Fishing Report Archives

Summer is about to take over its official spot on the calendar. That happens Saturday but all sorts of fishermen---ranging from bass to crappie--- have been playing hide-and-go-seek with their prey.

If you’ve been having a little trouble finding bass on the ledges in their usual summer hideouts join the club. A lot of anglers are struggling lately in an attempt to formulate a pattern for bass who normally fall back to main lake humps and drop-offs in early June.

When surface temps climb to the mid 70’s, which generally starts in early June, traditional main lake areas start appealing to post-spawn fish that occupy spots far away from shorelines. That’s been the norm here for quite some time.

Yet as a strange and stubborn spring loses its grip and the official transition of season arrives on Saturday there are more than a few experienced bass fishermen who are asking themselves where the fish are?

A few tournaments have begun to return but most all have revealed low weights for winning stringers and a lack of big fish showing up in the live-wells when compared to previous years.

Not everyone has had bad luck but there’s more than a few fishermen voicing concern. Numbers of fish are simply not showing up so far.

Granted the unruly north and northeast winds have played havoc with open water fishing at times. Boaters hoping to work ledges in the vast open areas of Kentucky Lake have succumbed to whitecaps that dictated where and how they could fish.

Meanwhile, most anglers are tossing the big deep diving crankbaits such as Strike King’s 6x KVD and covering a lot of water. Others are hopping a jig and craw combo on drop-offs or fishing a big Texas rigged worm in the green pumpkin-pepper colors.

Carolina rigged craws or lizards are also being thrown as are some swim baits and spoons. Most fishermen have several rods rigged up with a variety of lures these days and searching for the best producing bait during tough times.

For most bassers it has been a trial and error approach. For that reason they’ve been keeping a wide variety of rods rigged with a buffet of baits.

Hardly any anglers are finding schooling fish on the humps and ledges. Most fish are holding in 12 to 15 foot zones on structure of some sort.

As far as lake conditions go the reservoir has been stable this week, resting a few inches shy of the summer pool mark of 359. At midweek the reservoir was holding at 358.8 in the Kentucky Dam area. There hasn’t been much current present this week.

Surface temperatures have started out the morning around 78 and warming to the 82 range by midday. Water color is mostly clear across the reservoir.

Not a lot of schools of shad fry or pin minnows are showing up just yet in the shallow grasslines or around boat docks and piers. It’s high time that should be happening as it works in favor of the shallow bite for bass as the abundance of forage pulls lots of smaller bass to shallow structure.

Crappie have remained scattered for most June anglers. Although this time of year usually sees number of keeper fish increase, the midrange depths of 12 to 15 feet have not given up an abundance as of late.

Some decent size crappie have been caught by anglers tightlining minnows around submerged stakebeds and brushpiles but anglers are having to knock on a lot of doors. In the Paris Landing area traditional early summer spots are producing low numbers.

Vertical presentations of both live minnows and jigs tipped with Berkley Power Bait or live shiner minnows has been somewhat productive but most anglers are not finding concentrations of fish.

Some boats have been trying to cover a lot of water in search of the right depths or location when trolling crankbaits. It has been a sluggish bite for them as well.

Others have attempted to locate balls of baitfish meandering in deep water and sort of follow them but that has been tough to do. A few boats are still seen spider rigging or trolling long lines presentations of Road Runners but even those type fishermen are voicing discontent.

As to the reasons why more crappie aren’t relating better to midrange to deep structure is somewhat of a mystery. This is the time of year when deep brush piles and stake beds ought to be paying nice dividends.

Catfish have still be biting and showing signs of moving out to deeper water. Some have been taken on the main river channel when current was present. Crappie anglers testing the midrange depths of 14 to 20 feet are tying into some on a regular basis so that shows the catfish are moving away from rocky banks and shorelines as summer takes over.

No mayflies hatches were reported this week but watch for some to show up at any time, especially once the next thunderstorm occurs. They often hatch out the night before or morning after those low pressures pass through.

A few days this week saw north to northeast winds and high skies dominate the fishing scene and while the humidity was low and it felt pleasant at times it seemed to subdue the bite for bass and crappie anglers. Perhaps a few cloudy days will see activity improve.