Duke Jenkel: Rollin' on the River

Well, the BFL at the Ohio river is over, and for all practical purposes it was a decent event for me. I finished tenth in the event with a limit that weighed 11lbs and 11oz. The weights for this event were tight, there were only 7 oz separating 5th place through 10th place, with ties at 5th, 7th and tenth places. A few more ounces could've really improved my finish, but I'm happy with tenth, blessed to have had a good finish. Regardless of the tournament, anytime you can finish in the top ten, you've done well.
As you know in my previous posts I had mentioned spending sometime on the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, these rivers can be accessed from the marina we launched from by running down river and locking through to the next pool. It takes a lot of time from your fishing day to do this, but it seemed that this was the only place I could catch any quality fish. So on tournament day, I locked through to the next pool of the Ohio and ran to the Cumberland river, then up the Cumberland to nearly the Barkley Lake Dam. Counting the time it took to lock, it took an hour and 20 minutes to get to my starting spot, roughly a 51 mile run. I started fishing around 7:25 and left to comeback at 11:35, so I only got about 4 hours to fish, but it turned out well and I thank the Lord for a safe trip and a good limit of fish.

I did get to practice a couple of days in the pool we launched from and man were the fish biting. We caught approximately 20 keepers a day out on the main river, but managed only one fish better than 2lbs. So the decision to lock was a no-brainer. I've added a few pictures of my practice, hope you enjoy them. I'll post more information about my patterns and what I used to catch these fish. Here's a hint: If you're on a river system, especially one that has decent current flow, never forget about the Lunker Lure buzzbait, even in the hottest part of the summer, it will still catch them.
God Bless,
Duke