Bass Fishing Aug - Sept 2016 | Page 99

PHOTO BY CURTIS NIEDERMIER

Lambert seemed to hit all the right places when the fish were most active in their feeding .

a creek channel , and once they started getting pounded , they shifted to the south [ upcurrent ] side of the same creek channel ,” Lambert recalls . “ I know it ’ s the same fish ; it ’ s not a new group of fish that came out there . They were getting pounded , so they shifted to something that was really similar . It was a safe haven , basically .”

Working the Numbers

Covering a 70-mile range from Kentucky Dam down to Richland Creek in Tennessee , Lambert hit about 25 to 30 spots . He mostly targeted river bends and points where a creek channel met the river channel . He never found any “ champ ” spots that could win a tournament alone . Instead , he hole-hopped . And it wasn ’ t until day four that he was really able to light it up .

coNdItIoNs

Weather : sunny , hot , humid and calm all four days air temperature : mid-60s to upper 90s ; heat index of 100-plus Water temperature : upper 70s to low 80s moon phase : waxing crescent predominant Lake features : river-channel ledges , points , humps , stumps , shell beds

august-september 2016 I fLWfIsHINg . com

“ There wasn ’ t any one particular place I caught them good every day , but there was a place every day where I caught a couple of key fish ,” Lambert adds . “ I never caught a great big one – my biggest fish all week until day four was 5 1 / 2 pounds – and I never got one of those Kentucky Lake schools fired up until Sunday afternoon . With only 10 of us fishing [ on the final day ], I had actually fished that school and caught a 3 1 / 2-pounder , but I came back over them later in the day and it was lights out . I absolutely crushed them for about 30 minutes .”

This exemplifies one of his rules for offshore fishing : Let ’ em rest . With miserably hot conditions and little current or wind , the only thing that would put the fish back into feeding mode was downtime .

“ I think that with these ledge fish , there are windows that open , and when they feed , they all feed ,” Lambert explains . “ That ’ s not to say you can ’ t catch a fish or two at any time , because that ’ s kind of what I did the first three days . I caught one or two fish off a spot , and it was over . It ’ s really hard to put a finger on why they trigger . I do know that if you have a school that has quality fish , it ’ s imperative that if they don ’ t bite that you cycle back through them in a couple of hours .”

This freshening-up period allows the fish to settle back down , relax , regroup and get their appetites back online . Lambert could actually discern a school ’ s disposition from their proximity .

“ It ’ s almost impossible to catch them when you see them and there are two here , two there , three over there ,” he says . “ But when they ’ re in a group – five , 10 , 30 or however many – most of those fish will feed if they ’ ve had time to get fresh .”

Lambert says community holes seldom enjoy such refreshment periods , as the fish see a constant stream of baits from boats moving in and off . The tournament ’ s final day brought a different picture .

Every fish he weighed on day four came off big schools and community holes . It was part of Lambert ’ s strategy . On Sunday , about the only tournament pressure was from the 10 guys who made the cut at the Tour event . Coupled with extreme heat that kept the locals away , low angling pressure freed up some key spots . That gave Lambert free run of the area he was fishing . “ I could fish like 15 schools within sight of each other , and there was no fishing pressure on them at all ,” he says . “ They ’ d had the whole day to sit there , and by the time I got there around 10:30 or 11 o ’ clock , I could catch two or three fish out of every school I pulled up on .”

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