pound, 12-ounce limit that gave him 33
pounds, 2 ounces. That put him more
than 4 pounds ahead of another pre-
tournament favorite, LBL Division stick
Drew Boggs of Lebanon, Tenn. In the
final round, Lawyer notched his third
consecutive limit, 17-10, to turn back a
challenge from eventual runner-up
Todd Walters, who had 17-01 and fin-
ished with 44-10.
Lawyer spent six days pre-fishing
for the tournament and summed up the
results with one word: “lousy.” He
failed to catch a bass on two of those
days, and expected bank fishermen
such as Boggs to dominate the event
unless conditions changed in his favor.
Local anglers who visited the daily
weigh-ins opined that the best fishing
at Lake Barkley was still several days
away because the water hadn’t warmed
up as quickly as nearby Kentucky Lake,
and the schools of threadfin shad
hadn’t started congregating offshore up
to that point.
For whatever reason, most of the
contestants struggled to catch limits of
any size and had to adjust their strate-
gies as the tournament progressed. Prior
to the off-limits period, Lawyer located
spots where, experience told him, bass
were likely to congregate as they transi-
tioned from the spawning coves to the
deeper ledges in the main lake. These
included a variety of structure: stump-
or brush-laden flooded points that
butted up against creek channels, under-
water humps with hard bottoms, and
flats that were adjacent to places where a
creek or river channel swung in close to
coNdItIoNs
bad practice,
good tournament
the bank. Lawyer had waypoints on
dozens of such spots, which was a good
thing for him, because most of them
were unproductive.
“I fished 40 or 50 places the first day
to catch eight keepers,” Lawyer says.
“The biggest drawback is that there
wasn’t a lot of current being pulled.
There was practically no current to acti-
vate the fish. It’s not like Kentucky Lake
where you can count on something hap-
pening at some point during the day
Weather: sunny in the mornings, with scattered clouds building during
the afternoon
air temperature: upper 60s to upper 80s on day one; 70s to low 90s on
days two and three
Water temperature: low to mid-80s
moon phase: waxing crescent
predominant Lake features: docks; flooded willows and buck brush; chunk
rock; scattered logs and branches washed against the main-lake bank; off-
shore brush piles, stake beds, and stump beds in larger coves and bays
top fIve
1. JeremY LaWYer
sarcoxIe, mo.
total Weight: 50-12 (15 fish)
Winnings: $120,000
*Includes Ranger Cup bonus
2. todd WaLters
KerNersvILLe, N.c.
total Weight: 44-10 (15 fish)
Winnings: $20,000
august-september 2016 I fLWfIsHINg.com
3. cLabIoN JoHNs
covINgtoN, ga.
total Weight: 43-03 (15 fish)
Winnings: $23,000*
because of the current. Here it [the cur-
rent] wasn’t positioning the fish at all.”
Spot on, and Lawyer’s assessment
characterized the entire tournament for
everyone: lots of good places for feed-
ing bass to be, but not many aggressive
fish actually there.
“I ran to Dover [Tenn.] the first
morning,” Lawyer recalls. “Then I
started back, fishing the spots I had
saved. By Saturday, I was staying a lot
closer to home.”
Several other anglers who made the
20-mile run south to Dover, Tenn., with
Lawyer also changed their minds about
prospects there. In fact, it turned out
that the Little River, where takeoff was
held, probably produced most of the
fish weighed in. The problem there and
elsewhere for those who mined shore-
line cover or skipped jigs under docks
was not with the quantity of keepers
they caught, but the quality. Only
Lawyer seemed capable of boating a
toad or two every day.
4. JoHN vaNore
muLLIca HILL, N.J.
total Weight: 40-07 (15 fish)
Winnings: $21,000*
5. KYLe WeIseNburger
ottaWa, oHIo
total Weight: 40-05 (15 fish)
Winnings: $13,000
107