Yelas flipped all 4 days and was stunned that he placed in the Top 5 at Kentucky Lake in June fishing shallow.
"I had two different patterns," he noted. "One was main-river stuff where there was some secondary current around some brush. The other thing, which got better as the week went by, was I caught more of my big fish in spawning areas. It wasn't necessarily in creeks, but in smaller bays and backwaters. They were spawning areas with no current."
Eighteen of his 20 weigh-fish came on a jig.
"It was just a pure flipping bite. We don't get to see that on tour much anymore. There's not many lakes with brush and willows, and the key this week was Barkley was at full pool. If it was even a foot under full pool, there wouldn't have been enough fish up there to make it work."
> Jig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Abu Garcia Veritas flipping stick, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel, 25-pound Berkley Trilene Maxx mono, Berkley Gripper Jay's Flipping jig (black/blue and brown), Berkley HAVOC Craw Fatty and 3" Berkley Chigger craw (black/blue and brown).
> He caught one weigh-fish on a buzzbait and another on a Berkley Hollow Belly swimbait.
Ramie Colson, Jr. worked hard in the off-season planting brush, and it nearly paid off with a win.
4th: Ramie Colson, Jr.
> Day 1: 5, 23-05
> Day 2: 5, 21-06
> Day 3: 2, 7-01
> Day 4: 5, 9-08
> Total = 17, 61-04
Colson fished Barkley and led the first 3 days, but couldn't shut the door on day 4. He lives on the lake and his key was brush, which he planted both deep and shallow throughout Barkley from winter up until the cutoff.
He stroked a jig out deep and swam a jig shallow.
About his deep stuff, he said: "About midday when the sun gets out, the shad get on top of the ledges and I guess school around. The bass move in and chase the shad. All I was doing was throwing on top of those ledges and hopping a jig. You snap the jig off bottom and let it freefall back. When they hit it, you have to reel real fast and come back with your rod so you can get a hook in."
> Deep jig gear: 6'6" heavy-action G. Loomis 785 IMX rod ("old-style mid-'90s broomstick"), Shimano Core 50 casting reel (7:1), 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon.
> He stroked a homemade 3/4-ounce jig. "Instead of a bristle weedguard, the guy who makes them uses a plastic Y-guard. It has a 5/0 Gamakatsu needlepoint-type hook and black-and-blue living rubber. I tipped it with a blue Zoom Big Salty Chunk. The guy who makes them lives near Andy Morgan."
In shallower water, Colson swam a jig on creek flats in the backs of main-lake bays. He targeted limbs that he planted in 2 to 3 feet of water. About his manmade cover, he said: "I work in concrete finishing. I'd cut little limbs and put them in a bucket, like a flowerpot, with concrete, then place them out there in a kind of fencerow – a straight line. I could catch one fish on it, then there'd be another one there the next day."
> Shallow swimjig gear: 7'1" medium-heavy G. Loomis NRX 863 rod, Shimano CoreMG casting reel, 12-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Bass Pro Shops football jig (green-pumpkin), Zoom Creepy Crawler twintail grub (green-pumpkin).
5th: Tom Monsoor
> Day 1: 5, 19-15
> Day 2: 5, 13-12
> Day 3: 5, 11-14
> Day 4: 5, 13-13
> Total = 20, 59-06
Tom Monsoor kept a jig in his hands all 4 days. In the mornings, he stroked a jig on a 6-foot channel ledge for a quick limit, then went and swam a jig in the quest to upgrade.
"I had one swimjig spot in the back of a cove that saved me (from the wind) all 4 days," he noted. "It was actually a spot from when I took 3rd here (in 2003).
"Every day I'd catch a limit of 15-inchers, then fish the bank and cull my way up," he added. "It was nice to have limits, but I caught bigger fish on the bank. I didn't want to drop in points too much so I wanted to make sure I had a limit."
About his swimjig banks, he said: "They were on the main lake. That's why the wind got me sometimes. I had to pick spots where it wasn't whitecaps on the banks. I just caught one here and there. You'd usually have to fish an hour to get one."
> Swimjig gear: 7' medium-heavy St. Croix Legend Elite rod, Team Daiwa TD103 casting reel, 16-pound Gary Yamamoto Sugoi fluorocarbon, 1/4-ounce homemade jig (black/chartreuse and black/brown/purple), Gary Yamamoto grub (junebug).
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