Greg Hackney shows that the big crappie are up shallow too.

I just spent a couple of wonderful days on Kentucky Lake, courtesy of Dr. Bob Wooten from Memphis and Clay Connor of Xpress Boats.

I fished with Elite Series Pro Greg Hackney and we filmed a segment for an upcoming episode of the Progressive Bass Wrap Up TV Show. Check your local listings if you want to ride along with Hackney as he pre-fishes the FLW Tour event coming up this summer on Kentucky Lake.

Local tournament ace, Tracy Salmon also helped us crack the code. And Doug Miller, who manages an incredible piece of Sportsman’s Paradise known as Grosse Savanne, took a break from fishing his lake where he routinely catches 50-plus bass up to 7 pounds apiece to sample the bassing on Kentucky Lake.

We fished south of Paris, TN and found a reliable pattern.

Lake is a full pool and water temps range from mid-60’s in the main lake to 70 in backwaters.

Hackney fishes the type of bushes that hold spawning bass right now.

“Flat pockets” said Hackney when discussing where he and Salmon had whacked them. To further refine the pattern, I would add that most of the quality fish are swimming in and around flooded bushes in the backs of those pockets and with a full moon on Tuesday we should see them lock down and spawn. Many are still white as they have just moved up from deep water. The spawn is on.

Fish that haven’t made it back to the bushes seem to be staging on the deep side of emergent grass toward the mouths of coves.

You can fish the whole pattern with two lures:  a buzzbait and a swimming jig. If one doesn’t work for 10 minutes, try the other. Color doesn’t seem to matter much but we used jigs in some shade of green pumpkin or black/blue. White buzzbaits.

Pretty soon the fish will dump eggs and start moving back to the first points leading toward offshore ledges where Hackney plans to find them during the FLW Tour tourney.

Everything is a little behind because of a late, cold winter. That means you can find them shallow a bit longer this year.

Doug Miller lands one.