Transcript
All right. Welcome back to the Ripple effect, everyone. we’re we’re going to be giving you another edition of Real Talk. and today with us, we have professional bass angler, Mr. Mark Menendez. Thank you. Welcome for being. We’re glad to have you. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me here in Marshall County. Of course. So we’re going to hear how Mark got his start, the stories that shaped his career. And, what makes the home waters of Kentucky Lake so special. So. Plus, we might get a few tips and tricks for fall fishing here on Kentucky Lake.
So welcome to the show, everyone. And, let’s get started. So Mark, first question I have for you is you’ve been all over the country, but Kentucky Lake is home. So when you think about fishing here, what is the first memory that comes to mind?
Ooh, Elena. It goes way back. Probably as a pre-kindergarten kid. Wow. fishing with my grandfather. Below Kentucky Damn. Okay.. Fishing for white bass. Probably using. And nobody uses them anymore. Using do jigs two two tied on one line. And lots of times we’d catch lots of doubles. But it was a it was an interesting time. It was, it was it was scary down there as a little person.
And so my grandfather being the, the John Wayne kind of guy that he was, he had me tied to a rope, a rope to his belt, to my waist, so that I wouldn’t just float on down to Paducah, you know, in the current if I fell in the water. But that’s probably some of the earliest memories. Well that’s awesome. Okay, so, when you go, how you went from a kid, who loved fishing to someone who believed he could make a living doing it, kind of walk us through that journey, what that was look like. That was a very long journey.
And it started with, moving from Callaway County to Paducah at about six or seven years old. My next door neighbor, his family had had a basketball goal and he had two older sons. They were older than me and they were all the whole neighborhood was always there playing basketball. And Mr. Watts. Clyde Watts and I’ll probably get teared up about this I do every time he had a hit a baseball. And Clyde was a huge bass fisherman here on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. And, he would come in from his trips.
He was a telephone executive, so fishing was his refuge from work. And, he would come in and park his boat. And here I was, this seven, eight, nine, ten year old kid telling him that that’s a hula popper and that’s a jitterbug and that’s a bushwhacker. Spinnerbait. And and I knew them all. And I finally, finally got an invitation to go. So he asked my dad and I to go. And we go over to north end of Barkley and Fish, and we’re catching white bass. And, about five o’clock he says, guys, it’s time to go home.
Miss Watts will have dinner on the table in a little bit. And I said, oh, no, Mr. Watts, we can’t go. We can’t go. We can’t leave until dark. And at that point, he knew that I had a fire in me. You were hooked. Big time hooked. And that was the last time my dad ever went with us. And I fished with him from ten years old to fourteen years old from February, cranking the points in Little Bear to December to throwing grubs in the rock quarry up for the next four years.
And that really was the basis of the education of learning patterns, learning the three different species of bass, the black bass that we have here, knowing where those fish would go, what I needed to look for. and at that time he, he got a transfer, he transferred to Memphis, Tennessee, and we still got to fish once or twice a year. And, it was just a major positive influence in my life. Then came high school and my grandfather and I trained rocking horses. We showed rocking horses all over the all over the area. And I traded in horses for horsepower. Okay.
And I got my first boat. I got a sixteen foot aluminum bass boat with a forty horsepower motor on it, and, was off and running. Yeah. High school. I was in the band. I was a band geek. Yeah. And I was fishing, so I was totally different than the mainstream of kids. So I took a lot of heat for that. But, I signed everybody’s, yearbooks. Mark Menendez, future bass Pro and, and the rest is history after that. So how did you compete? because I mean, high school fishing and competition that I mean, that wasn’t was there, was there. Elena.
If we had high school bass fishing and college bass fishing, I’d still be a second semester sophomore. because because of the tournaments, it would, it just, it just totally encompassed me, my entire life, my thought processes. What can I do to make that bass bite that bait?
And to this day, I have that thought every day in my life, in my head. So no, there wasn’t any youth fishing. There was an occasional father son tournament in a bass club or something like that. And Mr. Watts and I fished a couple of those, and, I fished the regular tournaments. So you were a kid fishing local clubs, you know, whenever the open tournaments, too. Yeah. Okay. So, after after Clyde, left Paducah, my backyard neighbor was David Hutchison. He was an engineer here in town, owned a engineering firm called Florence and Hutchison. And Dave was the premier tournament fisherman.
His son and I were close friends because we grew up in the neighborhood together. to this day, we’re still best friends. And Dave taught me more about tournaments. Clyde taught me more about the ABCs of Finding the Fish, but Dave taught me how to tournament fish. And, when we got in college, you know, college kids have a lot of spare time. He’d call me at three o’clock in the morning on Saturday morning. Hey, get your stuff together. I’ll be there to pick you up. We’re going to go fishing tournament. Okay.
