Cumberland report

[mhall]

Fished Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon and again on Thursday morning.

Water was 724 when I got there and steadily climbed the entire time I was there. Water color was very good in Pumpkin and all over Indian. However water temp was dropped significantly with this recent cold rain they had down there. Water temps were dropped to 62 and 63 degrees in Pumpkin on Wed and Thursday morning there was a pretty good frost down there and water temps in Westfork and Indian were dropped to 57 and 58 degrees, Ouch. Debris wasn't to bad, but the wind and lake coming up so much had it all pushed to the banks. Could not launch at Halcombs Wed morning because the ramp was a complete log jam. When they start pulling hard the lake is gonna be a complete NIGHTMARE, trust me.

I have fished CLund for a very long time and I've never seen it this slow for fishing this time of year. I had about 15 bass or so for the entire trip, most of them small. I had one smallmouth that was right at 18, three others smaller. One keeper largehead and the rest Ky's. I had two walleye, one was 20 inches the other small. One short striper and some good bluegill caught while wasting time. I put in at Grider Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning as Halcombs was a Cesspool, logs, building materials, body's, you name it.

I saw no bait AT ALL, nothing. Couldn't even find bait. Talked to a bunch of guys fishing out of Grider, the night bite sounded terrible so I didn't even try. I'm sorry but staying up all night loosing sleep to catch two or three short stripers and maybe a Walleye or two just isn't my idea of fun. Talked to Morgan's guide service on Wednesday morning at 10:45 am and he still hadn't put any keepers in his boat for two clients, they had two shorties at that time. He was scratching his head bigtime and was probing me for info. In short it was exactly what I was told before I went down, freaking TERRIBLE fishing.

My best advice is go somehwere else until the lake has a chance to settle and warm some, in my opinion the big C is just flat DEAD right now.

[TimE]

I hate it when people don't properly anchor bodies!

Thanks for the report, as you probably saved me some gas. Guess i'll keep rescuing stranded squirrels on barren.

[FlyLie]

Hate to say it, buts thats the way its been now for the last seveal weeks. But anyway, sorry to hear about the poor fishing trip, hopefully, next trip will be better and they will be jumping off the bank into your, boat.

But for me, lake conditions are; Too difficult to troll for stripes, (boards catch to much ****), troll free line (catch to much ****), cast surface lures at night, (catch to much ****) (plus, you got to drive out of that **** at some point in the dark), cast deep diving lures ( catch to many tree tops).
Sorry, not a lot I can say about LC at this time!!

[coombro]

I'll be looking for your picture in the cj sunday.

[FlyLie]

I'll be looking for your picture in the cj sunday.

Not two weeks in a row; plus, I'd need to be about 50 feet tall to wade Helms landing today, think it's flowing around 20,000 cfs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess we need to get your boat and or mine and a good anchor. We should discuss that, your boat or mine. What you think???s Could be a hell of a ride!!!

[Chubminnow]

In all seriousness...how many years (if it's been years), or how long in general do you all think it's been since Cumberland has been "on fire" so to speak? Regardless of species, striper, largemouth, smallmouth, crappie, whatever...how long has it been since catching or having the potential to catch your limit on most days?

[fishincreek]

You bring up a good point Chub, but we all long for those "good ol' days". Will they ever be back? Tough to say, but I'd love a normal spring just to see. I'm one of those hardheaded guys that just has to find out for myself.

[coombro]

Not two weeks in a row; plus, I'd need to be about 50 feet tall to wade Helms landing today, think it's flowing around 20,000 cfs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess we need to get your boat and or mine and a good anchor. We should discuss that, your boat or mine. What you think???s Could be a hell of a ride!!!

If we could of caught it on the rise it would of been fast and furious like the days of old and we could of caught some really nice trout!

[mhall]

Tim you and Creek have a point. I have an occasional awesome day at least once or twice every year on C-land however they are getting harder and harder to come by. I've been saying and have said on here that I think the bass numbers are suffering and I still feel that way. The lake is certainly in a down cycle, maybe it will rebound and have some decent spawn classes if we ever get a NORMAL spring like Creek said.

