FLW Bass Fishing Tournament on Lake Cumberland Breakdown

Top 3 key baits / lures:

1. Spinner Bait: Power fished along the bank or slow rolled, used by Thrift to catch a limit but were used heavily by other top anglers targeting largemouth in flooded trees and bushes.
2. Swimbait: Thrift used a small, 3- to 4-inch swimbait after a limit was caught to slow down and target a bigger bite on smallmouth. Clent Davis, who came in third targeting smallmouth, went bigger in size, using a 5-inch hollow, paddle-tail swimbait rigged on a 1/2-ounce jighead.
3. Jig: It’s worth noting that multiple top-5 finishers, used a jig around any wood that they couldn’t get into with a spinnerbait. Allen Wood fished in Wolf Creek, whereas Andy Morgan fished Indian Creek.

Many of the top performing anglers were fishing Spinner Baits. Even Thrift himself would power fish a spinner bait to get a limit, then slow down and fish a 3 to 4 inch swim bait in shad colors (Tennessee Shad, Sexy Shad) to get the bigger bass. The majority of the top 10 finishers, including Andy Morgan, had a lot of success on Largemouth fishing a spinner bait in flooded timber.

In his FLW Interview, Thrift says, “I caught all of my fish this week on two main baits – a 3-inch Damiki Armor Shad (flash shad) and a 3½-4-inch swimbait (Tennessee shad)... I used the Armor Shad when it was sunny the first two days. When it got cloudy, I started throwing the bigger swimbait. The Armor Shad is a more subtle swimbait.”

Thrift said, “The most challenging part, was being able to fish this slow before I had a limit” With the swimbait, Thrift sits as far off from the bank as he can, while still reaching it, so as not to spook the bass. He wants the bait just off the bottom, following the contour of the lake as he retrieves. So starting in 5-8 feet at the bank then letting the swimbait arc deeper as he retrieves slowly.

“It’s really, really random,” Morgan Noted on the first day. “I don’t know what the next one is going to be beside or when the next bite is going to come. But it’s my kind of fishing. It ain’t no dragging around.” Here Morgan was referring to fishing slow and towards the bottom for smallmouth, which is how Thrift won. Thrift also noted that bites were tough to predict, “I don’t like lakes where you just ‘go fishing,’ I like to know where they’re at,” but Cumberland tends to be one of the lakes where you have to just “go fishing.”