And I’d get out of bed and wipe my eyes and grab three or four rods, and off I’d go out the front door. So, those those were the two major mentors in my life. Oh. That’s awesome. Wonderful. I know you had mentioned that, for Mr. Watts, fishing was like his refuge. And, you know, my father, he’s a pastor and and being in the mountains is, is his refuge. and so, you know, despite the fact that you’ve also made fishing your career, do you also find it your refuge as well?
Well, I do. I’m a property owner here in Marshall County and got a place up here, on the lake. And, it’s amazing when I come down into the view of my property and I, and I, I can see the lake. Yeah, I just, I just, it just, it clicks. It’s it’s calmness, it’s serenity. And, it’s the one place that my wife, who is just this busy, busy, busy person all the time as a as an exercise instructor and the mother of our seven kids. And boom, she gets there. Wow. Yeah. And she, she calms down.
Now, what I did not expect to enjoy about our lakes is becoming a pontoon boat driver. Oh, yeah. Melissa wanted a pontoon boat to bring all of our college kids back to the house. So we could have something we could all do together, and I really thought it would be hard to take my fishing hat off and put my pontoon hat on. Yeah. No. It fits just the same. Maybe even better at this point in my life. But it’s mellow. It’s just nice. And it’s so much.
We have so many friends up here, and we’ll tie up and go turn the music on, have a dance party or eat lunch, and we’ll have fifty, sixty, seventy people around us at all times. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a that sounds like fun. Where’s the invite now?
It’s coming, it’s coming, I promise you. Alright, so, you kind of talked about who helped shape you as an angler. and those lessons from early on, you know, do they still guide you to this day?
If there’s anything that you want to pass on to young anglers, you know what, what do you think that needs to be? Well, it’s changed since I was that, that age. And, I got my education here in Western Kentucky at Murray State. I have a degree in biology with an emphasis in fisheries. And that was part of the deal that I had to do with my parents to become a professional fisherman. So, ended up at Murray State, went to Paducah Community College and then in Murray State and graduated in eighty seven. I had to have that degree.
I come from two overachievers. and so I had to have something to fall back on. In my mind, it was clear tunnel vision. I knew what I was going to do, I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew that was my path. But the education part of it, there were a couple classes that I took that I had no idea that they were going to actually be the basis of what I do. And obviously it was a gen ed basic public speaking.
Took that with Don Maley and, at PCC and he says, man, you know a lot about fishing. I said, Don, I’m going to be a pro fisherman. This is what I’m going to do. This is how I’m going to do it. And I didn’t know that communication was going to be part of what I really needed to do, either on the microphone or on camera while at a tournament or, at sport shows, meeting and greeting people, on behalf of sponsors. I had no idea of that world. And then that world all started to morph together.
Yeah, I think yeah, public speaking. It’s certainly a part of my job. You know, in tourism, most of what we do is marketing and it’s behind the scenes, but especially just starting like this podcast. And, you know, I have to present to, to elected officials and leadership and, you know, often and, and so I think a lot of people underestimate how important public speaking or just being able to be comfortable having face to face conversations and being able to talk confidently about whatever it is you’re passionate about. So that’s, I think that’s awesome.
Well, you know, we didn’t have that tournament fishing for high school and college, and now you can blend that education and get a little bit earlier, get your fishing education, then get your proper education, and then you’re ready to step into the world on the professional ranks. Pretty easy. right now in the, in the professional fishing ranks, I would say forty percent of all of the competitors at this point have come through the collegiate ranks. And when they come into the ranks, they’ve been all over the country already fishing.
They understand travel, they understand time management, they understand the management of your economics, the whole nine yards to get there. And I had to learn that along the way. And they’re coming into the field now just Absolutely ready to perform. Wow. That’s awesome. So let’s say there’s a there’s a high school athlete or even parents, that recognize my kids into fishing and, but they don’t own a boat. They don’t, they didn’t grow up fishing.
Do you have tips or some recommendations on if as a parent, if you have a child who’s expressing interest in this industry, how to get them tapped in, how to get them hooked. Obviously, time on the water cultivates everything. It cultivates the skills, it cultivates. All behavior problems tend to end most of the time. I have moms ask me, you know what?
It’s I’m so scared for them to go, it’s dangerous. I said, you know, it’s not that dangerous where your PhD on the boat. Not a big deal. The biggest problem you’re going to have with most high school kids, you’re going to have muddy tennis shoes. You’re going to get brand new tennis shoes bought for your your child. And they go to the farm pond and they’re muddy. so that’s the, that’s the biggest, the worry about it. Fishing is a is a unique thing. You don’t have to have one hundred thousand dollars falcon bass boat. You don’t have to have that.
