Fishing Report Archives

One thing is for sure... summer is here with warm nights and hot days. All living things have to adjust. Fish being cold-blooded creatures also make summer adjustments. Some fish will find shallow areas to their liking while others will find sanctuary in deep water along deep banks and off shore.

Some fish like cover which can be weeds emergent or submerged, brush piles, stumps, rock piles, and any ledge with the right substrate.

During the last month we have went from the bass spawn extreme shallow water fishing to summer ledge fishing with a few twists in between.

While the bass were still spawning I had a series of ledges that were producing quality bass with some really big ones mixed. This series of off shore locations are good mostly during May up until early June. In early June there were still a lot of bass that were done spawning but were still hanging around shallow water. Now with the high heat many of those fish have moved out to deeper water.

This summer so far has been like last summer where the bass haven’t made it all the way out to main river ledges. The best ledges are at the mouths of creek arms, inside the creek arms, and main lake flats that are closer to the shore than the river channel.

If you examine tournament results for this year you will see that more limits are being caught as compared to last year. There are a lot more keeper sized bass in Kentucky and Barkley Lakes than last year and they are in the 15 to 18 inches with a few larger fish mixed in.

In the last few weeks I have alternated from fishing for post-spawn bass that were still in shallow water spawning flats to fishing some sort of drop off.

This year I've caught some nice fish from off shore ledges where in the last few years I caught nothing. So being able to catch quality bass from their holes is a sure sign the fishing in Kentucky Lake is coming back.

When fishing shallow for post-spawn bass I still use the weightless trick worm and also used a buzzbait. I had some great days catching them real shallow in early to mid-June. While fishing drop offs and off shore ledges, I prefer to use a ten inch worm, Carolina rig, crankbait, and a one ounce spinnerbait.

This past weekend offered some great drop off fishing. I caught some bass really well on one very small high spot where I was catching them about every other cast. I left that spot after seven fish. One of my buddies had a great day this weekend - catching many keepers, including a handful of big ones.

Please check out and like shelldivers guide service on Facebook or shelldiversguide.com.