Sunday trip on KY Lake

After chasing an unwanted visitor in our bed most of Friday and Saturday nights, I finally killed a large fiddler spider and got a minimal amount of sleep. I will catch a cottonmouth snake and move it away from my shop but I am about 90% phobic of a fiddler spider, especially one in my house. My bed makes it a war! This one met it's maker and all of its buddies who may be taking up in my house are being zapped today by Raid Fumigator. Where was I? Oh yea. I got very little sleep and felt like crap when the alarm went off. The wind was already blowing harder than forecast and from a different direction. I decide to go anyway.

When I got to the ramp I could see 3 foot rollers and whitecaps on the main lake. That knocked out any chance of fishing the area I had planned to fish. I motored to a calmer area and set out my crankbait trolling gear. On my 1st 1/2 mile pass, I caught 5 good keepers. To say I was both shocked and tickled would be an understatement. It was so rough that I had to go with the wind then crank the big motor, run back to the start of the ledge, and go with the wind again. After a couple of hours I had 7 keepers with so many small green carp, drums(gaspergoos to Chaunc) and yellows I didn't try to keep up with them. Catfish must have put the word out about my custom painted crankbaits as I was getting hammered by them also.

I wore my welcome out on the first spot but by that time the wind was laying enough I decided to try the main lake. It was rough but doable. As the waves calmed down from the wind, they picked up from the lake lice who had slept in. It became a typical Sunday afternoon on KY Lake with pontoons, ski boats, bass boats and jet skis all seeing who could get the closest and annoy me the most.

Again, I could only fish in the direction the wind was blowing but found a bunch of crappie stacked up in a small area and I ended up finishing out my limit on those. I caught almost as many blacks as whites and this is very unusual for pulling cranks. I caught fish on Bandits, Rebels, and C55 models of the Chinese cranks. My best colors were some I had custom painted in mostly dark colors. This was also the 1st trip in a long time that I didn't lose a single crank. That's always a good thing. It was far too rough to use the planer boards.

It looks like the weather is going to be iffy at best over the next few days. We also have a full moon on the 13th so I may chase some more gills and redears for the freezer if it is fit to get out.
This bait is solid black with multi-color glitter.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...psddcbcd7d.jpg

Pink, black and green. All my favorite KY Lake colors on one bait.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps7c79a73d.jpg

I did find out that my livewell is far too small to keep a mess of fish that includes several catfish up to 10 pounds
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps9afc474d.jpg

This is before the fish were covered in ice to be cleaned this morning. This cooler is one of the 150 quart models.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps77e5a0f5.jpg

Any time you go fishing and find that your live well is too small is a good day of catching. Nice report! And I sure do agree with you about the spider in the bed thing.

Puzzling observation this morning when cleaning yesterday's catch, almost all the females still had large egg sacks. I'm not talking about like those one would see in the fall and winter. These were mature eggs that looked like they had just not been spawned out. If that is the case, it doesn't bode well for the future.

Cleaned some females Saturday that still had a lot of eggs, these came from Barkley. I was making comments to my niece how these fish shouldn't have so many eggs. I have only seen this in the whites, what few blacks I've caught the last few weeks were spawned out.

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Originally Posted by Greenwing

Cleaned some females Saturday that still had a lot of eggs, these came from Barkley. I was making comments to my niece how these fish shouldn't have so many eggs. I have only seen this in the whites, what few blacks I've caught the last few weeks were spawned out.

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I talked with our local biologist here at our Department of Fish and Wildlife Office and he said that not all fish spawn at the same time. The ones that keep getting run back to deeper water by cold fronts and the ones that don't spawn out completely will absorb their eggs back into their bodies as protein. One of the crappie I kept from Saturday had eggs also. Lord knows we had our share of cold fronts to keep the crappie confused this year.

I know what'cha mean, mrdux

I cleaned a 5gal bucket full of the "tourney" fish from the Green River Lake Fruit Jar Tourney, and I would estimate that well over 90% of the fish were females still with eggs. These fish were caught mostly trolling cranks out over deep water, which ranged in temp from 80-84deg. None of the egg sacs looked like they were deteriorating, as most were still a yellowish color.

... cp :kewl

Doug, how'd the new crankbaits do? I never caught a black crappie trolling cranks, they were always whites.

Nice report Doug. I fished Ky. for gills Sunday and the wind let down and here came the lice and tubers. They don't care one bit if you are fishing. Makes me want to go do donuts around them but I went to the house. Had several gills and not one redear. Trying out some new ideas on trolling and spider rigging this week. Been a weird year in many parts of the country. Weather is changing all the time and can't get a pattern. Pour fish are scratching their bellies with all those eggs!! I got bit by a fiddler feeding my lab in '84 and it about got me. Bit me on the chest right over my heart. Really sick and lost some hide.

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Originally Posted by badbrad

Doug, how'd the new crankbaits do? I never caught a black crappie trolling cranks, they were always whites.

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Brad, are you referring to the Chinese baits or some others? Your former Bandits are still catching them. I bought a bunch of Rebels over the winter and they ran good and caught fish. The Chinese baits run really good and have some colors the KY Lake fish have never seen. They just have very dull, brittle hooks on then. I'm going to change all my hooks to the Matzuo red sickle treble hooks. That is what I'm putting on the ones I paint.

Really nice write up and congrats on your catch! I'm up here in Louisville wishing I was down there everyday. I REALLY wanted to get down there this week for the gill/ear bite because I think they'll be on fire with the full moon and all but work is calling.

I'm chasing the big cats on the Ohio tonight...if the storms don't ruin it.