You don’t have to have a ten thousand dollars grandpa’s old beater boat that’s eighty years old. You can fish from the bank, you can fish from kayaks. And we have all of that environment here. We’ve got a nice park pond over here at Mike Miller Park. We’ve got places that you can kayak very easy. A kayak is very easy to to get around and get into the backs of little creeks and little nooks and crannies. So there’s many different ways that that big expense of a high powered bass boat.
You don’t have to have, you can eliminate or at least mitigate that a little bit for time being. You’re, you’re putting in, you’re, you’re putting it off. But, but to get that fire going, to get that desire, stoked. There’s so many small ways to get that going. we’re very lucky here to have this much water available to us. Yes, I know. Is there a particular rod or reel combo that you advise for a beginner? you know, probably I would start with a, with a seven foot medium heavy spinning rod with a two hundred or three hundred series size reel on it. you can do just about everything you need to do with that and then graduate to your bait casting rods and reels after that.
Okay. When you look back at your career, you know what, which experience or what experience has really meant the most to you and why?
Oh my gosh. you know, making your first bassmasters classic, you’re part of the gang. Then you’ve got there, then you throw a win on top of that a year later and you’re kind of like, wow, did that really happen?
I made a cast at megabucks, in Richland Chambers, Texas and reeled in the largest bass ever caught in Bassmaster competition. I caught a thirteen pound and nine ounce bags. Oh my goodness. That broke a thirty one year record. And it’s still to this day the biggest bass caught on the elite series. you you put all of those things in, in there and cool catches and lucky things happen. But I, I have to be honest. probably the thing that hits home the most for me was being the face of the war on carp.
Oh, that movement started over in Lyon County with judge executive Wade white, and he asked me to come for a meeting. We tied Yamaha right waters in there and Yamaha says, okay, dude, you’re the face of this. And going to Capitol Hill and speaking to our lawmakers and urging them to help us get our economy back after the devastation that the carp did to our lakes. and seeing it come back, not only the fishing come back, but the economics, new businesses show up. they’re thriving now. manufacturing facilities like precision sonar pops up and bam, they’ve got this huge location now, high tech marine in and, and expanding it all the time. it’s really a good feeling to know that you had some influence there.
And, the community has been just moving so much faster and more opportunities here for jobs and economics coming into our community. That’s, that’s probably, that’s probably the thing that I’m most proud of is that I can certainly understand and I’m grateful for that. Appreciate that. I mean, it, it was a roller coaster for us here in the tourism industry. You know, we just, when all of that happened and, and not to, you know, obviously the pandemic was, was certainly a challenge for us to go through for everyone, for the entire country to go through.
But the, the carp crisis and the invasive carp actually had a bigger, more negative impact on our local industry here specifically than than Covid did. At least Covid people realized you could still get outdoors and get on the lake, and we had a perfect destination for people to come. Still have a vacation, while doing it safely. But yeah, the, the carp crisis, it, it had a big impact on us on our budget here, on our industry here. And it, it really has, it has been a wild ride getting back to where we are.
But, so, so thank you for your role in that and, and we appreciate it and we are really looking forward to sort of the next kind of boom, if you will, of, of the Kentucky lake fishery. Well, you know, I, even with my biological background, I didn’t think the old girl would bounce back as quick as she had. Really. Okay. I thought we this may be a fifteen year plan, okay, but within five or six years of dead bottom of of minimal game fish species in our way, like the carrying capacity was covered up with with all the Asian carp.
I thought, you know, this may be fifteen years. You know, I may really be old and gray at that time, but, she came back quick. And we’re seeing monumental changes in the in the populations. It’s very, very good. Now, was it the nineteen eighty nine to ninety five range where thirty five pounds one every local tournament here?
No, it’s not that good yet. And it may never be that. Don’t sell yourself short. Okay. I think I think we’re going to get back there. Okay. I’m seeing monumental jumps in in largemouth populations. the smallmouth kind of sprinted out there and they’ve been a real treat. Yes. I think you’re going to see those numbers naturally come back a little bit. And your largemouth population become the dominant species again, probably on that sixty forty split, which is the basic balance that it was when the lake was at its very best. our crappie fishing is back. Oh yeah.
White bass are everywhere. The bluegill fishing is great. Our shell crackers. My gosh, they look like dinner plates. so the lake is becoming more healthy. the nutrients have always been there to, to provide for the lake, but doggone it, we get a few more of these things out of our way and it’ll get back to normal. It feels I think it feels pretty healthy. Would you?
