Home from KY----What a week

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Bill McElroy

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Wow,...what a week,...if you need any water,..KY has MORE than enough to give you!! The lake is up 10ft over summer pool and still rising!! Parking lots are flooded,...back yards are flooded to the point where picnic tables are 3ft under water and now viable fishing holding structure!! LOL

Fishing was awesome BEFORE the water started rising according to some of the Pro's...they ALL had spots going that were producing 25-30lb bags!! 4-7lb fish were VERY common!! Then the rains came and the whole lake turned to chocolate milk and there was so much floating debris that navigation was almost "deadly"...you'd see a branch sticking out of the water and it would be attached to a 40foot 2ft dia TREE 2ft UNDER the water!!...Those do bad things to boat hulls and lower units!! Fortunatly, nobody I knew of was hurt or lost any equipt. do to hitting one!!

Fishing was tough for me,....had a riot in practice though,..fished mon-tues with Terry Baksay from CT....we covered a LOT of water and tried a ton of different techniques and baits,.....fish were spread out EVERYWHERE because of the floods,...we fished in peoples yards!!! Could make pitches up to decks and lawn furniture!!..ahahaha

It was cool!! My Pro's for the week were Bill Chapman from NC and Mike McClelland from AR.,...but fishing behind any of those pro's under those conditions,..particularly in flooded timber is next to impossible....I was lucky to catch the 3 fish I did and I only lost 1 fish on the 2nd day that "might have" cost me a check....it was a toad and I was @ 3-4lbs out of the money, so that fish could've done it for me,....I'll never really know and I'll sure as hell not dwell on it!! LOL. Caught one of my keepers out of a ladies garden in her yard,...on a spinner bait,..and I got another one on a jig and one on a Tx-rigged worm...I was at a HUGE disatvantage on thurs though,.....that "Pro" (and I use the term loosely) had absolutely no intention of doing anything to help me or put me in a position to help myself as far as catching fish, he was ONLY interested in his 5 and possibly culling, but it was not a good day to be his rider considering the cover he was fishing and the way he positioned his boat,...it was not a lot of fun but I'll just leave it at that!! Stark contrast between the 2 though,...one of them was extremely polite and made every attempt to be fair and put me in positions to catch fish all day,..he was a great ride,..(I will be sending a NICE email to HIS sponsors!!) The other was the exact opposite and from what I was told by other people down there,...he's known to be a bum draw!!..LOL Ohwell...I'm batting .250 as far as draws for Beaver and KY,...1 good one and 3 other's I would call "so-so".....but they are in it for themselves, and ONLY themselves,..I knew that going into it,..but a good draw can really make a HUGE difference!! Especially in that kind of a format! Maybe someday I'll get back to back primo draws and make the friday finals!!That'd rock!!

Anyway,...enough about me!!

Rob,...congrat's on the new job....sounds fun!!

Scott/Staci/Me,...I'm sorry to hear/read of your dilemna..you gotta do what you gotta do, and I hope you find peace and happiness soon,..you deserve that much,..EVERYBODY does at some point in their life,..(Except bin Laden,...go get'em Rob!!)...just KEEP the Boat!!!

Teri,...your gig with the Special Olympics is awesome....the world needs a TON more people like you,....you make us ALL look good,...Thank you!!!

Thanks to EVERYONE for the B-day wishes,...I was fishing that whole day, so it was a good day!!..LOL

Mini,...you're right,...I had NO cell phone service down there for the whole week!! Got on the interstate this a.m. and 1/2hr later it was working,...had 12 voice mails waiting for me!

Xston,..thanks for coming to the weigh-in dude!!..Was glad to see you again!! I'll be sure to tell Mini how much you like the All Star rod,...we need to spend a day on the water,...I
 
Mac,sounds like you had a pretty good time(for the most part).You'll git em' next time.

I went down to KY/TN last year,and have to agree with you about the southern hospitatilly thing,everybody was so nice it was sickening.Couldn't wait to get back home for some good old fashioned rudeness.LOL
 
VERY nice people down there Cecil!! Stopped in a barber shop saturday morning on the way to the fun zone, (I was feeling and looking a little shaggy,...needed to take it down to the wood again!!)..had my "Colors" on,..going to work y'know, and those good ol' boys in that Barber Shop just went nuts on me with questions about EVERYTHING!! We had a bunch of laughs and what normally takes 5mins to cut my hair as short as i keep it,...took 1/2hr!!! LOL...They loved hearing about all the things we gotta do and the places we go to fish, etc..etc..but they sure liked having the FLW in town!!,....that's a lotta $$$ in a local economy!!! That 1/2hr in the Barber shop was one of the highlites of the whole week!!! I was crackin' up and so were those locals,.....just really cool folks!!
 
