cedarcreek

[castle]

how is cedar creek for crappie and bluegill? I fished there 1 time last fall and caught a lot of small crappie and small bluegill. Would like to try it again if it is worth my time.

[MinnerDipper2]

Hello castle,
They have stunted out due to an influx of shad, which have taken their place in the food chain, or so the Fisheries Dept. is saying. They had a 9" size limit on the Crappie to begin with but soon realized they were not going to make it to that size any time soon so they removed the size limit this year. Now it is up to us fishermen to thin them out. If you don't mind 6-8" crappie, go for it. You should be able to catch your limit of them. We will be going a few days in April to do our part.

[CrappiePappy]

how is cedar creek for crappie and bluegill? I fished there 1 time last fall and caught a lot of small crappie and small bluegill. Would like to try it again if it is worth my time.

the lake is full of < 9" Black Crappie, and the size limit has been removed. Also, the daily creel limit has been changed to the statewide regs ... 30/person/day. There are some big Crappie in Cedar Creek, but they're few and far between.
Bluegill & Shellcrackers (Redear Sunfish) are there in abundance .. and the statewide regs now apply to them, as well. Bluegill .. no size limit/no creel limit --- Redear .. 20/day/person & no size limit.
Channel Catfish still have a 12" size limit ... but no creel limit.
Bass .... same as before -- 20" size limit - creel limit 1/person/day

There's some good sized Shellcrackers in the lake, but shoreline anglers are pretty much destined to catch dinks.

Keep a check on this site : http://cedarcreeklakeoutfitters.com/blog/?page_id=79 for current fishing info (as well as here on Crappie.com/KY forum)

Not only did the Gizzard Shad make a comeback, in Cedar Creek, but there's also several species of sunfish there, that weren't supposed to be. I've caught or seen several, myself. The lake was supposed to only have LMB, Black Crappie, Shellcrackers, Bluegill, & Channel Catfish. It's intent was to be a Trophy Black Bass lake. The Crappie, Bluegill, & Shellcrackers were introduced as food fish, for the Bass & Channel Cats, with the hope that their numbers would be kept in check ... thus allowing a small percentage, of them, to grow to quality size. With the return of Gizzard Shad, all that went down the drain, as Bass prefer the soft finned Shad ... over the sharp finned sunfish. Good for the Bass ... not so good for the sunfish/Crappie. The jury is still out, as to how the Shad got in the lake. Some suspect they were introduced by people wanting to jump start the growth rate of the fish ... while another train of thought suggests that the eradication program, that the KDFWR conducted on the creeks, before it was impounded, just didn't kill out all the unwanted native species that were already there. I'm inclined to believe the second train of thought, since there's some sunfish species in the lake, that weren't stocked ... but are native to the creeks that make up the lake.

... cp

[TeqSheriff]

Hope you saw the comments under the thread "Green today" about a guy who hit Cedar Creek last weekend. He said he did pretty well on crappie and also posted a photo of a 21-inch bass he accidentally caught.

Randy--the owner of the Cedar Creek Outfitters tackle shop--has started posting weekly fishing reports on his website. (The link is in Crappie Pappy's note.) It says there that the water levels are stable and back up, and that the crappie action is starting to warm up.

This shad problem is also happening at Wilgreen Lake in Richmond. The KDFW report notes that there are a lot of shad in that lake that are altering the population dynamics of the desired fish, and there is some speculation that the shad were introduced by well-meaning--but probably incorrectly calculating--people who thought they would help the bass population. I guess time will tell, but in general, when humans try to manipulate the environment, they usually end up screwing it up.

Cedar Creek seems like it should be a great fishery, and I hope the fish populations can get balanced out so that it's a great lake to fish.