Oh, I think so. You know, it’s taking a four and a half pound average to win most tournaments year round. fall on Kentucky Lake is always the most stingy time to fish. but it’s always been that way. That’s, that’s, that’s nothing new. but yeah, we’re back to a four and a half pound average, sometimes a five pound average. And that’s pretty darn good fishing just about anywhere you go. I’d say so. All right. So tell me a little bit about, you know, you’ve grown up on Kentucky lake fishing, Kentucky Lake.
How has Kentucky Lake helped you, figure out and compete on other fisheries across the country? Well, it was almost the full package, Elena. the the sheer size of the waters available was a big help. It it it it taught me that even though maybe in Sledd Creek, they weren’t biting like I thought they would, I could get down to Jonathan Creek and it be its own environment and I could figure it out there. a little bit the same, but a little bit different. it taught me the basics of pattern fishing. Okay. Pattern fishing is basically replicating successes that you’ve had.
If you’re catching them on the ends of points in the springtime. Go find some of those like same points in different areas of the lake. it taught me, a lot about fish behavior because we were lucky enough in the early days of my fishing to have all three species of black bass. we had, largemouth smallmouth and Kentucky spotted bass, which that’s our, our state fish here in the state of Kentucky. before those numbers of those fish diminished naturally. And then the smallmouth population got bigger. So I learned those behavioral traits of those fish here.
The one thing that I didn’t have a lot of experience with on Kentucky Lake was vegetation. we have had three periods in my lifetime that vegetation prospered here on Kentucky Lake. And then it vanished, as quickly as it came in. So I didn’t get a lot of, of getting comfortable with hydrilla and milfoil and American Naiad and things like that. But when I would see them at other lakes, it didn’t scare me. It didn’t intimidate me.
And then the other thing that was, probably a little bit lacking is, which is not now because the lakes have gotten so much cleaner. was bed fishing in the spawning time of the season. Visually fishing for those fish and, and provoking them into biting. We would go down the bank in the springtime flipping buck brush and willows and things. And those were bed fish, but we couldn’t see them. We were just using the target to, to make the casts where we anticipated they were. But now you can go down banks and look and go, oh, there’s there’s a nice bass.
Oh, there’s the female right over there. And you can catch those fish now. So grass fishing and, and bed fishing. I kind of had to learn on tour and on tour. We fish a lot of tidal waters. Where water goes up during the day comes down during the day. And that was real challenging. But, but now I feel real comfortable with that after thirty five years. Yeah I bet. Good deal. All right.
Well, so, kind of shifting gears into sort of fishing tips and, you know, when we go to travel shows and fishing expos, and we’re talking to folks about, you know, booking a fishing trip here, you know, we try to, to let them know sometimes Kentucky Lake, like, as you said, can feel overwhelming because it is so large. And so if you’re not familiar with this lake, if you are, you know, if you don’t consider yourself a pretty proficient angler, you know, how would you advise if you’re going to book a trip in the fall?
What are some steps that you would recommend? Just your average angler or something. You know, someone who’s wanting to come to Kentucky Lake for the first time, maybe. Well, you look at the lake. It’s one hundred and eighty miles long. And how in the world are you going to cover that in a weekend?
You can’t do that. So you basically need to pick an area and and, and make it manageable. Break that lake down the first couple of bays on the east side of the lake, the first couple of bays on the west side of lake and just stay in those areas. One of the things I always do when before I go to a new location is I watch the weather intently, particularly the weather. And if I know the wind has been out of the West for the last three days in a row, Kentucky Lake runs north and south.
I know that that wind’s been pushing nutrients and baitfish over to that east side of the lake for the last three or four days. That west wind has kind of pushed all the life over there. So that’s probably going to give me a great starting place to know that. Chances are this might be where it’s happening. Then your weather patterns, if, if you’ve got chamber of commerce days, like you all like, those can be the most challenging days to fish and, and you have to break that down into, what’s the most predominant cover so that fish can get in the shade, hide its eyes because they don’t have sunglasses like we have.
Yeah. they’re, they’re wide open all the time and they’ve got to get into those dark areas, just to feel, feel comfortable. So you have to break that down, realizing that, the time of year has a lot to do with it. If you’re coming in the spring time, you’re going to be looking in the bays, you know, from the middle of March to April to the middle part of May, those fish are making their migration towards the back ends of the bays to start spawning. So that’s where I’m going to fish that that middle to back end part of the bass.
If I come in June, I’m going to be out on the main lake June, July and August on the main lake. Those fish migrate out and spend their entire summers out there deep.. Most of the summer. And then in the fall, it’s it’s it’s a guessing game. It’s a shotgun. I mean, some fish stay out in that main lake part of it. Some of them are on the main lake points. Some are back there. This deep under boat docks in the back ends of the bay. So that’s when an overcast day really comes in.
