I see KY Lake in my future...

Logging in for the last time for at least a week, for tomorrow morning my truck will be headed South to Ky Lake for at least 1 week and possibly 2 weeks of sore mouthing some Greenfish with Chunknwind. My first trip since December, due to recent battles with the Surgeon (I Lost), and my first trip in Chunks Brand New 2007 Triton and I can't wait. Like Dave Stewart said, water warming up, water just getting into the Flowers and it should be absolutely perfect for the Big Ones to move shallower at the week goes along. It stunk reading all the post for the past couple of months of all the fish that were caught knowing that I could not partake so now it is my turn. As long as my Surgeon did his job properly, we should catch at least 1 or 2 but I will have directions to the nearest Hospital just in case. About the same time last year, we were at Barren pre-fishing for a tourney and busted a Hernia around 5am, really started hurting worse around 2pm, fished all day and took out at 6pm, to the Hospital in Glasgow at 7pm, transferred to St Joe in Lexinton around 3am and into emergency surgery at 6am the next morning. Hoping this trend does not continue. Hope all of you work hard next week and we will try to catch at least 1 for each and every one of you. Later

Best of luck, and may all your innards stay where they're supposed to!

Yeah, hope all goes well...Maybe you should only fish with the Yankee fishing tackle.....Big ultra light rod, 6 lb test line and a hair jig...That way you can set teh hook to your desire and not worry about hurting yourself...Look forward to your report in a couple of weeks....:)

preach on brother!!! i am heading to the big lakes on saturday for the week. I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Let me know how ya'll do. Be down there myself May 7-11. Got a day with Mr. Stewart on the 10th. A friend of mine is down there as I type. He goes the last week of April just about every year. Lucky guy. I was very fortunate to get the week I got. Vacation list runs by seniority and I've only been here 7 years. Two more weeks and here I come.

Hope you guys have better luck than I did at the big "KY" this past weekend.Only had 1 keeper sat and 0 sun. Fished 8 hrs both days, however most of the guys in our club figured them out, most were caught on carolina-rig baby-brushog and shakey-head/4in finesse worm. The fish were off the banks a little deeper til the afternoon, then some were caught on flukes and spinner-bait in the cover. The water just now got in the flowers and the fish just aren't in them good yet, water temp still 61 at dawn and warms to 68/69 in afternoon. Should get better as the water warms into the mid to upper sixties. A lot of the fish that were weighed in were either on the bed or just off, as they were really beat up. 20+ pounds won, with 16 second, sounds like good weight but actually this is a 2-day total, so it was kinda slow,real slow for me and my partner.

Good luck to you. I fished a tournament out of Barkley State Park on Saturday and there were 22 bags over 16lbs, winning weight was 22lbs 14 oz, Big Fish was 8lbs, 3oz (I think there were 112 boats in the field). I know at least a few of these boats made the long run to KY Lake. Most people seemed to agree that the early bite was critical. Bluebird skies seemed to make it tough after 9:00AM. We didn't have much luck, only 2 keepers, 1 was 4 3/4 lbs and another 5 1/2lbs. Couldn't get the three more keepers we needed to get into the money. Several short fish later in the day. Still was a great day on the lake with my Dad.

Basically here is my take on present conditions. There are post spawn and bedding fish on both lakes. These are early spawning fish that went to bed a little earlier than normal with the record temps we had last month. Most of the fish are back on track now and Barkley has plenty of late prespawn fish in the flowers and brush with some still moving in. Kentucky is a little behind Barkley which is normal....plenty of fish still staging to come in shallow on the lead in banks with some fish starting to show up in the flowers and brush for late prespawn feed but majority not there yet...but should be very soon.

Fished the mid Barkley area on Friday.....good fish in the flowers and on lead in banks, all prespawn. Fished N. Barkley on Sunday...tougher bite but two days of blue skies and hundreds of tourney boats made the bite somewhat scattered..one or two here and there...just had to move a lot to get them...Fished N. Barkley yesterday with cloud cover and approaching front....fish were on fire in the flowers...prespawn fish.

Dave,

What do you mean by the Flowers? Does that mean the fish are close to the banks?

Thanks in advance!

When I say flowers I am talking about the mustard flowers that grow here every spring and the water comes up over them....as far as close to the bank...in some cases yes and in some cases no.