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My wife and I and our son are going to be camping at Piney on KY Lake May 28-30. Would love to put my son on some shellcrackers while we are there. Can they be caught anywhere on the lake? Would like to launch there at Piney and fish close if possible. Anyone have any advice or pointers? Any help is much appreciated. In return I could provide some help on Reelfoot crappie and bluegill.
Some of the LBL bays above Piney contain good numbers of redears. Saturday the 18th of May is the full moon and the peak time but there will still be some bedding activity then. Look for beds in 6-10 feet of water or deeper. If you have side scan, run along but off the banks toward the backs of coves looking for the deepest beds there. Lots of times redear beds will be in very small clusters and not in huge areas like bluegills. 3 tips on redears:
1. They are the most skittish fish in any lake. If you run in on top of them it's adios! Back off and make long casts to the areas of the beds.
2. You can't fish too slow for them. Use a drop shot rig or a popeye jig or bluegill bug tipped with a piece of worm or a wax worm. Let the bait hit the bottom and slowly creep it back to the boat. The best redear fisherman I ever knew used Zebco ZO2 reels (3.0/1 retrieve ratio) and you could barely see him turn the reel handle.
3. In my opinion you are wasting your time using hi-vis line for redears or big gills. Use either low-vis or clear line.
Good luck!
What M R Dux said
I fished the cove right there at Piney campground a few years back and caught brim, shell crackers, crappie, bass, and catfish all on a small black beetle spin. It was on fire that weekend. If I remember right it was the middle of April.
We are going down May 5 thru May 10 last year we did very good found some beds in Panther which is close to you same side of lake look for stake beds. If you see a PVC pipe sticking up out of water there is a stake bed there look along edges of coves if water is clear you can see the beds. We have the best luck with a piece of night crawler of red worms. Crickets work but one hit and gone worms are more resilient. I will post when we get back how we did and where and if we find them. Piney has been good in the past but not for us the last two years. Panther has been good the last 3 years work up to the back of the coves and work the edges. There is a rock wall in panther that produces also. If you can find them the kid will have a blast.
Thanks guys I appreciate the info. I do have a Helix 9 Mega SI on my boat to use to find beds also. Looking forward to it!