The wind direction comes in, and that’s when you have to really start making a little bit more educated guesses. So do you think from a turn a tournament perspective, do fall tournaments have a little bit more, or I guess really technically a little less predictability because. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. You, you have so many options in play. your bass population is spread out uniformly. You know, one third in the middle, one third in the front of the bay, and one third in the back of the bay, where at different times of the year, like in the early spring, the biggest percentage of them are shallow in the backs of the bays.
So yes, the fall tournaments. You can see some really off the wall things happen and with the fish so spread out, your catches tend to be a little bit lower. And that’s that’s just because they’re spread. Our bass are still here. We’ve got plenty of them to catch. We had a tournament here a couple of weeks ago and it took a four pound average to win. So yeah, we they’re they’re still there to be caught. Yes. Most definitely. All right. let’s see as the water cools on Kentucky Lake. So what changes?
And you kind of I mean you have touched on this as far as patterns and where they are, but when it comes to like bait fish and bass, you know, where do you start looking?
How does that sort of play in kind of take us through what that process looks like? Well, you know, you’re you’re heading towards my favorite time to be here. Okay. I want to be here on Kentucky Lake. October, November, December and even the first of January. Okay. Everybody’s hunting and I, and I get my entire life. I can go fish anywhere I want. But you can have some days that are just absolutely magical. Catching all three species of black bass, catching all three species of white bass, striped bass and hybrids.
I call those double grand Slam days, and I bet I’ve had a hundred of those here in the past. fish tend to group up. The water temperatures are cooling the bait. Fish are looking for that warmer water. So they’re leaving the back of the bass and heading toward the main stem of the lake. One of the unique things that happens here, Kentucky Lake versus Barkley, like Barkley’s headwaters, come from East Tennessee. Mhm. Our headwaters come from the south in Alabama.
So Kentucky Lake tends to be on the average, two degrees warmer in the late winter than it is over on Barkley. And fish are cold blooded creatures. The warmer the water, the more active. So that makes Kentucky Lake even that much better. We also have to tend to have a little bit cleaner water. And and that keeps those fish active in colder water. So I’m looking for long points on the main lake that have verticality at the ends of them, where it comes out and falls off bluff banks anywhere current sweeps against the bank.
Those fish come out of the out of the bay. They hit that current. They’re like, whoa, I better stick my nose over here behind this microphone so I can get out of the current and get in position to feed. So it really makes them predictable. Now you may have to go and hit ten, twelve, fifteen places with minimal results, but when you hit the grand slam, when you get them, it’s every cast.
So that’s the unique thing about late fall fishing. numbers can really be elevated to some of the best days that you’re going to have in a lifetime career or the year. Okay. I really, I feel like I just got a masterclass and, and that just so much education just happened in a matter of minutes. So thank you. That was very informational. So if you could put just three baits in a visitor’s tackle box. coming to Kentucky Lake. And, you know, we’ve mostly been talking about bass, but I guess if you wanted to open it up to other species, you could.
What would those three baits be when, what time of the year? well, let’s stick with fall. Okay. In the fall. That’s where we’re at. Okay.. Three baits. I’m going to give you two that are, primarily bass, but could catch something else. and then one that’s going to just mop up and catch everything. And it’s an old school deal that not many people do here anymore. right now in this is we’re in October. we’re kind of in that transitional period. It’s been really warm here. Really hot. I know it’s ninety degrees today. Yeah.
I’m ready for some of these cool breezes and keep getting a taste of it. And then it just disappears. Yeah. right now there’ll be two baits that I would have, one, two on the top of my on my boat, on my deck of my boat. The first would be a top water walking bait, like a striking sexy dog. It’s a bait that I can move side to side, and I’m going to be fishing those on flat gravel points, primarily on the main lake or the primary point just inside the base, trying to get those fish that are kind of coming and going, bait fish coming and going still. and those fish kind of hang on those, it’s a small mouth technique.
You’re going to have a lot of smallmouth. So it’s going to be really exciting when one of them comes out of nowhere. And it looks like somebody threw a concrete block on the bait. I will follow that up with a double Willowleaf Spinnerbait, a strike King Spinnerbait and I’m going to be burning. It’s what I call burning it. I’m fishing those same flat gravel points. I want a little bit of wind. So that kind of makes the top water bait a little less productive. So that little bit of wind breaks that surface down.
It kind of makes the water a little darker underneath. And the fish are real active still, and I’m casting it across those and reeling it as fast as I can without breaking the surface of the water. Okay, so what’s really cool is when a spinnerbait is coming, Mark one this way and a small mouth is going Mark two that way. It’s a metaphysical collision. And it’s like, oh my gosh, there’s a good one. And he’s only a three pounder and he kicks your butt. It’s so much fun. And those two patterns will last all the way into December.
