Lake Cumberland vacation question

Hello my name is Josh and a group of friends and I (8 total) are wanting to take our yearly fishing trip to Lake Cumberland. We'd be going either the week of April 19th-25th, or May 3rd to the 9th. We usually go to Tablerock Lake in Missouri and have tried Dale Hollow and Kentucky lake in the past and wanted to try another new lake this year. We usually target everything we can over the course of the week like catfish, crappie, bass, gills, walleye, white bass, whatever the lake we go to offers. Crappie and catfish are my favorites :). Obviously we'd like to try our hand at Stripers since we'll be going to Lake Cumberland.

My questions are which week would you go if you had to pick between the two we have open? Which creek arm would you suggest we focus our weekly effort on? Do you recommend any resorts or places to stay on that creek arm? We'd need a place with boat slips, we'll be bringing two boats.

Just trying to narrow down our search and find a decent place to stay. I really appreciate any help you all are willing to provide.

Thanks,
Josh

Any of the larger Marina's have good accomodations. Jamestown is very nice and slightly higher priced than some. Lees Ford or Conley Bottom on the east of the lake will set you up nice. Grider Hill is also a good place to stay. Alligator can set you up well with everything you want.

All these are good choices if I were you I would stay at Jamestown as it will put you a little west of mid lake and you can go up lake, really east or down lake really west. This has you kinda centrally located. They have a nice hotel or cabin type venue's available. Their restaurant at the Marina is actually quite good and the breakfast buffet is the bomb.All these mentioned offer boat slips and the room rental in the hotel at Jamestown will get you a slip I believe.

Either time frame you mentioned would be good fishing for a variety of fish species so flip a coin there and you'll be fine. Lakecumberland.com is a great resource for info and can steer you to links of what I have mentioned above, even web cams showing you the lake view of their geographic locations on the lake.

Hope this helped

I agree with Mark on Jamestown. That, or State Dock. You can easily go up or down as needed and that area to Beaver\Otter is usually a good choice that time of year. There is a creek right behind them so you can always fish there if the fish are still concentrated in the creeks. As for the week, impossible to say. You are just going to have to pick one and hope for the best fish and weather wise. If I HAD to pick, I would take May. You are getting into the night time casting bite time of the year. It can be killer or it can be dead. And that can be one night to the next. You also need to consider they plan to raise the lake back up next year and that will be a prime time for the raise. What that means is all the stuff from the banks (think floater logs) could cause navigation to be a little hazardous, and even more so at night. Again, way too early to say so I wouldn't adjust your plans for it. Just keep an eye on this board for how the conditions are up until you head that way.

Jamestown for the reasons Mark said and May 3rd trip better to target top water Stripers and Walleye at night.

[QUOTE=jah706;525703]Hello my name is Josh and a group of friends and I (8 total) are wanting to take our yearly fishing trip to Lake Cumberland. We'd be going either the week of April 19th-25th, or May 3rd to the 9th. We usually go to Tablerock Lake in Missouri and have tried Dale Hollow and Kentucky lake in the past and wanted to try another new lake this year. We usually target everything we can over the course of the week like catfish, crappie, bass, gills, walleye, white bass, whatever the lake we go to offers. Crappie and catfish are my favorites :). Obviously we'd like to try our hand at Stripers since we'll be going to Lake Cumberland.

My questions are which week would you go if you had to pick between the two we have open? Which creek arm would you suggest we focus our weekly effort on? Do you recommend any resorts or places to stay on that creek arm? We'd need a place with boat slips, we'll be bringing two boats.

Just trying to narrow down our search and find a decent place to stay. I really appreciate any help you all are willing to provide.

Thanks,
Josh[/QUOTE]

If Cumberland, try to find a place closer to the dam if possible.........the reason I say, is that you could do a daytrip to the Cumberland river, and target rainbow and browns below the dam. GREAT fishing there, and I suspect this next year, will be fantastic as they have the water running more "right" than it has been in a long, long time.

Do some research and determine LOCALLY the best time/day of your trip to go down there. The generation schedule will be very important.

On the main lake.......I've only fished Cumberland a couple times. From what I understand though, you should have a field day, and Smallies and LMBass could be on FIRE. With the water being down the past 10 years, and lots and brush and trees and structure growing on that 30-40ft of bank. I suspect there will be a lot of flooded GOOD STUFF to fish.....

