KY lake sunday

[Clint S]

took my neighbor out to the lake yesterday morning. he doens't fish much, and couldn't stay long so i figured an early morning trip for a couple of hours worth of topwater action would fit the bill. i haven't been on KY lake in over a month and man was i surprised. we had to go shallow...real shallow. we caught 8 fish with only 3 of them being keepers. not what i expected. we only fished for about 3 hours. all of the fish came out of the grass in 3' or less. he missed a couple of good ones on a spro frog, but he wore em out on a pop-r on the grass edges. i love when you take someone who doesn't fish much and they hook into a few. it really makes their day. as soon as we got in the truck, he was calling his wife and excitedly vragging all the way home to her. it was fun.

all and all good fun. but why are they so dang shallow right now? are they there for the grass, or because of the lack of current?

[buzzking]

there has been plenty of fish shallow for some time, best I can figure, with the current situation there is more oxygen there than anywhere. The weather has a big factor on whether or not you catch them b/c back when it was real hot, you had about 1-1.5 hr in the morning they would use the edges to feed then the best I can figure they would bury themselves in the deeper grass, but they been there for a while, I just been waiting for it to cool some then it should get real fun.

[Clint S]

where i was the water temp was 83 degrees. whis was much cooler than i expected. hopefully we'll get some rain soon, and the temps will drop a few degrees in the next couple of weeks and then it is game on

[fishingmarlin]

I have been finding a lot of small fish are up shallow right now feeding on fry. My best fish have been coming off boat ramps early morning and deeper boat docks.

Ledges where crap this weekend!! Then again they just have not been too great of the past month or so. I was out Friday night, Saturday day and night, and Monday morning and the best luck we found was boat docks with wacky rigged senkos.

[Dave Stewart]

Pretty much what my report has been saying for the past three weeks or so. No current this summer sucks.

[fishingmarlin]

My information is the same as Dave's because I read his report before going out so I would know what to target. Just wanted to confirm since his last report was before the weekend and that the suckiness continued into the weekend.

What success I had came from following patterns I learned from my guide trip with dave.

Except the targeting boat ramps early with spoons and blade baits that I got from a Cat fisherman. He said while trying to get bait he was getting slammed by bass doing this.

[CaymasRodney]

The fish are getting close to that fall pattern, the last three years they have went shallow in early August to mid Sept.

[Dave Stewart]

Billy: your report is pretty much what I have been getting over the past few weeks from the guys I network with. I did get two late reports after I wrote my last week's report of a fair bite back shallow on Barkley on C-rigs and shallow running crankbaits in the mid Barkley area. I took off the long weekend thru yesterday to avoid the holiday traffic and get a break before the fall season. The overall shallow water fry bite this past month has certainly not been as good as it has in years past nor has the ledge bite been as good. The extreme heat and lack of current has taken its toll for sure but the water temps are starting to drop a little and things should get better soon. Hopefully, we won't get all the cold fronts in October and November that we did last fall......no one can deny the bite last fall was spotty at best...not only here but all over the region with all those cold fronts we had every 24-48 hours for 8 weeks. Here is hoping that things will settle down soon and we will see the fall transition begin in a couple of weeks as per norm.

[Clint S]

everyone i've talked to on southern barkley said the fish are WAY up shallow.

[dpage70]

My brother has a house in a little cove just upstream from hickman creek on south barkley. He doesn't bass fish, actually he really doesn't fish at all but he got bored last weekend and threw some minnows out from the pier below the house and said that he was catching one bass after another pretty much all day. If he didn't sound as though he was about to pee in his pants from the excitement on the phone I wouldn't believe him but he was telling the truth. That's a really shallow little cove he lives in too.

[fishingmarlin]

There have been fish shallow this whole summer just tend to be small. 90% of my big fish have all been deep with an occasional shallow big fish. When friends have come in I fished more shallow so they at least could catch some fish.

Then again my neighbor caught another male bass last week with his tail almost gone from fanning a bed. This has been one of the craziest years ever!!

[Clint S]

hickman is one of the areas i'm hearing about right now. the "south barkley mafia" hahaha has been saying they have been catching fish up to 5 lbs in the skinniest of water. this is just what i'm hearing from the die hard dover locals.....

i agree, my better fish this year have been deeper. but, before sunday i haven't fished in over a month due to work.