Fishing Report Archives

Fall is here and water temperatures are dropping. More and more fish are moving shallow.

When I talk about fall bass at Kentucky or Barkley Lake, the autumn season starts about August 1st (see fishing report from August 9th). Shad are moving to the back of the creek arms and bays and sometimes they back out a little. Some schools of shad will stay in deeper water and slowly make their way into the creek arms. As the shad move around the bass stay close.

My favorite way of catching bass is fishing the shallow flats on the main lake or back in the creek arms. My go to baits are top water poppers when they are finicky, stick baits, buzz baits, and the whopper Plopper. I prefer white, bone, or silver belly. If it’s windy a buzz bait can work wonders.

This year Kentucky Lake Fall bass fishing has been a little different as we have a massive shad population. It’s real easy for the bass to get a meal. I have had some great days this fall and some tough days.

Many of the better days I have had while fishing shallow flats was due to finding areas where the bass were concentrated in 2 to 1 foot of water in a 30 yard circle. I was getting hit on almost every cast for maybe thirty minutes and sometimes I left when they were still biting.

I’ve had a couple days this fall where the best bass fishing was off shore on ledges in bays or on main lake ridges. I caught quality fish just going back and forth in a small stretch of water using a plastic worm either 10 inches or smaller.

White bass fishing has really picked up this fall and you can catch them all the way out to the river channel or in the very back end of bays. Several times this fall while I was fishing for largemouth bass I encountered schools of white bass busting shad on the surface. I took advantage of the activity and put a bunch in the live well to take home.

If you want to catch a lot of fish for fun or to eat, targeting white bass or catfish is a great way to do it. Recently I took a couple guys out that wanted to catch a bunch of fish to eat so I took them cat fishing. It was a windy day and the conditions were tough but we caught a nice mess of channel and blue catfish and they had a blast. We caught them in 18 to 35 feet of water using a 1/4 ounce weight and a small hook and red worms.

This is a great time of year to be out fishing. I am here to help everyone have a great day of fishing whether you want to catch a mess of fish to eat or learn more about fishing and today’s modern electronics.

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