06/23/2009 - FIRST PLACE: Bobby Lane: 29-14, 24-09, 26-03, 16-15, 20 bass for 97-09 total.

Primary pattern: Bobby found the magical ledge of all ledges holding a tremendous school of big bass. Except for the last day, he caught his big strings early each day and then essentially guarded the spot – and rightly so. He used a DD-22, swimbait and a big worm to catch his fish.

SECOND PLACE: Kevin VanDam: 28-11, 21-09, 21-03, 20-10, 20 bass for 92-01 total.

Primary pattern: Contrary to Lane who stayed in one spot, VanDam used a run and gun approach to ledge hop his best spots. His key adjustment during the week was to move out deeper to about 18 feet and catch fish on a crankbait and big spoon.


RICK’S ANALYSIS: After fishing Kentucky Lake in the peak of the summer ledge bite one week and then the upper Mississippi River the next week, I’ve decided to do kind of a comparison and contrast of a ‘slugfest’ tournament versus a ‘tough test’ tournament.

Part one will be the Kentucky Lake slugfest. Due to the popularity of seeing big fish being caught in televised tournaments – and with so many of our lakes becoming much better fisheries over the last 20 years – many of our tournaments these days fall into the ‘slugfest’ category where it takes tremendous catches to make the top 12.

While slugfests are a lot of fun from a fish-catching standpoint, in my opinion they are not always the truest test of a tournament field. Now let me be clear: I am not singling out Kentucky Lake or its winner, I’m talking about the nature of slugfests collectively, whether it be Guntersville, Falcon, Amistad, Clear Lake, California Delta, etc. I just happen to be writing about this now because Kentucky preceded the Mississippi River event and these two tournaments were completely different in terms of testing the field. The Mississippi River analysis will serve as part two of my overall point.

Basically slugfest tournaments are usually all about finding the magical spot and camping on it and less about the technical aspects of fishing that spot and making critical adjustments to maximize its potential.

Put another way, you can have the very best tournament of your life: make the best decisions you’ve ever made on the water, get every fish in the boat and feel like you executed each day to perfection and still get beat by the guy who found the spot.

This makes tournament strategy in slugfests difficult because if you’re not the pro who finds the magical spot then your relegated to running around from spot to spot with that constant nagging suspicion in your mind that you need to be somewhere else other than where you are.

The time of day you fish a spot takes far more precedence over what you fish a spot with. In other words, the timing and order in which you fish your water has so much more to do with success than what you are doing to get the fish to bite.

Essentially slugfest tournaments make it hard to settle down, get comfortable with a spot and just fish it – unless, of course, you’re the guy on the magical winning spot – then you’re perfectly comfortable where you are all four days.

With so many fish biting in a slugfest, sometimes there’s little segregation in the size of the fish, which was especially true at Kentucky Lake. You might catch 10 non-keepers, several 3-pounders and then a 6-pounder all off the same spot. Then you begin to question whether you should stay and burn through another five 3-pounders in hopes of catching another 6-pounder or simply move on to another spot.

At any given time on Kentucky Lake I had six or seven places that I wanted to try and it’s hard to fish in the moment when you’re constantly wondering whether you should stay or go. Not to mention there are probably 50 other guys with the same intentions at that time – looking to go to their next spot, which just might be the spot I’m getting ready to leave.

Also, with so many fish biting, confidence runs high throughout most of the field. Everyone is staying bit and that keeps hopes high during tournament hours.

So what’s wrong with a slugfest where you’re catching tons of fish and everyone is confident and one guy can guard one spot to catch a 100 pounds or more for a win? Nothing. My point is simply that the overall mentality in this kind of contest is in stark contrast to what we found at the Mississippi River in Iowa, which will serve as part two of my analysis.