JT Kenney's Patterns, Baits & Gear

Not much about how the Harris Chain event played out surprised JT Kenney. He'd only been there twice before for tournaments, but he quickly got tuned into how the event might unfold. I figured there'd still be spawning and on beds," he said, "but I never went into a canal. I didn't feel like fighting with 10 guys for a 3-pounder. That's a good way to not do well." He said it played out similar to how his win at Lake Toho two years ago played out.

"It wasn't the ones you could see," he said. "I knew people would be running back to the canals. I also knew there'd be post-spawn fish. I looked around for shell beds because I know from the Kissimmee Chain and Okeechobee that post-spawners will go to that stuff. When I found them in practice, I caught one 4-pounder and that made me think there could be something to that." He spent the first three days in Harris and Little Harris, targeting arrowheads, cattails, pads "spawning type stuff the first two days," he said. "With the moon coming, I thought maybe they'd keep doing that." He also worked a Gambler Ace soft stickbait through shallow eelgrass. He worked his way into the top 10 after day 2 with a 17-plus pound average, but slipped into a tie for 9th on day 3 with a 10-pound stringer. "It's not like I lost big ones," he said. "I never had a big bite. It was not what should be happening with the moon coming." Sensing it was time for an audible, he headed to Lake Griffin for the final day and checked the shell bed that had produced the 4-pounder in practice. "I figured, ÔWhat the hell? I'll go do that,'" he said.

He recalled the fish spawning pretty much anywhere he looked at Griffin during the Bassmaster Southern Open in late January, so he figured they'd be in their post-spawn migration and the shell beds were perfect stopping off points since they had plenty of bait around them. "They tend to hold a lot of bait," he said. "I don't think the fish give a darn about the shells. They're there because the bait eat that algae and the bass, especially the post-spawn ones that want to eat, are there." His call to go to Griffin resulted in a tournament-best 27-03, with two coming on a lipless crankbait, two more coming on a Carolina rig and another on a square-bill crankbait. Regarding his rattlebait retrieve, he said, "I was working it and doing some stop and go. If you hit (the shell bed) on a straight retrieve, they'd hit it and some would hit it while I was hopping it."

Winning Gear:

Flipping gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Halo Titanium JT Kenney Signature Series casting rod, Ardent Apex Grand casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. Reins Tungsten worm weight, 5/0 Lazer TroKar Big Nasty flipping hook, 6" Gambler Fat Ace (green-pumpkin black/blue).

Lipless crankbait gear: 7'10" heavy-action Halo Fishing Cranking II casting rod, same reel, same line, 1/2-oz. Strike King Red Eye Shad or Booyah Hard Knocker.

Kenney swapped the stock hooks on the rattlebaits for size 2 TroKar trebles.

Carolina rig gear: Same rod as flipping, same reel, same line (16-pound to 14-pound leader), same weight (5/8 oz.), 5/0 Laser TroKar HD worm hook, 5" Gambler Ace (green-pumpkin).

He went with a 2-foot leader (at most) on the shallow shell beds.

Main factor - "Adapting on the last day and fishing the conditions and not trying to protect 9th place. The conditions weren't good for pitching shallow isolated cover on day 4. It was good for moving baits."

Performance edge - "My Lowrance electronics. Marking the arrowheads and reeds I got bit on in practice and being able to come back to the exact same clump in the tournament was key, as was the StructureScan for finding the shell beds I caught them off the last day."

Harris Chain 2-5 Patterns BassFan 3/15/17 (Todd Ceisner)