KY/Barkley Report

Just got back from the lakes this afternoon. Spent the last 4 days fishing and it was pretty tough. It didn't really matter what, or how we fished, we caught fish. Unfortunately this made it difficult with bass few andfar between. They were scattered from the main lake ledges to the creeks. Our most consistent bites were on shad colored crankbaits. Also caught a few each evening on topwater sammy's. Caught several keepers (released) each day and had a big 4.2 smallie on barkley. That smallmouth probably would have been well over 5 in the winter or spring. The fishing this October was alot harder than usual. I think this heat wave killed that good fall bite that we normally see this time of year. Not a great picture of the fish but here's the smallmouth. Caught her on a strike king sexy shad series 5.

[url]http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc58/WacoWildcat/100_1104.jpg[/url]

Nice fish. I bet that thing fought like heck!! Great report, sorry you didn't catch some more that that dude!

I fished N KY Saturday and Sunday and also found the fish scattered. I had 3 decent smallies best around 3 lbs. It definetely was a tough bite this weekend. Hopefully next weekend will be better with the temp drop.

Ditto on the tough fishing. I got away Saturday afternoon and fished to this morning and fishing was fair at best. I figure I put in about 13 hours on the water and caught 30 - 35 with 5 keepers up to 4 lbs. Not awful but not like typical October fishing. Caught fish shallow, deep, and in between. Did note that I didn't find many on Barkley very far back in the bays. They seemed to be more in the first half. This heat wave has scattered and pushed them out big time -- I only wish I could hang in this week with this change in weather coming. Timing is everything...

kc

Dang, I wish my tough fishing days were this good.

I also found it very tough on Northern Barkley this weekend. Fished a 2 day tourney, only had 3 keepers until Sunday around 1:30, then we rolled into them. Fished the river channel with a silver spoon and found a mess of spotted bass. When's the fall transition going to start? Everything I caught was 12' or deeper.

Took a break from painting the house this weekend and had a decent day on KY lake. Caught a 3 pounder on my 2nd cast and then caught a 4 pounder on the next one. Got into a school of hybrid stripers right after that and stayed with that until the topwater bite was done. I managed to catch short fish pretty much the rest of the day with one more that was 3 lbs. Pretty much fished flats with wood cover and a shallow crankbait. I did catch a few nice spots on a shakeyhead on some docks too.

I think I made it sound better than it was. I caught an lot of really short fish in that count. I downsized my lures in that the shad the fish feeding on were really small and as a result most of the fish were 12" or smaller. I really didn't catch many over 14". When the better fish come up this time of year it can be far better.

Nice brownie....