Tough days of practice

My column is coming in late this week because I just finished up the three-day practice for the Lake Cumberland FLW Tour event this week in Kentucky.
It probably has been the toughest practice I’ve had since I started fishing these tournaments back in 2012, and the dark-to-dark fishing had me physically and mentally exhausted this week.
So I forgot to get my column done when I normally do.
My Dad travelled down to Kentucky to join me this week and while he is getting a break from the snow that we have at home in Sunset Country, it even was chilly down here this week with temperatures below zero every morning. We’ve been wearing long underwear and several layers every day.
Lake Cumberland is a deep lake without a lot of structure in the form of points or humps. Most of the fish are being caught along the shoreline but with water levels about 10 feet higher than they were when we fished here at the same time last year, there are a bunch of standing trees in the water–making it quite annoying to fish because there are so many branches to get caught up on when we’re casting.
I seem to do a lot better if I can use my electronics and find fish in deeper water away from the bank, and I was not able to do that at all this week. There just is not a lot of structure for the fish to live on.
So I’ve been working hard trying to figure out how to catch some fish.
Between my Dad and me, we’ve been catching five-eight bass per day, which is not good. At the last tournament at Lake Lanier, I was catching 40 or 50 fish per day so it’s been quite a difference this week.
The reality is that’s fishing, but I do it for my living so it’s not a lot of fun when things aren’t going well. We visit all of these different lakes that we are not all that familiar with and sometimes we just don’t figure out what the hot deal is to catch a bunch of big fish.
That being said, there are no prizes given out for winning practice, so I’m still hopeful I can put something together and bring in five nice bass when the tournament starts today (Thursday). Making a good decision or two based on the weather conditions, and the few things that I picked up in practice, still could lead to a good tournament but my confidence is not all that high right now.
Cumberland has largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass in it, but the largemouths and smallmouths grow much larger than the “spots.” When we fished here last year, the smallmouths were a part of many of the top finishers’ catches, so my plan was to target them this time around and they have me stumped.
The nicer bass that I’ve seen this week all have been largemouths.
It was nice to spend another few days in the boat with my Dad this week and it’s always good to have him with me down here. I have three or four guys that I travel with and stay with for all of these tournaments, and they all like having him around–he does a good job of keeping everybody motivated.
I’ll take all the luck I can get this week! You can all check out the results this weekend on the FLW’s website.
Hopefully I can find a few fish.