PARIS, Tenn. — Summer will be in full swing when teams arrive for the 2026 Strike King Bassmaster High School Championship and Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Junior Championship at Kentucky/Barkley lakes, but the sweltering temperatures will make for an interesting tournament on the massive reservoirs.
“A little bit of everything is going to be going on,” Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series pro John Garrett said. “It is fishing pretty decent right now. There isn’t going to be one obvious pattern to catch sizable bass. A 3-pounder is going to be great, and anything over that is a big one.”
The week kicks off with the Junior Championship July 24-25 before the high schoolers take center stage July 30-Aug. 1. Both tournaments will launch from Paris Landing, with takeoffs scheduled for 6 a.m. CT and weigh-ins tapped for 2 p.m. Both events will be three-bass-limit tournaments.
Kentucky and Barkley lakes have a storied B.A.S.S. history, and while the fishery took a downturn in the late 2010s, the two fisheries have made an impressive comeback, and the quality of the bass has noticeably increased on Kentucky Lake in particular. During the 2026 Turtlebox Bassmaster Open presented by Battery Tender this May, Clint Knight won with a three-day total weighing 62-2, over a 20-pound average.
Kentucky Lake has also become a premier southern smallmouth fishery. While smallmouth have always swam in these waters, there wasn’t as much consistency as there is now. The greatest population of smallmouth live toward the dam, but they can be caught anywhere on the fishery.
This time of year, however, targeting specific species of bass becomes harder to do, but Garrett believes any section of Kentucky Lake could produce winning bass.
In the heyday, finding productive ledges would be the no-doubt recipe for winning this tournament. In early summer, that is still the case, but by late July and early August, Garrett says the number of schools dwindles and the ones that are left are in much deeper water.
“Normally we fish from 12 to 20 feet of water. In July, they like to be in 20 to 30 feet of water. They are harder to find because they like to sit on the edges of the breaks,” Garrett said. “The teams who find that will be well off.”
While several teams could get right by finding those schools, Garrett believes the best approach will be finding isolated pieces of cover where only one or two bass are living. Minnows, big worms and jigs are often the best baits to throw around these pieces of cover.
With this pattern, teams will need to treat Kentucky Lake like a blueback herring fishery.
“Targeting stumps, brushpiles, logs and a shellbar and picking off single fish is how I would approach this event if I was fishing it,” he said. “Bass will use a piece of cover and use it all year, and they do this offshore as well as shallow. The more of those places you can fish, the better.”
There will also be a population of bass that move back into the very back of the creeks to find cooler water. Flipping and pitching will be a primary technique in these backwater areas.
The Henry County Tourism Authority is hosting these events.