Be safe, HAVE FUN.

Later,

Geo

For what's it's worth, I live on and fish Lake Cumberland. As this is your first time to the lake, I suggest:

1.) Stay at Grider Marinia. This puts you on the West end of the lake.

2.) Hire a guide early in your stay. Recommend Lance Sasser, who just happens to operate out of Grider. But book early, he is one of the better guides and his dance card fills up quickly. He will put you on the striper, as well as other fish. Just have a discussion with him, let him know what you want and he can deliver.
[B][URL="http://www.fishin.com/forums2/list.php?r=author/43260"]Lance Sasser[/URL][/B]
[B][B]Sasser's Guide Service[/B][/B]
[B]HC-67 Box 142,
Albany KY 42602[/B][B][URL="tel:6063878949"](606) 387-8949[/URL][URL]http://www.sassersguideservice.com/index.html[/URL][EMAIL="[email protected]"][email protected][/EMAIL]
[/B]Note, I am not affilicated with Lance!!!

3.) If you have done the above, you are getting to know the lake. Fish main lake up to State Park, Indian Creek, Beaver & Otter Creek, Lily and Wolf Creek. If you want to explore the East end, trailer the boat to Lees Ford Marina and explore Fishing Creek.

Have a great one!!

Jamestown resort and marina have quite a bit going for it,
1. if you stay in the motel you are ON the water, you can literally dock your boat within sight of your room
2. if you choose to use a guide early in your stay there are guide services docked fulltime at jtown, Morgans Guide Service, Hillbilly Deluxe guide service, Jarod Harmon will pickup at Jtown, Lance Sasser will pickup at Jtown if requested, Stevens Guide service will pickup , Reid Striegel will pickup, DC will pickup, Victors Guide Service will pickup......and the list goes on.
3. As mentioned before the jtown marina restaurant is good eats, the bfast buffet is very good food and very good value to be able to sit feet away from your boat and eat, get done, hop in your boat and back out on the lake.
4. convenience, you are minutes away from convenience stores, Kmart, Kroger, automotive stores, marine mechanics, lake country outdoors , fast food restaraunts, a steakhouse in Russell springs and on and on.

I live right by the lake a few minutes from Jamestown and for me the biggest convenience of all is the fact that within sight of the marina you have; Greasy Creek, Clifty Creek, Pumkpin Creek, Lilly Creek, Wolfe Creek, Caney Creek.....there is more water than you can fish in a week in these creeks, not to mention all the main lake right there to fish as well as a 6 minute boat ride to Beaver Creek, Otter Creek, Rowena and the tons of coves and points in the area.

But with all that in mind, its a BIG lake and it has a lot to offer wherever you are. BUT....this is not KY/Barkley, your best day on Cumberland will be a very average day at best on either of these lakes as far as bass fishing goes. The walleye fishing is an art and the local artists don't talk a lot. The striper fishing is steady, plenty of fish with the occasional nice fish 15+ lbs. The smallmouth are kinda hard to figure out sometimes, but there are some absolute monsters.
Just know ahead of time this place doesn't produce the day in day out results that other lakes do, but its still an incredibly beautiful lake/area.

As for that time of year, it is going to completely depend on weather an water temp. bass fishing could be anything from cooler water jerkbait or jig fishing to explosive topwater fishing, nobody will know until the day you get here lol. The night time striper bite could be every other cast or not a single hit in 5 nights of fishing. But the live bait fishing will be on in one form or another.

good luck to you wherever you stay

Thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate all the advice you guys have given. Looks like most people are recommending the Jamestown resort and marina but I'll check out all the ones mentioned so far in this post. Never hurts to shop around. I also had a PM recommending Barren River lake. We will most likely stick with the Cumberland game plan but never hurts to hear about other lakes for future trip options.

As far is how the bite is going, weather, and other conditions we are pretty good at going with the flow. I read every fishing report I can leading up to our trips. We went to Table Rock Lake for years and saw everything from low water to two record floods (around 20 feet above summer pool), sunny and hot, and freezing with rain everyday. Something is always willing to bite, just might not be what you were after. Its a plus going places with two boats cause we can divide and conquer. Even if things are tough one of the boats can usually figure it out after a couple days.

Heck, with 8 of you splitting the cost, look into renting a houseboat. Oughta be able to get some off season deals.