Lake Barkley crappie advice

[fichnky]

Planning a fishing trip with Pop, would like advice - what bait to use, where to put in, etc. - for crappie on Lake Barkley for the end of April. Any advice will be appreciated!

[davidsa]

The spawn should be well over by the end of April. I normally find fish in brush piles around 12 ft of water in the spawning bays. Typically I will use a minnow tiped green grub. The key is finding cover where the fish are located. My Dad has a bush we typically fish and the difference in being directly around the brush and being 5 feet from it is the differnce in catching or not.

I don't crappie fish much but when I did I really liked the spawn because I could cast grubs and catch fish in the shallows. The spawn will typically be over by April 10th or so.

[junkfisher]

Planning a fishing trip with Pop, would like advice - what bait to use, where to put in, etc. - for crappie on Lake Barkley for the end of April. Any advice will be appreciated!

Last year was still pretty good @ end of April fish were still shallow,maybe in the stake beds

[RICHYD4U]

Can't really say when the spawn will be over...the weather will dictate that. Can go from early April to the end of April, I have caughten them at both times. Good luck.

[crappiepappy]

Barkley Lake is still predominately a White Crappie lake. I used to go there around the end of the third week of April, camp in the Canal COE campground, and fish the pockets and bays from the dam to the prison. Anywhere I could find flooded buttonball bushes (aka "buckbrush") standing in more than two-three feet of water, I'd drop a minnow/slip float rig down in them, and caught many Slabs doing it !! Any stumps, downed trees, or flooded brush/weeds would get the same rig dropped down by them. Even when flooded up into the live standing trees along the bank, I'd fish the same rig around those flooded trees and catch good fish.
Now, I'm not saying you can/can't do the same, just saying what I have done in the distant past ... LOL !! I don't even use minnows much, anymore, preferring to use jigs ... but, I also don't fish KY/Barkley Lakes now, either.
You might also want to check out the KDFWR website, and look for the Crappie Movement Study. Read it thoroughly ... not so much for the spawning times/places on KY Lake, but to notice that the Black Crappie come shallower, sooner than White Crappie, and stay in the shallows longer ... sometimes well after the White Crappie have come and gone. Notice the timing of this, along with the weather and water level conditions of that timeframe ... this info can be used on Barkley, as well. At the very least, it will give you some parameters to measure the situation you face, when you get there, against those of the study. Remember, the "when" (date) of your trip isn't as important as the "where" (what part of the lake you're at) and the water temps and levels there !!!

.... luck2ya .... cp
Admin. Moderator/Crappie.com

[junkfisher]

Planning a fishing trip with Pop, would like advice - what bait to use, where to put in, etc. - for crappie on Lake Barkley for the end of April. Any advice will be appreciated!

Crappie.com has a ky discussion board that could be helpful.