C. River questions (kinda odd)

Well here goes....I will try and make this long story short:

I am well into duck season up here in northern Ky and every year I try and take trip to western ky to hunt the marshes they have, well this year I couldnt get anyone to join me so I was emailing a couple of guys and they mentioned that the Cumberland river had some great duck hunting opportunities....well, being the doofus I am I thought they meant the cumberland river below Lake Cumberland...oops they didnt, they meant the cumberland river that flows out of lake barkely. Well I am sure you are thinking that is all well and good but I happened to mention to my father that we should go down to the c. river and we could spend some time together and fish as well as duckhunt. After I got off the phone with him and he had asked off of work, I realized that I had made a big mistake by several hundred miles.....sooooo it looks like I am headed for the Cumberland River that flows out of Wolf Creek dam with my dad, which is great but now I have no idea if there any ducks to be found on that piece of the river at all or is ther river even navigable in a 20' flat bottom jon boat......see my predicament?

I guess I need a little help here from my fellow kentuckians, I live about 3-4 hours away and have no way to scout the river. In reality it wont matter if I get to bag a few birds or not I will have fun with my dad, but my duck dog Dazy will be ticked off!!

Any hints or tips would be very much appreciated and will go to my grave with me (my dad doesnt even duckhunt he sits there drinking coffee and watches).

Thanks
Bnt5

Your 20ft boat will work fine with a big motor, but the river is rolling like a freight train. I wouldn't recommend it. It's way up. They're releasing water from the dam near maximum output. I hear the duck hunting on it is productive, and I even saw a guy doing it back a couple months when the water was low. You may have to try the lake or somewhere else near by. Perhaps some other hunters can join in with some recommendations. Sorry about your luck.

I wasnt planning on going until end of next week, do you think they will be generating like that next week??

Yes. They will be releasing that much water for a quite awhile. The lake is at 688 and they need to lower it to 680. It takes awhile to get Lake Cumberland down 8 ft.

what he said if they are dropping cland 8 feet as quick as they can which they are going to do due to the dam issues the water below the dam and further down stream i would think would be very hazardous and it could be a life threatening decision...... wolf creek dam is huge and there is alot of flow.... i know i wouldnt risk it...... why not just divert your trip now and head to where u thought u was going in the first place.... u might have to spend a little more time and money to get where u wanna go but u will be spending time with your father and if its not going to be enjoyable for the both of u why do it....

We duck hunt and fish at the same time and both have been very productive for us this year. We've killed plenty of buffle head and a few other varieties of duck. You can't shoot in the federal stretch of water and to be safe we always wait till we are around the second corner down from the dam.

Your best bet is to put in at Helm's landing and float down. Once you hit the power lines you'll start to run into some ducks. It's long and flat for a while and you'll bend to the left a little and then hit another long stretch and that's where we've killed most of our ducks. It's tough to get to them in water this fast. You can't be under power so we try to get ahead of them on the opposite bank and float through them. It's tricky, but the challenge is part of the fun.

With that said you probably should not attempt a hunt on the river right now. I've been on it twice when it's rolling 20,000 plus out of the dam and it's not fun. The dangers are all too real when everything is flowing just right, but when the river is this high and fast you are really gambling with your life. Things can go bad quick. If you go in the water you probably won't be coming out and your dog wouldn't be able to swim in that current either.

If you are deadset on it though you should check TVA.com and look in the resevoir section under wolf creek. Maybe they'll slow it a touch in the before you come, but I doubt it. Anything above 12,000 isn't much fun. (in my opinion)