Linton and Hall Make Rough Look Easy!

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The Rough River is a 5,100 acre lake situated in Breckinridge, Hardin, and Grayson counties in south central Kentucky. Rough River was designed and built by the Louisville District of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Like so many other reservoirs’ Rough River Lake was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1938. Construction began in November of 1955 and the project became operational in June of 1961. The Rough River has long been a destination place for bass anglers.

September 25th of this year on Rough River was the site of Renegade/Prowler Regional. Under the direction of John Newton 125 teams participated and 38 teams would advance to the Nitro Classic. Fifteen limits of bass where brought to the scales. Team Linton and Hall would top the scales with the largest sack of the tournament. Bob Linton and John Hall just one day prior to the tournament had never seen the beautiful banks of Rough River Lake. The two had fished the Western Tennessee Regional with no success in qualifying for the 2012 Nitro Classic.

Bob at that point was willing to face the fact that he was not going to the Classic in 2012. However, John was not giving up. He insisted that he and Bob go to Kentucky for the Rough River Lake Regional sponsored by Renegade and Prowler to make one more attempt at qualifying for the Nitro Classic. When the two arrived they had very little knowledge of the lake with the exception small bits of information obtained from a friend from Louisville.  In practice (one and only one day) the two somehow got turned around and wasn’t for sure there location on the lake.

Bob said they saw a few bank fisherman and began to question them about his whereabouts. While finding the way out of the area Bob noticed several big bass on the side scan in an area the two bank fisherman said they heard folks caught fish. When the team returned to the area for the tournament the fish had not moved. Within three casts they boated two fish and had caught a total of 13 keepers by 9:00am. The biggest fish of the team would come off a white spinner bait weighting 4.90, big enough to take the big bass award.

Another solid keeper came from a Strike King 5xd crank bait. Every other fish caught by the team would be landed using a Yum 7” green pumpkin pepper worm. Bob said in an interview that the bite was so timid that if they set the hook early only half a worm would come back.  Catching the fish was only half the battle  for the team. Linton and Hall began to experience boat trouble. Batteries on the boat had begun to fail. The team was able to jump the batteries and start the boat. Afraid the fish might die because of the livewells not working proper due to the battery trouble they decided to go to weight- in early.  

After culling eight fish that morning, the two would bring in 20.77 pounds to the scales. Team Linton and Hall won by 6.06 pounds over second place Steve Humphrey and Jason Rigdon with 14.71. Third place would go to former Classic winners David Long and Gary Beauchamp with a bag of bass at 13.81. Congratulations to all 38 teams advancing to the Nitro Classic on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes in May 1st and 2nd 2012. If you did not qualify for the Classic, by fishing the regional you are automatically qualified to fish the Tracker Cup.Details on both the Nitro Classic and the Tracker Cup can be found on the USA Bassin Website at www.usabassin.com.