cumberland Walleye Smallmouth

[motalot]

Will be staying clost to Bronston.

I figure Walleye and Smallmouth are my best options. Anyone fish this area. Can you help me out with some techniques or what kind of structure I should fish? Any help is deeply appreciated.

[charlie1]

Some of the guys may get sick of me posting it, but if you want to get the walleye - especially the really big ones - fish between 2 a.m. and first light. Find shad working on points or in the backs of coves, preferably close to flooded timber (standing) and weeds. Cast as close to the bank as possible, parralel it if you can. Two feet is NOT too shallow. The jointed redfin the other fellow mentioned is a great plug worked v-e-r-r-y slowly on top and just subsurface. Reel it just fast enough to make it start wiggling and hang on. They will blow up on it and miss a lot. I was out one night and counted 55 blow-ups. If for some reason they are not hitting on top, try cranking a suspending Husky Jerk or Rogue (the big ones!) very, very slowly and throw a twitch in every 2 or 3 cranks. You WILL catch fish. Good luck and let me know how you do.

[SSKY]

Fished today from 2pm till 630 pm. Got 5 from 18inch to 25 inches on the what i would call the sycamore bluffs,steep banks with a shelf at around 20 feet around 10 yards off the bank where there were trees,sycamores growing in the water. Three way with crawlers. I have learned a litle tip for the last few trips if you are using the three way and a fish hits and pulls off give it full slack for about 10 feet and them pull it again, it seems once they get the taste of the worm they will eat it about 70% of the time.

[SSKY]

Also, three of the fish today caught at depth floated belly up quickly in the livewell which usually means they were deep all day and night.

[charlie1]

Good for you SSKY. There are still fish to be had until the middle of the month between midnight and dawn. I usually start my morning and evening bottom bouncing and deep redfin trolling around the middle of June. I just LIKE fishing at night. Significantly less boat traffic.

[SSKY]

Yes I agree, it would be much more pleasent to fish without the tubers in the dark. Sorry for so many questions about dark fishing. I usually fish the upper half of the lake which usually is a mine field(logs) in the dark until fall and trolling cranks is a futile effort.How do you fish in the dark for walleyes from late june and then the rest of the summer. I have not tried the the spinner rig in the the dark thus far. I have had poor luck from state dock down to the dam in the daytime but I have heard from others that they do well in the dark in that location with spoons. Also any luck in the winter? The only rare fish that I have caught in the winter was on a striper jig and good fish but cannot catch them with walleye techiques.

[charlie1]

From mid-June on (or after the topwater bite ends) I put out a light, go to sleep for a couple hours and then snag bait fish and drop them about two feet off the bottom. I also jig Mann-o-Lures and imitations. I don't troll anything in the dark. I troll spinner/worm from first light until I stop getting bit. I find the thermocline and troll along the rocky banks and around islands where there is a "feeding shelf" at the depth where the thermocline intersects the bottom. Same with deep redfins, wally divers, deep thundersticks, reef runners and deep husky jerks. Redfins and reef runners are my favorites.

[charlie1]

I don't target walleye in the winter. I catch a few sauger fishing.

[SSKY]

Where do you get the Cland sauger in the winter? That is intresting, I like to fish for sauger, The only time in lake cumberland that i can catch them is late summer in the burnside to fishing creek area at 60 feet on the old river channel edge only on crankbaits they will not bite the worm.

[motalot]

Where is the thermocline in the Bronston area right now?

[charlie1]

I haven't started looking for the thermocline yet. I would just troll between 20 and 25 feet this time of year. There are a couple of ways to find the thermocline, one using your electronics and the other using a good thermometer. There are several good article on the web on how to do this. Just search thermocline+fish.

[SSKY]

Yesterday pre front the walleye were biting well on the flats next to where the river channel peeled off the graph revealed many fish at the 20 to 25 foot depth and I caught several Today post front the graph was empty and i only caught 1 all day. As far as the thermocline just call 678-8697 for the corps report and fish the depth that they say is 65 dgrees all summer.