The lake that I would call my "home lake" is about 12 min from my front door to the waters edge. I love this little lake. It is only about 755 acres but the traffic is fairly minimal. You will not catch large numbers of fish, but you sure can catch some good ones. I made a post earlier in the card thread about Ken Cook so I got do doing some Google searching. You see, the Hart Tackle bait company was started in my hometown of Stratford, Oklahoma. I was in the same grade as the owners daughter and we were good friends. I got to hang out a lot in the warehouse where they made all the spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and poured the plastics. I could buy any spinnerbait or buzzbait for $2 or a bag of worms for $1. I spent a TON of time hanging out down there. I even went down there after hours to help bag plastics and build spinnerbaits with a guy that worked there. Ken Cook just happened to be one of the Pro's that was sponsored by Hart. It was circa 1991 or 1992 (can't remember if he had one won the Classic yet or not) I was 11 or 12 years old and he was working with Hart to produce a new spinnerbait. One day he was at Hart Tackle HQ and was going to go out and try out a few prototypes. I just happened to be there and he asked myself and the guy that I helped to go out to the lake with him. I had never been to said lake, in fact, didn't even know it was a lake. Turns out, they were in the process of building the lake and it wasn't even open to the public yet. We threw the spinnerbaits from the bank for a while and caught a few fish. I don't really remember any conversation or anything like that, I just remember being in awe at his casting ability. Ken was for sure my favorite from then on. Now, I find myself fishing that same lake some 30 years later and thinking about that time I was with a Classic Champion. So after my Google search. I found a video of him fishing that lake after it opened. Pretty cool find.

 

Great post.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

 

Great story. 

I learned a lot about spinnerbait fishing from Ken Cook. I have a "beginners Bass Fishing book" I got many years ago and guys like Shaw Grigsby talked about sight fishing with a tube and Stacey King talked about fishing jerkbaits and how to modify them to be suspending jerkbaits. This was back before suspending jerkbaits were a thing. Ken Cook had had an article about spinnerbaits. Wasn't long, maybe 4 pages with some illustrations (my daughter eventually taught me the "big" words). I must have read those 4 pages a thousand times.

If memory serves, he was a marine biologist for the state of OK before or during his tourny days? Not really sure, but from what I understand he was a genuine and approachable guy..

Thanks for sharing JB.

Very cool story.  I was a Ken Cook fan back in those days.

I feel click baited by the same age as the owner's daughter thing, good story though.

5 hours ago, Deleted account said:

I feel click baited by the same age as the owner's daughter thing, good story though.

Sorry, the stories about her and I when we were in high school will be in my personal memoirs.

 

LOL, now I realize my goof up!!!! 

The guy in the green shirt was no slouch either! (Or was that cook?) He was more than holding his own from the back of the boat 

That's Ron Shaw. He was around Hart quiet a bit as well and a very good stick. 

 

And yes, Ken was indeed a marine biologist that worked for the Department of Wildlife.