Sounds Like you had a great time Mac. Where's your next stop?
 
my bed!!!...LOL!!!!!,..Actually, I'm done now until late June,...I'll fly down to Wheeler Lk just for the weekend to work the 'Zone!...My tournaments start up here in a couple of weeks,...can't wait for that!! I have a few new tricks up my sleeves to try out this year!!! Can't wait to get my boat out again this week,...had serious withdrawals being boatless for a week,...first thing I did when I got home was wave at my wife, and hug my boat!!! LOL!!!
 
thanks for posting Mac as i appreciate hearing about the tourney. i was wonder if pitchin and flippin would be the order of the day due to flooding and being stuck in the back of the boat is really tuff. in that situation, it would be easier puttin a tube on, tieing up to the boat, and fishin behind em. a real pro would have you up on the front deck and leavin a hole here and there so you could make some hay. sounds like a great experience and we are proud of you. glad you had a safe ride.



jd
 
Mac, glad you had a great time, wish you had gotten on more fish.. Take care bud..



Buzz
 
Mac,



Welcome back! Glad to hear you had a nice trip. Always nice to read your "tourney trail tales"!



Bob G.
 
Welcome back Mac, you gotta get out of the back of the boat dude and start runnin the show!! It's only $$!! Keep after em!



TOXIC
 
Mac,



Welcome back... Glad to hear some of it was fun... But, at the rate you are accumulating them "experiences"... You ought to get a break on the next one or two...
 
Sounds like you had a good time. Hope you have better luck with partners next time. Let me know when you're at KY Lake again and we'll go hit the water.

-Stacey

 
Welcome home, Mac!

What's it like to be the "NTOWS Official Hero"?!!?



me!
 
Hero??!!...I'm no Hero!! I'm just glad I don't have to rely on catching fish to get paid!!!..LOL....and I'll make sure I NEVER get my self in THAT position!!...hahhaha

Fishing should be fun,...NOT work,..IMHO!!
 
Good deal Mac! Glad to see ya' back..Yeah...those people down there and Tennesee are good pepole. I still may hit K&B maybe after memorial day for a weekend .maybe by then the water will be down? Don't know the forecast for the next few days is....guess what?..............that's right..........RAIN!

TEE
 
Talked to a guy lasnite who told me they opened the dam sunday and drew down a foot of water already,.....but that's probably just to avoid any further flooding if more rain is expected,.....I would've liked to have seen that trail race below the dam with all that water coming through,...it must've been unreal!!!! Drawing down a foot of water in 1 day is a #@$@#$-load of water!!! LOL
 
It can get dangerous down there because of current..that's some big water when it rains a lot...if they draw it down and it rains hard and then another draw down...it'll take a while to settle down.

Even here in Ohio most all the lakes are up and out west the snow is 20 ft. deep in the mountains...might get rid of this drought. But believe it or not the Great Lakes is still down...when it got so windy the last couple weeks..it blowed some of the water clean out of the bays at Erie. Boats settin' on sand....WOW!

TEE
 
Mac - Welcome back Big Dog!!



You're off the hook for a few weeks on the shirts, the storms you got in KY we have/dad down here. I fished once last week and got one small Spot out of the flooded brush. 1/2 the ramps are closed due to flooded parking lots. And the cold front is in too, predicted storms every day for the next 2 weeks!!



Get to sleep and then get my shirts!!! LOL
 
Mac, good to have you back. Glad you boated some fish. It is hard fishing behing a jig pattern, especially on isolated cover and behind a guy who is back boating you. Too bad you got some jerks on the draw. But who knows, maybe next time you'll draw a great guy, or maybe even KVD.
 
That would be cool...what I need to do is pick the tourney's i want to fish where the patterns will likely be open water fishing!!,.....and not the pre-spawn/spawn tight to cover lakes!!! Put me with KVD on St.clair or Erie and I'll be fishing on friday!!!...LOL!!!!

Mac
 
They're coming back to Champlain next year. Put in for that one. It fishes a lot like Erie. Very few spots you can fish on Champlain even WITH a jig where there's not plenty of water behind you for the non-boater. And if they're on a smallie bite, it's anybody's game. Couple of the co-anglers outfished the pros last year! That had to add insult to injury! LOL
 
Welcome home, Mac. Glad to hear you had a good time, in spite of the front seater. So, I hear your fishing the Wednesday Orion's. Very cool. I'm sure we'll have fun. Tom, Mark Hall,etc are all glad Marke and I signed-up. Something about being glad to take our money. We'll see. Take care, buddy. See you soon.



Craig
 
Welcome back Mac! We were all cheerin for ya! Nasty conditions to fish!



Rich D
 
welcome back Mac!



If you were fishing in people's yards, you must have been on the "civilized" side of the lake...Did conditions allow you to make it over to the "Land Between the Lakes" side???



What bays did you end up fishing???



az
 
I couldn't begin to tell you all the names of the bays and pocket's I fished in over 4 days,......I think we missed one though,...in southern TENN!!!!...LOL...after a while they ALL started to look the same!!! Would love to go back under ideal conditions,.....5lb largeheads are as common as 2.5lb smallies in 'Clair!! What a riot that would be!!!

 
Good to see your post Mac. Great to here you had a good time even with the water conditions. Thats what it suppose to be about to some degree, right.

Welcome back.
 

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