First FOM of the year

[fishon1219]

Well I decided that I couldnt stand it any longer so I joined the Northern Kentucky Divison of Fishers of Men and fished there 1st tournament of the season on Cave Run Lake in Eastern KY.

What a beautiful body of water.
I went down early for the official practise day so I headed out thursday
night and was greeted with 75 degree temps at 8:00pm. It was great to be able to sit on the porch of the motel and drink beer in my shorts and T-shirt at midnight.

The motel we were at was right next door to the famous southern musky shop Crashes landing and the 5 room motel was loaded with his clients except for me, the loly bass guy. We had great fun telling stories about catching those trash fish and we went back in forth how bass arent nothing but muskie bait and I did see a cool tatto one of the guys had that said "My undersized muskie ate your trophy bass" I thought it was funny.

Practise: I woke up bright and early friday morning to hit the lake at the crack of dawn and was still feeling the effects of one to many busch lights and pick a good looking area around a popular fishing hole called zippo point and was able to catch fish just about everywere I went on isolated timber around the mouth of a creek arm or anywere there was small chunk rock.

They have a slot limit on the lake so you could weigh anything over 12" and under 13" or anything over 16"

I caught 1 that was over 16" by a hair on an Exodus Jig in black-n-Blue and several more in the under slot on a bandit crankbait in rootbeer Chartruse.

We went to the friday night meeting were there were 30 teams in attendance and had a great meal of roasted hog and what a great bunch of people fishing that division. They all new each other and welcomed me right in as they could see that I was different.

I guess it was because I was the only one without a tan and was pretty much burnt up from the 80 degree high sunshine heat all day.

Tournament day: We woke up to heavy tundershowers at 4:00am the morning of the tourny but they cleared out quickly and we were off to the ramp as the director said we were launching at safe light. He wasen't giving a time it was just "safe light" and if you werent in the water we are going with out ya.

Well at 6:45 he started calling the numbers so I guess their safe light and ours are two different things because I still thought it was dark.

We were the last boat thanks to my great number drawing abilites and we were suprised and concerned to not find anybody at our starting point.

It was a long small chunck bank with a few pieces of isolated timber that had a small step in it that went from 3' at the bank and dropped to 12' and than another step to 30'. During practise the fish we caught were all real pale in color and I was told that was a sign they had just came up from the deep so we figured this would be a good area to catch some staging fish.

The water the day before was at 59 and overnight with the warm rain and the warm temps was at 61 at the start of the tournament. We fished untill 8 with a few fish that were almost 12" when my partner hangs a good one on a McCarter stick bait that was so close to 16" but yet so far away so back in he went.

We managed one keeper that was about 12 1/2" in this area by about 11:00 trying all different depths and angle's in this area so we moved to a different bank with the same structure and the wind was blowing good on it most of the morning.

My first cast to an isolated laydown gave us keeper number 2 and I managed 2 more for sure keepers and 1 that would touch the 12" line onecway, but not the other so we hung on to him hoping he would relax and stretch out.

We went to our last spot of the day with 15 minutes left in the event and I threw out my jig to a sunkin tree in about 25 ft of water and as soon as i pulled it over a branch I felt the thunk and missed, so I cast it back in there and same thing thump-miss. I manged on my 3rd cast to hang it in the tree so I went to the back side and pulled it loose and made the last cast of the day and thump and this time I didnt miss and set the hook hard with my 20lb braid and my heavy jigging rod and the fight was on.

First it went left than it went right and then it went right away from me and nearly pulled th pole out of my hand and than it just came unbuttoned. I hope it was a muskie, I dont know what else it could have been because I just couldnt turn it and i had as much pressure on it as I could.

We get to the ramp and decide that our smallest fish was just to close to call so we turned him loose and managed a total weight of 3.66lbs for 4 fish. The winning weight was 9lbs even with a big fish of 5.5 and second was just over 8 with a big fish of 4.9lbs and from there it went to 4lbs for 3rd and on down. We ended up in 11th out of 30.

Not to bad for 1 day of practise against guys who fish this lake every weekend and it was real nice to know I could catch a fish south of the boarder.

[Langer]

Nice finish Kev! When and where is the Next one?

[thomas]

Good going Kevin, It will just get better for you. I'm pulling for you and your partner.

thomas

[fishon1219]

Next event is April 21st on Yatesville lake. I will get one day of practise for this event and the fish should be post spawn by then with a few stragglers.

[silverminnow]

Hey Kevin, well you had better weather than Derek and I.  We did the same thing last year, got the bug went to Cave Run and believe it or not we ended up 11th as well.  Big difference was we woke up late thanks to the no call and a bad alarm clock.  Had all of our gear in the room, boat was covered and there was 2"s of fresh heavy wet snow.  The last boats were leaving the lot and you talk about a mad rush, that was it.  No practice days, bad weather and you are right safe light there is not safe light here.  We had no idea where we were going, but we were fishing!!!!  The day of the tournament at blast off around 6:45 am it was snowing and blowing something fierce.  At one point it was snowing so hard we could not see the shore which was only about 40 to 50 feet away and as you know that was deep for being that close to shore.  Anyway, we weathered the storm finally put one keeper in the boat on a black and blue spinner bait with cooper blades around 2pm.  You would have thought we caught the world record we were so happy!!!!  So for a second year the boys from Michigan showed up and did well against the locals... GOOD FOR YOU GUYS...  Can't wait until June 2nd on Saginaw Bay.