Redear on Barkley or Kentucky help

A friend and I are making the 2+ hour trip to either Kentucky or Barkley lake on Sunday to try something I have never tried before, and that is fishing for Redear.

How is the fishing right now? If anyone can give me some tips I would appreciate it greatly. We have one spot on Barkley to try, but other than that, we are going in pretty blind. I planned on fishing with popeyes and pieces of nightcrawler or meal worms.

Is it necessary to fish with 4lb test, or could I get away with using 6-8lb test?

Thanks for any replies!

I can't help, occasionally catch a redear while fishing for bluegill. I'm not good at targeting redear. Follow this link then go to the fishing reports for some good information. https://www.explorekentuckylake.com/

I'll be happy with a couple nice redear and a mess of bluegill, but more redear is always better!

I haven't been out on the lake in about a week but last time I was out there the water was really high. The redear beds I know of were under too much water and where they should have been depth wise was back up in the trees and covered in debris. But don't take my word for it. I am no expert on redear. I think if it were me I would get away from the LBL side and check out peoples yards, assuming the water is still up. But I just checked and it appears they are drawing them down so it might be better now. I have never tried mealworms for redear. Most use either crickets, red wigglers, or chunks of nightcrawlers. Good luck to you....I hope you guys kill em!

Currently packing to head down this morning, I'm no help on how to target these boogers but am wondering if the mayfly hatch will dictate how anyone fishes for them. Sorry to high jack you xi but maybe we can get some ideas. Will let you no if I luck into any.

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Originally Posted by Red190

Currently packing to head down this morning, I'm no help on how to target these boogers but am wondering if the mayfly hatch will dictate how anyone fishes for them. Sorry to high jack you xi but maybe we can get some ideas. Will let you no if I luck into any.

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No, by all means hi-jack away. The more questions the better. Good luck to you, and I hope to hear a good report from you.

We caught some nice bluegill, 1 redear and a 15" sauger on Ky today. Majority of the beds we found weren't holding many but we found enough to end up with a nice mess.

hey xi bowhunter, i just followed your youtube channel.

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Originally Posted by jordanjones

hey xi bowhunter, i just followed your youtube channel.

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Thanks so much for the subscription!

It's been a tough redear season for us. I'm a serious redear fisherman and thought I was decent at catching them but this season has humbled me.

What makes redear fishing on Barkley and Ky Lake so difficult, at least from my experience, is that it's hard to pattern them. For example, we caught 22 one day, went back the next morning and caught 11. They were gone the third morning when I returned. Their disappearing act is frustrating and puzzling at the same time.

The first year I came down here we lucked out and caught between 50-70 big redear in a short trip. These fish were studs, several big males that pushed the 2lb mark mixed in with big 1.5lb sized fish. That very spot has been a bust since that first year...talk about frustrating!

My son and I went out today and I guess the high sky had them tight lipped. Here it is the May new moon and could barely find a bluegill...I just hope these Asian fish aren't finally taking a toll on the bluegill and cracker population. I'd like to hear about any recent creel surveys/electro shock findings concerning the numbers of big bluegill and redear. It's been an odd season...

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

It's been a tough redear season for us. I'm a serious redear fisherman and thought I was decent at catching them but this season has humbled me.

What makes redear fishing on Barkley and Ky Lake so difficult, at least from my experience, is that it's hard to pattern them. For example, we caught 22 one day, went back the next morning and caught 11. They were gone the third morning when I returned. Their disappearing act is frustrating and puzzling at the same time.

The first year I came down here we lucked out and caught between 50-70 big redear in a short trip. These fish were studs, several big males that pushed the 2lb mark mixed in with big 1.5lb sized fish. That very spot has been a bust since that first year...talk about frustrating!

My son and I went out today and I guess the high sky had them tight lipped. Here it is the May new moon and could barely find a bluegill...I just hope these Asian fish aren't finally taking a toll on the bluegill and cracker population. I'd like to hear about any recent creel surveys/electro shock findings concerning the numbers of big bluegill and redear. It's been an odd season...

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I agree 100%. They are a very frustrating fish. This year seems to be even worse.

I think the redear were making a rush to spawn around April 23rd. When the TVA sucked the lakes down 2ft in 24 hours, that ruined the first attempt for them to spawn. They finally spawned on the May full moon pretty good. They absolutely should be spawning this week, it's the new moon of May.