Okay, so at that point, when those fish start backing out there, we start getting a lot of current moving through the system. the fish are piling up there. I take a, I take a three or a four inch grub, curly tail grub, either in a smoke with silver flake or kind of a lime green. That’s always been productive here on Kentucky Lake. And you will catch everything that swims on those corners of those points where that current is coming by waiting for the bait fish, cast it upstream, let it fall, count it down to five, and just reel that spinning rod at a very moderate pace, trying to keep it at the five foot level.
And if you don’t get bit, then count it down to ten and then to the fifteen and then the twenty. And somewhere in that water column, you’re going to figure out the depth and you’ll be able to go from point to point to point and catch bass, white bass, hybrids, stripers become a big factor. Then crappie fishing can be good, then your bluegill abide it, and then a big old catfish will even bite it. So that’s that’s be my three on Kentucky Lake. Okay, that’s that was very informative. Once again, thank you very much.
And I feel like I know, you mentioned colors and, and so we could probably do an entire episode. Absolutely. On just colors of bait and kind of how all that, they’re just quickly, I guess when it comes to the colors of bait, who tests those?
Like, who figures out that lime green? Like who thought lime green is going to be a good color for this? Most of the time it’s all marketing. It’s what you do. If we have thirty choices, the fishermen are going to buy most of those thirty choices and we’re going to make lots of money. Okay. But then geographically across the country, depending upon what river system you’re in. the turbidity will be higher or lower in certain colors, produce a much more visible, option for the fish. So, you know, blue has always been good here on Kentucky Lake.
Blue is a primary color. It doesn’t change its, integrity the deeper it gets. there’s, you know, it’s, it blue has always been good. So that’s why a plumb worm was always good. That was a purple worm, which is kind of a blue hue with blue flake in it. That was a bait that we billions of Kentucky Lake bass have been weighed in in terms of a black and blue jig, a chartreuse and blue chartreuse. That was.
I was at a fishing expo last year and I was sitting right next to, to, you know, a bait company and man, those chartreuse that it was flying off the. Exactly. The fluorescent colors don’t change in the water. They hold their identity and you can see that fluorescent in dirty water, clear water or moderate stained water. So that’s why they’re so good. But, it’s really unique that certain bodies of water, there’s some lakes in Missouri that red, which is one of the shortest wavelengths in the spectrum of light red is one of the best ones.
It’s not that good here. except except early spring. and, but, but blue has always been with the color of our water nine times out of ten. Always a great color to use here. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Good deal. I just again, I’m always intrigued. I’m like, man, there’s just it’s almost like, well, in female languages, I feel like it’s like nail polish, you know?
Oh yeah. There’s, you know, we have so many colors and fun names for them and you know, all of that. So I’m like, this is like the male version of, well, now, now let’s back up on this nail polish. Okay, I’ve got nail polish in my boat. Oh, I certainly do. And I will add this to my baits and have had great success in certain places with that. they’re back in the nineties. Clear nail polish with silver flake or gold flake or blue flake was really popular. They’re hard to find these days.
You have to find a place where kids are involved and they can get their nail polish there. But I keep different nail polishes, and I’ll put that nail polish on the backs of some of my baits to change them up. Sharpie markers. I got different color ones of those and I’ll have an art class on those sometimes. So you have to, you have to. Whatever gives you confidence is what how you think you’re going to catch more fish that. And that brought that helped me remember my other question could you put together.
And this was not on. but could you put together a magic formula, like when you’re tournament fishing, like when it comes to skill, luck, confidence, weather, like, do you believe there’s a magic formula to help you?
Yeah. Win a tournament. There is obviously preparation is the big part of that. I’m. I’m. When I leave here today, I’m going to prepare for a tournament in in Texas at Toledo Bend, this weekend. So preparation is a big deal. Knowing what tackle I’m going to need, knowing the location of it in my boat for time management, things like that. So practice map study, looking at Google Earth, do all of those things. that’s the biggest thing in being prepared. That means I’ve got fresh lines, sharp hooks.
And so the chances of my efficiency being as good as possible, it’s there when I’m on the water, the luck factor, a little bit of luck goes a long way. It’s not quite as big as what everyone would think. I’d give the luck factor one percent. Okay. you know, you pitch over there, you feel this minuscule little bite, and you think that’s a little bitty, that’s a twelve inch, and you set the hook and he comes up and he’s a six pounder. that’s the, that’s the luck factor.
