Motalot night Fishing Report Lake Cumberland

First try at night fishing. I can tell you this it is really a good experience.

The first night we went up Beaver Creek. Bait fish are everywhere. Just before daylight way up the creek where we put in was large swarms of top water action from the shad. So much that we began fishing at that spot.

Casted jointed redfins, slivers and other top water baits with no hits what so ever. Sun went down and we began working our way to towards the mouth. A low front pushed through that day and we were not sure what would happen. had a bright half moon out and lots of clouds. It was really neat as the clouds were moving fairly quickly and when the moon was out you could see really well. Then when the moon was behind a cloud you couldn't see your lure on the end of the rod

Caught nine stripers that night. All at 24" or below. Worked all night to get our limit. No telling how many we lost or how many hit our lure and missed the hook. Only caught one with a little size

We fished both sides of the creeks. Caught fish where we were out of the wind. They hit right along the banks.

Heard the shad all over the place in almost every area we went. Heard the stripers sparadically mainly between 11 and 4.

By fishing partner put it on me. Do you think it was because he was on the
front and I on the rear?

So the first night we caught all stripers and nothing else.

Fished basically the same areas of Beaver Creek mid lake to the mouth.

Didn't catch one striper. Boated 12 Walleyes and one large Hybrid.

The hybrid had a real fat belly and was full of semen. I didn;t know they had hybrids down there. It was an amazing trip as the first night stripers and the second Walleye.

IF you have a chance now is the time to fish at night as the action is everywhere we fished,

Good Luck

Nice report. There are no Hybrids in Cumberland. Those were stripers. Some stripers have broken lines.

Andrew

I would be happy with the 12 walleye..way to go..tight lines...

Didn't make it down this w/e, but I'll be there for sure next w/e. Thanks for the report.

Sounds like you had better luck than us. We put in @ Jamestown Saturday night. Fished from 1030-Sunrise. Not much shad activity on main lake. The banks we found with shad were out of the moon light and calm. Didn't hear a single blow up all night. Caught 4 nice walleye and 2 short stripers, which i thought was good for not much shad activity. Water temps were 59-60. Anyone else have similar expericence on main lake around Jamestown, not much shad or stripers?

Where did your buddy locate the boat? Right on the bank, or off of it? We usually run right on the bank. I've had people on the back who did better than the front. I have also had two people on the front, one taking the "inside" using a sliver or redfin and one taking the outside with a sliver or jig. Could be you were moving your bait too fast since you were being pulled. Could be the fish were roaming from the other direction. Usually the fish patrol from both directions, so front or back doesn't matter.

[QUOTE=apb;294097]Nice report. There are no Hybrids in Cumberland. Those were stripers. Some stripers have broken lines.

Andrew[/QUOTE]

I wish I had a picture but this was not a striper. I believe there are a few hybrids in the Lake. This fish was fat and full of semen by the way. I may be mistaken but didn't the kfwd add some a few years back?

[QUOTE=motalot;294199]I wish I had a picture but this was not a striper. I believe there are a few hybrids in the Lake. This fish was fat and full of semen by the way. I may be mistaken but didn't the kfwd add some a few years back?[/QUOTE]

Lot's of stripes that are fat and full of semen in the big C. I'm still trying to get all that spoof out of my carpet where Netboy brought one into my boat. There are absolutely NO hybrids in the lake call KDFWR and ask them and they will tell you the same thing. They have never put a hybrid in Cumberland ever.

[quote=motalot;294199]I wish I had a picture but this was not a striper. I believe there are a few hybrids in the Lake. This fish was fat and full of semen by the way. I may be mistaken but didn't the kfwd add some a few years back?[/quote]

There are still some white bass in the lake. I seem to remember seeing a guide photo a couple years back and they noted a large white bass. If it was not a white, it was most likely a Striper that had stuffed itself full. I've caught a few short footballs from the lake myself.

Andrew

I was down there Friday night from about 5pm until 9am. We started out int a creek trolling until dark and caught nothing. Once it was dark and I started to move to a new location I noticed all sorts of boats around me so I figured we were in the right creek. The shad were going crazy everywhere but no stripers were heard. We moved out to the main lake and caught the first fish of the night around 11pm. It came in at 23 1/2 inches. :( I moved on to some flats and the sound of shad completely disappeared so I went back to where we were. Around 1:30am I couldn't stay awake and beached the boat. I threw out a couple lines with shiners right were the shad were going nuts and took a nap. Two hours later I woke up, pulled in all the lines without a single bite, and started fishing again. We continued in the same creek and had the same story, lots of shad and no stripers.

Around 4am I gave up on that creek and tried the one next to it. Again we could hear the shad but no stripers. First cast out of the boat as the bait hit the water the silence is broken with a huge splash. A couple more cast an another blowup at the bait. Within 5 minutes of getting into the creek we had the first striper, another 23 1/2 inch. The next 2 hours were crazy about every 10 minutes we either had a blow, a hit that came off, and occassionally a striper that actually made it to the boat. I had a keeper that got to the boat but due to the darkness and the treble hooks he got caught at the mouth of the net and we couldn't get him in. In the process of trying to get him all the way into the net he managed to get free. :( About 30 minutes after my keeper got away my friend did manage to pull in a nice 12.5lb striper. Again it got caught at the mouth of the net and I could see it was starting to pull away. It only had 1 hook of a back trebel left and it was through the thin part of the gill!!! I stopped trying to get the fish in the net and let it settle down. Then I reached down and grabbed it by the mouth to pull it in the boat! I saw Fred Mcclintock do that in In-Fisherman and new it could be done. We had one other keeper that just barely made 24". When the sun came back up I switched back to trolling and gave him a jig with a trailer to throw. He managed to pull in a striper trolling and he caught one one the jig. In all my friend who had never caught a keeper striper caught his first keeper plus at least 5 other undersized stripers.

All the fish were hitting about 10 feet off the bank instead of right on the bank. They seemed to pick up after the moon went down and it got really dark. We were throwing redfins and slivers. I switched a joined Rapala in the last creek and was having much better luck with it than the slivers. The hooks got bent up really bad though, I guess the Rapala wasn't made for stripers nailing it.