Back in the late 1990s I started visiting a newsgroup, Recreation – Outdoors – Fishing – Bass (ROFB). Newsgroups were popular back then and there were thousands of them available. Each one was on a specific topic and you could go post messages to others with similar interest. They have pretty much gone now, being passed by with new forms of interaction on the net.

The guys on ROFB started having a get-together tournament on Center Hill Lake in Tennessee, called the Mid-Tennessee Classic. I could not attend since I was still working but I enjoyed reading about those trips. I planned on attending when I retired and had time to go.

In June, 2001 when I retired Steve Huber in Rhinelander, Wisconsin decided to host the North Woods Classic in the fall with the same group. He invited us to come to Rhinelander and experience the fishing there. So, on Labor Day that year, I hooked up my boat and headed 1100 miles north.

Those were great trips and I went to eight of them, as well as attending three of the Mid-Tennessee Classics. I made some good friends on those trips and got to fish with guys from all over the US. But the Tennessee tournaments ended after a few years and in 2009 Steve moved to Paris, Tennessee, ending the trips to Wisconsin.

Some of us still keep in touch through Facebook and emails and we decided to revive the Mid-Tennessee Classic this year, but on Kentucky Lake, near Steve’s new home. So a little over a week ago I hooked up my boat and drove 400 miles to Paris. We had a great time, renewing old friendships and making new ones. We ate together each night and I fished with a different person each of the three days I was there.

I had not fished Kentucky Lake since 1983 so it was like visiting a totally new lake, especially since we were about 40 miles by water from where I had fished so many years ago. I drove up on Wednesday and met up with Larry and Moe from New York and Steve Thursday morning for breakfast. We headed to the lake about 9:00 AM and Larry and I went exploring.

On a new lake I try to find something that looks familiar to the way I like to fish here, but after four hours I was very confused. Kentucky Lake is huge, over 100 miles long and over a mile wide where we fished, and it is very shallow near the bank in most areas. By 1:00 I had landed a few small bass, including the five Larry and I caught in 15 minutes beside one cypress tree in two feet of water on an island. Bass there have to be 15 inches long and they were hard to find.

A little after 1:00 I spotted something that reminded me of Clarks Hill – a gravel point at the mouth of a small feeder creek. When I got near it the water was about 10 feet deep a good cast off the bank, and there were button bushes in the water and a big willow tree hanging over the water. Larry and I started fishing and when I pitched a jig and pig under the willow I caught a 18 inch largemouth that encouraged me.

A few yards further down the bank I got a hit and landed a beautiful 19 inch smallmouth. That was really encouraging. Smallmouth have made a big come back there since 1983. That year, in a three day tournament I fished with 72 fisherman, exactly one smallmouth was weighed in. Now they are fairly common.

After fishing into a small pocket further down the bank Larry hooked a nice keeper largemouth that jumped then broke his line when it ran under the boat. I told him I knew where I would start the next morning. That night we had a great meal at a small BBQ place, sat around a picnic table at the motel and talked, then got some sleep.

Moe fished with me the next day and we headed to my honey hole first thing. But we could not catch a keeper even though baitfish were everywhere. At about 10:00 Moe got a keeper but all I could catch were short bass, so we decided to go somewhere else. While going under a bridge I saw current was running, a good sign, so we stopped and started casting to pilings.

We caught over a dozen short bass and I managed to land a very skinny 15 inch keeper. At least I would not zero! With an hour left to fish I told Moe I really wanted to go back to where we started and he agreed. With 30 minutes left to fish I caught a keeper largemouth off the gravel bank then got another keeper on a rocky point on it.

At weigh-in I had three weighing 5.5 pounds and was in first place, a big shock! That night we ate and shot the bull, and I drew Kevin as my partner the next day. Kevin is from Illinois and I had fished with him in Wisconsin so I knew we would have a good day. Of course we headed to my favorite place and Kevin quickly caught a three pound largemouth, a good start.

After a couple of hours I had not caught a keeper. We went into a very shallow pocket and I said it was way too shallow, but I got a hit by a bush in a foot of water and caught a short fish, then caught a keeper off the next bush. That seemed worth trying so we worked further into the creek, pitching a jig to very shallow bushes. By one I got a hit and landed a 4.5 pound largemouth.

We kept working that pattern and I caught two more keeper largemouth, lost two more that would have gone about three pounds each, and a smallmouth that was so close to 15 inches I really wanted to keep it but didn’t take the chance. With just an hour left to fish I was casting a jig head worm to the rocky point and landed a 17 inch smallmouth, filling my limit.

I was shocked at weigh-in when I had five of the eight bass brought to the scales. They weighed just under 13 pounds and my four pounder was big fish. So I won our reunion tournament, and really enjoyed seeing everyone. We are planning on doing it again next year!

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Saturday night I left Paris at 9:00 and arrived at the ramp at Sinclair at 5:00 AM for the Flint River June tournament. It was tough, with 15 members and guests landing 38 bass weighing about 50 pounds. There were two limits and one person didn’t have a keeper.

Larry Cook won with four bass weighing 6.10 pounds and had big fish with a 3.08 pounder. Rick Burns had four at 6.10 for second, Niles Murray had a limit at 5.76 pounds for third and my five at 5.68 pounds was fourth.

I was worn out but made it home and got some sleep!