But as technical as everything is, and as much energy and effort that you’re putting in it, it’s all preparation is the biggest part of it for me. I think that’s where the basis of winning tournaments, comes from. and then, you know, sometimes, Elena, you just have this inner calm. that happened to me here at my Bass Club classic out of Kinglake when I was fourteen years. It was the first time I ever experienced it. And I was at school, at high school. And I said, I’m going to win my classic this weekend or next weekend. It was two weeks.
And I told my parents, and this has to happen. This has to happen. The wind has to change. The guy’s got to be overcast. And Friday, about three o’clock it before the tournament, all of it lined up and I won the tournament with ease. I’ve had several events in my career where in my mind it was never going to be a doubt. particularly one I fell ill at a tournament in two thousand and five. I had meningitis, I spent seventeen days in the hospital in Arab Alabama. It makes the Benton Hospital look like a metropolitan place. Okay.
And had a great neurologist there. She brought me back to health. And so I had to take a leave of absence from the elite series. And I went back, the end of May, first of June to a tournament at West Point in the Bassmaster opens up to have any kind of chance of making the classic. I did get a medical exemption for the rest of the elite, so I was back in the next year and I told my wife, I said, honey, I this is done. She goes, what?
I said, I’m going to win. How do you know? I said, I just know. She said, well, I want you to do the best you can get you back out there where you’re happy. And I said, you’re not hearing me. I’m going to win. Had no idea how I was going to do it. It all changed from practice and I was able to figure it out. And when I figured it out, it was just like the whole world had opened up to me.
I won the tournament by seven pounds and, made it back to the Bassmasters classic that year as well. So it was a complete turnaround. And it’s amazing those feelings and those nuances that you get that either come from here, your heart or your gut, and you just have to listen to them. It’s kind of like being at the bowling alley, knowing that you got to keep the ball out of the gutter and you’re going to knock all the pins down, and that’s what you have to try to do. So, now that’s is that divine intervention?
Is that luck? Is that skill? I don’t know. No. I think yeah, your intuition is your intuition, in my opinion, is a combination of everything you just described. Your intuition is the preparation. It’s the confidence that you feel. And, and it is maybe just that tad bit of luck. And it is the divine intervention that’s needed. And it just all culminates together into what you know is going to happen. So and it’s a beautiful thing when it does. I’m ready for that to happen again. It’s been a while since that’s happened.
Well, we’re we’re going to hope that it happens soon then for you. So okay. I think, you know, we’ve covered about most of our most of our questions. you know, I, we touched a little bit on sort of the, the new generation of, of angler and kind of the younger generation coming in. You know, I don’t like to call it mistakes, but, you know, you have wisdom now. And so is there any, anything that you would pass along to the, the next generation of, of tournament fishing?
Oh, wow. it’s probably the, you know, I was the oldest guy on the elite series this past year. So it’s kind of going to sound more like pawpaw than anything that’s, you know, remarkable. Maintenance is a big deal. Mhm. You know, maintenance matters. That’s very important. Whether it’s your vehicle, I’m going to get my tires rotated up the street here at the tire shop on my way out of here. I keep, my engine oil and my lower unit oil is changed regularly by high tech down the street here. That eliminates a lot of problems.
Yeah. tightening that little bolt up when you notice it’s loose after a rough day on the water, making sure you strap that trolling motor down, making sure your batteries are strapped in. battery maintenance is, is just of the utmost, keeping those batteries charged and keeping them at peak performance. you know, my precision batteries, they never let me down by gosh, they’re the best things I’ve ever had. But maintenance is a big deal. Preparation. and then, and then just keeping your mind open, one of the things that we are as people are, we like to replicate success.
So when we have successes on the water or in life, we try to replicate those. And when you’ve come to Kentucky Lake in March and then you come back in, let’s say, June for another vacation, we’ll go back to those places that we caught that six pounder in March, and we caught three off of that point. So let’s try that. And I remember catching this big one under a dock over here. And those, while sometimes they will work, occasionally they generally don’t. And so fishermen are creatures that have. Just keep your mind open.
Stay up to date with the current conditions, watch your water levels, watch your weather, and then take each day as a new. Take the experience that you’ve got, put it in the back pocket and realize that those may be successful ways, but keep your eye open out for experimentation and doing different new things. I think that’s, that’s great. All right. I’ve got a few rapid fire questions. All right, fire away. Okay, so when you’re not fishing for bass, what’s your favorite species?
Ooh, we don’t have them here. Oh, really? We don’t have. I do love to go saltwater fishing. I love to catch redfish down in Louisiana. that’s, that’s always really cool to do. I like to bluegill fish. Yeah. I enjoy catching big bluegill. Okay. You know, if they got really big, they would attack jet skiers. You know, they’re so aggressive and fun to fun to catch, but fortunately, they don’t get that big. Yeah. Okay.
