Fishing Report Archives

Kentucky Lake's winter fishing scene will get a boost from the weatherman by early next week when temps will moderate and rise into the low 60’s.

Both crappie and bass fishermen are hoping the rise in temps isn’t accompanied by high winds so they can venture out and stalk the open water areas where most of the crappie are being caught at the present time.

Lake levels were falling earlier in the week but have stabilized now. TVA projects lake stages to hang around the 354.6 range as the weekend approaches.

That elevation means low levels as the reservoir sleeps at winter pool ranges so anglers and all boaters need to pay close attention to channel markers and their sonar units. Open water sandbars and shallow stumps can play havoc with your boat and motor’s lower unit this time of year so best be cautious.

Crappie fishermen have been picking their days and venturing out this week when calm days allowed. Although not many anglers are scoring limits they have been catching decent stringers in a variety of depths lately.

Surface temperatures have been staying the low to mid 40’s and will likely rise into the low 50’s next week when mild weather takes over. The long range forecast indicates several consecutive days next week with daily highs climbing into the low 60’s.

Warm surface temps will likely pull more crappie and bass into shallow areas, at least to some degree. Several crappie anglers fishing deeper depths have been finding an occasional largemouth grabbling their jig or live minnow so it appears bass have been favoring deeper water in pursuit of shad out there.

Slow trolling spider rigs have accounted for a few crappie this week. Depths of 10 to 15 feet produced a few scattered fish as have deeper ledges in the 18 to 20 foot depth zones.

Some anglers using vertical presentations of jigs and minnows continue to find deep crappie relating to brushpiles and stakebeds. The fish have been holding on the deep sides of main lake ledges lately where most of the baitfish are residing.

Watch for more crappie to move up to midrange structure by early next week in response to warmer surface temps and stable lake levels.

Popular jig colors lately have ranged from pink/chartreuse combos to blue/chartreuse. Most anglers are tipping their jigs with either live minnows or Berkley Power Bait to enhance strikes.

Water color remains quite clear throughout the Paris Landing and Big Sandy sector and really across most of the reservoir.