Thread: Kentucky Lake spawn?

Your thoughts on questions ?

Originally Posted by bgcastreel

Your thoughts on questions ?

if you're asking me about KY Lake :D I haven't fished there in many, many years. And I've never fished Blood River.
All my KY Lake/Barkley Lake experience, has been mostly from 70's & 80's trips ... back when White Crappie ruled :p

I really don't have a clue as to what the Crappie are doing, down there, under the conditions the lakes are in. Best I can do is postulate, based on what worked for me, during the two times I fished those lakes under flooded conditions. Back then (80's ??) ... fishing the flooded live shoreline trees of Barkley Lake, with a minnow/slip float @ 1.5ft deep & right against the tree, was the only thing that consistantly worked. And White Crappie were the species caught. The latest time (90's maybe ??), I fished the LBL bays of KY Lake. All fish were caught drifting minnows along the cliff walls of the rock quarry, out at the mouth of Pisgah Bay, and a few from the flooded campground of Pisgah Bay. Back then ... I never even thought about going to KY/Barkley until after Apr 21st. Earliest I've ever fished KY Lake, was during the first week of April. Light rain, air temps in the 30's & 40's, made for a challenging trip. We were staying at KY Dam Marina ... and all our fish came from the little bay just before you get to Little Bear Creek. All the way in the back of that bay, fishing over flooded field grass, casting Chartreuse marabou Roadrunners overtop the grass, in about 6ft of water. Our buddies, in another boat, fished minnows/tightline, out in slightly deeper water ... and caught just as many.

Since the White Crappie are trying to spawn around flooded shoreline cover, down in the Big Sandy area (Tenn) ... and that's upriver, and South, of the Blood River area ... maybe they haven't started at Blood River, yet.
But, with the yo-yo'ing water levels and temps, I'm inclined to believe that the fish are constantly being forced to relocate ... and that's why there's such a narrow window of opportunity to find/catch them. And since I haven't fished either lake, since the domination switch, I have no experience to go on, about Black Crappie behavior down there.

If you haven't already read thru it, you may want to study this : http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/navigat...vPath=C101C552 ... it may give you some ideas about Black Crappie movements vs weather/water conditions.

Sorry, but that's the best I can offer :o

... luck2ya ... cp