I know Kentucky Lakes home, so it’s okay if it is not, but what is your favorite fishery right now? man, that’s that’s so hard. not a fair question. It really isn’t. But I’ve, I’ve gotten to sample so many great places. There is a little lake in Alabama that, I used to fish a lot in the nineties. We’ve had a couple of Bassmaster events there. I’ve had some top tens there recently, had a elite there this year and did not have a good tournament. But it’s Lake Martin in Alabama. Alexander City, Alabama.
It’s there’s certain lakes you go to that you just get. I mean, it’s not a matter of am I going to catch them. It’s a matter of how much I’m going to catch. And that’s one of those places for me. Okay. Very nice. So, are you do you prefer more sun rise fishing or sunset fishing?
Are you dawn or dusk? you know, I hate getting up early in the morning. This is the worst part of being a pro fisherman. Having to get up early all the time. you know, particularly in the winter, which is my favorite time to fish. I get up early because there’s a window in the morning because the days are shorter in the winter. In the winter, nights are longer and the water’s cold. The fish aren’t moving around very fast, so they’re not as efficient feeders at night as they are during the day.
So when that little sliver of sunlight comes over the eastern shore of Kentucky Lake in the wintertime, that first hour to hour and a half is generally when it’s game on. It will be game on. And then you’ll catch a few around one o’clock and then that Thirty five to forty five minutes before the sun goes down in the in the late fall. Those. Those photo periods are the best time to fish, so I have to get up early in the morning. So golden hour is also golden fishing. That’s what you’re saying. Okay, good to know. All right.
A perfect fall day on Kentucky Lake is not a Chamber of Commerce Day. Not blue skies. I want a low, overcast day with a south wind of five to ten, blowing out of the south. And, this is this happens a lot right around Thanksgiving. between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the best time in my opinion. to to fish on Kentucky Lake. So those are, we get a lot of those days then with lots of rapid weather fronts coming through. And those are the days that the fish tend to get real shallow and I can burn that spinnerbait.
I can throw that topwater or swim that grub and catch tons and tons of fish. All right. Okay. And so for you, if and for all of our listeners, if people are wanting to follow up or follow along your journey. Where is it best for them to go do that?
It’s probably on the social media channels. You can catch me at Martin Mendez bass on Instagram, Berkeley Menendez on on on Facebook. that’s my old dog that used to travel with me that rode in the Bassmaster Classic with me. lots of fun. He’s, he’s, he’s here somewhere. Where is he?
Right. There’s, there’s old Berkeley right there. He was a yellow lab that I rescued, Berkeley Menendez at at Facebook and Mark Menendez at, at ex. So, that’s the, that’s the easiest way to catch up with me. And where are you headed next?
I’m headed to Toledo Bend, for the Bassmaster Ek event. got two more of those to go and looking very forward to it getting, getting ready to stay with a really dear friend of mine down there, David Roy, who has some old, old nineteen seventies Bassmaster history. So it’s always good to talk about that. Oh, yeah. And Toledo Bend was one of the lakes that really in the seventies that Clyde Watts and David Hutchinson, they would take the Bass Club to, Toledo Bend, and they had some experiences there back in the seventies when it was one of the best lakes in the country.
So it’s a it’s a double homecoming of sorts for me to go back down there. Awesome. That’s great. It sounds like you’ve made a bunch of lifelong friends being in this industry. Would you say so?
Well, yeah, it is. And and, and my wife Melissa, she’s like, you know, why don’t we ever go out with any of your friends when we were dating?
Why don’t we go out with any of your friends? I said, well, take a map of the United States and a dart and throw it and find who’s. Yeah, I’ve got friends all over. And, it’s it’s the type of friendships that, we don’t get to see each other all the time. we keep up now with phones and things like that, but, it’s, they’re all friends in which the last time you saw them, you’re still at that same great level of friendship as you always were when you get to see them the next time.
So yeah, I think we were kind of talking about it off camera. We’re it’s a pretty close knit community, but it is a spread out community. It is nationwide. It is. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I hope everyone on the on the episode is got a few tips and tricks for, for fall fishing here on Kentucky Lake. I encourage everyone to go to our website, visit dot com because we do have a fishing calendar. with a lot of great content, you can take what we’ve learned here from, from Mark Menendez, but we also, we’ve worked with Jason Sealock and he’s put all kinds of great fishing articles and he broke it down month by month.
So you pick the month you want to come, you find out what’s biting during that month. And then and then we’re of course, here to help in any way that we can to, to book your trip. So, I appreciate the time and, it’s been certainly enjoyable for me. So I hope as well for you and we’ll catch everybody next time on the ripple effect. Have a great day.