Proximity Factors Into Lawyer’s Game Plan
Little River takeoff area produced several key bites
Often we hear tournament anglers reporting a late-day kicker, perhaps a limit-maker, caught within close proximity to the takeoff/check-in site. Conversely, it’s no rarity for an angler to clear takeoff and quickly hook back to a starting spot within eyesight of the ramp.
Fact is, distance is no requisite for success. Nothing wrong with a good run, but savvy anglers such as FLW Bass Fishing League All-American day-one leader Jeremy Lawyer know that the close game merits consideration.
Case in point: Little River, the Lake Barkley inflow from which the tournament launches. Lawyer admits his day-one strategy amounted to a glorified hole-hopping mission, but he had specific plans for the local waters.
“I jumped around miscellaneous places for the first hour and a half, and then I decided to come back to Little River because I thought that by midmorning there wouldn’t be as many people in here,” says Lawyer, who had a late boat draw. “I thought the people that started in here would filter out.
“It seemed that everywhere I wanted to fish in Little River was a place where boats were going to be running or there were going to be people fishing,” he adds. “A lot of those little close things, people had already jumped on, so I just went ahead and got out of here.”
The Attraction
The Little River flows into the northern end of Lake Barkley from the east. It’s an extensive, mostly shallow tributary, and the takeoff site at Lake Barkley State Resort Park Marina is located roughly one-third of the way in from the main lake to the upper end of fishable waters. Besides proximity, Lawyer notes the key features he likes in Little River.
“The best thing about it is the water color is a little better than the main river, which is kind of dirty,” he says. “There’s a lot of shoreline cover that’s not getting beaten up by the barges.
“You don’t have all the mud filtering in on the cover, and you don’t have the waves crashing down on it.”
He also likes the habitat diversity.
“You have little rock, big rock, flats, long points, humps, ditches, bars. It’s kind of like a little, tiny Kentucky Lake right here,” Lawyer says.
The Considerations
Naturally, not just any creek will do, especially in a major championship like the All-American.
“The biggest thing is it has to be the right fish,” Lawyer says of a potential tournament-fishing site. “They have to be the fish to do well or there’s no sense stopping on them.
“Or, this could work if it’s a really tough tournament and you think you can catch two that are ‘re-treads,’ or fish that people have turned loose in other tournaments.”
Lawyer says he’ll likely visit Little River again on day two, only this time, he’ll have the early advantage.
“I’m not married to it or anything. I really didn’t do well in any one creek, on any one stretch, on any one waypoint,” he adds. “I’ll definitely have to come back in here and spend some time. I might change my timing up a little bit, just because I’m an earlier number [on day two] and I can probably get something that I want.
“Everything has been fished over by now, so I’ll probably just start wherever I think I can catch a fish. I definitely will be back in there tomorrow.”