First time in a LONG time, I'm headed to KY Lake.

Man, I've been there 2 times in 3 years.....It's amazing that I used to spend 12 weekends in the spring and 8-10 weekend in the fall there. I did that for probably 15 years, and gave it up in 2018, because the fishing just got horrible.

Well, I convinced myself to put a 5 day trip together.........

I have the following gameplan:

Start out Early with Topwater, transition to lipless and shallow cranks. I will be on South Barkley to start off, so I plan on hitting all my favorite channel swings for smallies, and schooling fish.

After that, Maybe move to some wood in some "magic" creeks south of 68/80.

I will definitely be trying my standard blade baits in a few CONSISTENT deep water creek bends. I want some of those awesome white bass for dinner :) .

Plan on hitting Northern KY LBL side after that, for the evening bite first day. Hopefully I can find some top water or spoon action there.

After the first day, all that crap won't work so I will be HAMMERING the bank , doing what my good friend Dave Stewart would say NOT to do :). Hopefully I can scratch a few out.

I'm hearing the Smallies are much better now down there, and I have a few good spots......

If you guys were going for 3-4 days, what would YOU do. :) .

Later,

Geo

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;581988]

If you guys were going for 3-4 days, what would YOU do. :) .

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]


Probably eat at Patti’s every evening 

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;581988]Man, I've been there 2 times in 3 years.....It's amazing that I used to spend 12 weekends in the spring and 8-10 weekend in the fall there. I did that for probably 15 years, and gave it up in 2018, because the fishing just got horrible.

Well, I convinced myself to put a 5 day trip together.........

I have the following gameplan:

Start out Early with Topwater, transition to lipless and shallow cranks. I will be on South Barkley to start off, so I plan on hitting all my favorite channel swings for smallies, and schooling fish.

After that, Maybe move to some wood in some "magic" creeks south of 68/80.

I will definitely be trying my standard blade baits in a few CONSISTENT deep water creek bends. I want some of those awesome white bass for dinner :) .

Plan on hitting Northern KY LBL side after that, for the evening bite first day. Hopefully I can find some top water or spoon action there.

After the first day, all that crap won't work so I will be HAMMERING the bank , doing what my good friend Dave Stewart would say NOT to do :). Hopefully I can scratch a few out.

I'm hearing the Smallies are much better now down there, and I have a few good spots......

If you guys were going for 3-4 days, what would YOU do. :) .

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]


Geo,

I have had a place on Barkley since '99 and no lie on bass fishing dropping off - especially on Barkley. These last few years I have caught more smallmouth on Barkley than largemouth which is kind of bizarre but KY still fishes pretty good for both. But I haven't been down bass fishing since May until last weekend as health and other issues have had me down. I didn't get a real good feel for the bite but the bites I found were shallow around flats. Spinnerbait was best for me but the few fish I caught some also came on surface, cranks, plus a couple on jigs. Didn't cover much water Saturday as I didn't get down until mid day and the winds were high Sunday making it tough to run the lake. I wanted to fish KY Saturday but not having run the boat since May I had battery issues and ended up staying local. The water color on Barkley main lake was pretty stained but the bays were a good color. KY was not stained on main lake. Your game plan is how I would play it too but if down for 4 days at least half would be on KY. Those gravel banks on KY early should be prime for surface. South Barkley is special too and those channel swings should be interesting for smallies but a lot of fish will still be in the bays. It gets really interesting a few weeks out when the bays cool down and the fish start stacking on their progression out to the main lake. I am hoping to spend several days down thanksgiving week myself chasing them. Good fishing! Nothing like a stout brownfish or two to brighten your day...

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;581988]Man, I've been there 2 times in 3 years.....It's amazing that I used to spend 12 weekends in the spring and 8-10 weekend in the fall there. I did that for probably 15 years, and gave it up in 2018, because the fishing just got horrible.

Well, I convinced myself to put a 5 day trip together.........

I have the following gameplan:

Start out Early with Topwater, transition to lipless and shallow cranks. I will be on South Barkley to start off, so I plan on hitting all my favorite channel swings for smallies, and schooling fish.

After that, Maybe move to some wood in some "magic" creeks south of 68/80.

I will definitely be trying my standard blade baits in a few CONSISTENT deep water creek bends. I want some of those awesome white bass for dinner :) .

Plan on hitting Northern KY LBL side after that, for the evening bite first day. Hopefully I can find some top water or spoon action there.

After the first day, all that crap won't work so I will be HAMMERING the bank , doing what my good friend Dave Stewart would say NOT to do :). Hopefully I can scratch a few out.

I'm hearing the Smallies are much better now down there, and I have a few good spots......

If you guys were going for 3-4 days, what would YOU do. :) .

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]

So, my gameplan worked as I had planned, but we just didn't catch a lot of fish........BUT we did catch fish.

Our best bit was on south Barkley. Channel swings. I had some massive blow ups on topwater, but did not connect one time. IT sucked being me.

My fishing partner caught a few and I caught a few on cranks in eddy breaks on the lake. anywhere they were pulling current and you could see an eddy pool there were a couple fish.

We caught a crap ton of really BIG white bass, and 18 or 20 of those were harvested.

Most magic creeks were north of 68/80, which is a new thing for me, as I don't fish that too much.........

Blade baits and spoons were solid contributors for the white bass. All smallies were taken on crankbaits.

North KY , LBL stuff was brutal for us. We did manage to find a ton of schooling white bass, murdering bait, and I have not seen that in a LONG LONG time. I don't know if the largemouth and smallmouth were not following, were close behind, or don't come back any more........I'm assuming I just missed them, but I will tell you this........it was ON like years past, based on what the whites were doing to those big ole schools of bait.......

THAT was really fun :)

Creature baits on Saturday in a single bay as the wind was Nwest, and brutal. WE pulled off Saturday, went to North Barkley and put in at Nickel Branch and ran to a few spots, as I thought it would be a little protected..........It was NOT. North Barkley was brutal.........Lots of wind, and for some reason GIGANTIC cabin cruisers seemed to love running up and down a 4 mile stretch. I saw the same boat.....GIGANTIC ass boat pass by 4 or 5 times.

It did start getting better wind wise by 3-4 pm so we ran back to Nickel, and managed to catch another 5-6 fish in there with a couple keepers.

All in all, I'm not too sure KY lake is back , or Barkley Lake is back, but I did see solid signs that the spring "might" be good.

So much so, that I plan on trying to take 10 trips between March and Middle of May next year.

Later,

Geo

The lakes are definitely not dead yet. I have had some good luck on gravel flats on main lake lately catching a lot of everything LM & SM Bass, White & Yellow Bass, Drum, Cannel Catfish, Bluegill, and Skipjacks. Some of the Smallmouth have been 18"-20" fish.

This was a couple weeks ago.