The high water really screwed me up. All the spots I usually find them were 6 feet under water and anywhere closer to the bank was covered in debris or too thick with trees and brush to get in and fish it without spooking the fish. I thought with the dropping water I would find them in those spots again, but so far nothing.

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

I think the redear were making a rush to spawn around April 23rd. When the TVA sucked the lakes down 2ft in 24 hours, that ruined the first attempt for them to spawn. They finally spawned on the May full moon pretty good. They absolutely should be spawning this week, it's the new moon of May.

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The department shocked ky and barkley from the week of the 23 to about May 12th. This is part of our routine surveying for black bass, however we also frequently observe redear and bluegill. We saw plenty of redear up shallow early when they raised the lake to summer pool. These fish were in the bushes in their usual spots. We did not electrofish during the low water (3' drop) because the conditions were outside of our sampling design. When the water jumped up again, we expected to see abundant redear and bluegill up shallow, but that wasnt really the case. The fish we saw were extremely concentrated together in large spawning areas near emergent vegetation such as mustard flowers. We saw very few in the bushes themselves, but did pick up a few. We collected a small sample of fish for growth analysis and found that our redear (unsurprisingly) still have really good growth rates compared to other waters in the state. The growth rates observed this year were much higher than previous samples. As most of you know they eat snails and small mussels as adults, so there isnt much diet overlap with Silver, Grass, or Bighead carp except at the larval stage. Black carp however have the potential to compete more directly with the redear as they are known to consume similar prey, but fortunately we dont have a large established population yet. If any bowfishermen happen to come across one of these black carp, please call the department and let us know. They look very similar to grass carp, but the website below provides a good description of how to tell the difference.

Asian Carp > RESOURCES > Outreach Materials

Good luck with the redear! As usual, they are out there, just hard to find!

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

It's been a tough redear season for us. I'm a serious redear fisherman and thought I was decent at catching them but this season has humbled me.

What makes redear fishing on Barkley and Ky Lake so difficult, at least from my experience, is that it's hard to pattern them. For example, we caught 22 one day, went back the next morning and caught 11. They were gone the third morning when I returned. Their disappearing act is frustrating and puzzling at the same time.

The first year I came down here we lucked out and caught between 50-70 big redear in a short trip. These fish were studs, several big males that pushed the 2lb mark mixed in with big 1.5lb sized fish. That very spot has been a bust since that first year...talk about frustrating!

My son and I went out today and I guess the high sky had them tight lipped. Here it is the May new moon and could barely find a bluegill...I just hope these Asian fish aren't finally taking a toll on the bluegill and cracker population. I'd like to hear about any recent creel surveys/electro shock findings concerning the numbers of big bluegill and redear. It's been an odd season...

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i think this mild winter we had has em off their normal patterns. i was pitching sliders for crappie the 1st weekend of april and i absolutly hammered them. in two days i caught over 200 fish. this was in multiple spots. went back two days later and didn't get a bite. i call them the here today gone tomorrow fish.

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

It's been a tough redear season for us. I'm a serious redear fisherman and thought I was decent at catching them but this season has humbled me.

What makes redear fishing on Barkley and Ky Lake so difficult, at least from my experience, is that it's hard to pattern them. For example, we caught 22 one day, went back the next morning and caught 11. They were gone the third morning when I returned. Their disappearing act is frustrating and puzzling at the same time.

The first year I came down here we lucked out and caught between 50-70 big redear in a short trip. These fish were studs, several big males that pushed the 2lb mark mixed in with big 1.5lb sized fish. That very spot has been a bust since that first year...talk about frustrating!

My son and I went out today and I guess the high sky had them tight lipped. Here it is the May new moon and could barely find a bluegill...I just hope these Asian fish aren't finally taking a toll on the bluegill and cracker population. I'd like to hear about any recent creel surveys/electro shock findings concerning the numbers of big bluegill and redear. It's been an odd season...

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Ever give thought that you've caught all the aggressive fish from those spots. Not all beds will have two hundred fish in them every year. Have to remember that predator fish are eating their fry after you take large numbers of fish that would be guarding those spots. That could mean less spawners return the following year and after so many years, there just won't be as many using that spot anymore. