Haynes, Hunter Went Deep For Big Stringers

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

There were tons worth of quality fish still on the spawning beds during the days leading up to the start of the Kentucky Lake FLW Central Rayovac. By the time the tournament got under way, many of those fish had begun their migration back to deeper water, and the top finishers intercepted them along those routes.

Runner-up finisher Randy Haynes won the event in 2014 and 3rd-place finisher Brandon Hunter was 5th last year. Like this year's winner, fellow FLW Tour pro Tom Redington, they correctly predicted that transitioning fish would be "the deal" and got in on that action while most competitors were still beating the banks.

Here are some of the details.

2nd: Randy Haynes

> Day 1: 5, 22-00
> Day 2: 5, 25-15
> Day 3: 5, 21-13
> Total = 15, 69-12

Haynes, one of the game's most proficient offshore anglers, came up 2 pounds short of his second straight victory in the event. He did his damage with deep-diving crankbaits and occasionally mixed in a swimbait.

"I didn't have an easy practice," he said. "We had a full moon the weekend before and there were a lot of fish on beds, and I think I actually caught some that were going in – they were fat and healthy.

"Then by Monday and Tuesday (the tournament began on Thursday) I was graphing two or three fish (on main Tennessee River ledges) and I'd catch one or two of them. The places I ended up fishing in the tournament, there were eventually a lot more fish there."

He pulled his fish from about 14 feet of water on day 1 of competition. By day 2 he was fishing in the 18-foot range and had some fish as deep as 23 or 24 feet.

"The first morning they were in small schools and they bit really good. Then by the afternoon there'd be like five fish in little wads on the flat areas and the key was to get them really fired up.

"I ended up with six areas I was really watching. The first 2 days I was really running the whole lake – I burned 50-something gallons of gas one day and then 45 the next. I eventually figured out where they wanted to sit for the last day.

> Cranking gear: 7'11" medium-heavy Kistler KLX Mark Rose Offshore 6XD rod, Lew's BB1 Pro casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 12-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, Profound Outdoors Z-Boss 20 (two timer).

> He caught some of his deepest fish on a prototype Z-Boss 25, which hit the market just this week. For that bait he used a Kistler KLX 10XD rod and 15-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon. He went with the bigger line because he had only one bait and didn't want to lose it.

> He declined to reveal details of the swimbait he employed other than it was a 6-inch model in shad color.

Main factor in his success – "Believing in what I was doing – fishing the main river. I didn't have a good practice doing it, but I believed it was going to happen."

Performance edge – "My Raymarine (depthfinder) units were critical, and also my Mercury Verado. That Verado is just a brute of a motor – it's so durable and dependable, but also quiet and smooth."

3rd: Brandon Hunter

> Day 1: 5, 22-10
> Day 2: 5, 22-15
> Day 3: 5, 20-02
> Total = 15, 65-11

Hunter is a lifelong Kentucky Lake local and is intimately familiar with the seasonal migration of the fish.

"What these fish do, they go really deep when the first move out, before they come up and feed," he said. "I was focusing on depths from 18 to 24 feet.

"I watched it unfold as each day went by. I knew the shallow bite would be going away, and before the end of the week they'd moved from the bushes to the mouths of the bays and out to the river. It's like they get out there overnight."

He concentrated on secondary points where creeks emptied into the river.

"I had four or five different areas that I'd planned on fishing and by the end of the week I had six or eight I was rotating through."

Like Haynes, he threw both a crankbait and a swimbait.

> Swimbait gear: 7'6" medium-heavy No. 8 Tackle BlackOut rod, 13 Fishing Concept C casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 3/4-ounce homemade jighead, 6" Basstrix swimbait (shad or ayu).

> Cranking gear: 7'11" medium-heavy 13 Fishing Envy cranking rod, same reel (5.4:1 ratio), same line (10-pound) Lucky Craft RTO 3.5 XD (chartreuse/blue).

Main factor in his success – "Knowing what the fish were going to do. I put the boat in the water (for his first day of practice) at Big Sandy and flipped for 2 hours and I knew it wasn't right – the fish were leaving. I put the boat on the trailer and ran up north and got a couple big bites fishing deep. They were coming to me."

Performance edge – "The Lowrance electronics – without them, I couldn't have found those fish."

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