Yea like that is even gonna happen, (eyeroll). Too much Yo Yo'ing with the water level every spring and dumping the cold water off the bottom, bass and stripes are taking a hit year after year. The ole lake needs some luck. I wanna start fishing Dale more but dang that's a long ride for me along with some other issues. I'm considering torturing myself and trying to learn how to fish Laurel lake....I like Cedar Creek but no smallmouth, so that's a deal breaker for me. Anymore if all I have to get bit by is green fish I seem to loose interest, plus Cedar is a ZOO. I still say the slot would help the big C out on the smallmouth but nobody seems to even want to try it but me.

[Chubminnow]

So here we sit, another spring, another year, talking about how we wish KDFWR would change some things around at Cumberland....but you know what? Not to paint an ugly doom and gloom picture for everyone but the truth of the matter is, even if they DID make size and creel regulation changes there would be plenty of folks who ignore the law. It happens all the time on every lake, more often than any of us are aware of. Plus there are a heck of a lot more fisherman out there now on all of our lakes than there ever was before. The fishing pressure has been an issue for a while now, ain't much anyone can do about that, everyone who buys a license should be able to fish any lake in Kentucky whenever they want to, twelve months out of the year. Some people have mentioned placing Cumberland Stripers as an off limits fish during the summer months, heck that sounds good to me, let's go with it. Of course I'm not a wildlife biologists so who knows what the answer is.

More so than not, Cumberland is more of a boaters lake than a sportsman's lake. Dale on the other hand still seems to me to be a sportsman's lake (in my opinion)...granted Dale has it's fair share of cruisers, houseboats, jet ski's, etc....and (correct me if I'm wrong), Dale doesn't seem to cater to the Cruiser's and the jet ski crowd as much as Cumberland does. If I could put a percentile ratio to each lake, I'd say Cumberland is 70% for boaters and 30% for sportsman whereas Dale seems to be 50/50....or...maybe even 60% sportsman and 40% boaters.

Another thing too...Cumberland marina's completely wear me out with all of their so called events they put on. State Dock and Grider seem to be the worst of the bunch but they all have their hands in it....cause of the money it helps generate. They're all the time mentioning what party at what dock, how many bands, Poker Run this and Poker Run that, it just wears me out. All that entertainment is a dime per dozen off the lake so why would I want to go to the lake to see that stuff and have someone else's music piped into my ears?

Didn't mean to get off topic on this thread so to get back to the original subject matter, nice report Mark, you gave general conditions without giving up any particular honey holes. Why anyone would give out information for all the world to see in regards to an exact area of any lake is beyond me.

[fishincreek]

I cannot blame the Dept for anything on Cumberland. The last two springs the water has shot up feet in just a matter of days. The water temps would go from 65 to 57 in two days, then a cold front(or two) more rain, then PRESTO summer arrives and no spring fishing like I was used too. Are those good ol' days gone forever? I won't know until I get a stable spring. Even with the dam issues, 4 years ago I could sit in front of the Boys camp from midnight to 4am and hear shad working the banks for what seemed like miles, with stripers in them. Where did those shad go? If they spawned like in previous years there should be trillions of them. Also it seems that large stripers are in short supply as well. Perhaps next year will be better, or a late spring bite will ease my crazed mind.

[bassman_ky]

Go to Green River Lake. There are some big smallies in there. In my opinion Green is a much better lake than Cumberland.

Yea like that is even gonna happen, (eyeroll). Too much Yo Yo'ing with the water level every spring and dumping the cold water off the bottom, bass and stripes are taking a hit year after year. The ole lake needs some luck. I wanna start fishing Dale more but dang that's a long ride for me along with some other issues. I'm considering torturing myself and trying to learn how to fish Laurel lake....I like Cedar Creek but no smallmouth, so that's a deal breaker for me. Anymore if all I have to get bit by is green fish I seem to loose interest, plus Cedar is a ZOO. I still say the slot would help the big C out on the smallmouth but nobody seems to even want to try it but me.[/QUOTE]