Was there last weekend in a 40 boat company tournament, Lots, i mean lots of beds, mostly kentuckys. the few that did find smallmouth or largemouth beds were lucky, most beds with big females were off main lake cuts, youd have to do a lot of hopping around to find them with quality fish on them. a lot of pressure on the kentucky beds down by kimberling city area, boat traffic everywhere. bass were scattered very much, the success I had was on the way to the kings river arm, all main lake cuts, and like BCB posted, topwater early, and as the sun got higher, followed them down to the 40ft range with shakey heads, carolina rigs, and a grub. the smallmouth were very abundant as the day went on, the better fish came early over trees and brush, catching spawned out largemouth on topwaters in 25-40ft of water. this is very early to try and make a success out of the rivers, that is more of a summer pattern, my brother who was fishing against me that weekend, reported the same, he spent two days in the james river looking for fish, and small fish were moving up, but the spawned out females had yet to come, bluff end fishing came into play as well, flukes or red-fins were catching limits of spots (kentuckys) early in the morning, but it was harder for most guys to catch anything over 12lbs worth of kentuckys in a whole days time. you best bet is to look for those transition areas and capitalize on the early bite, then hunker down and fish deep.
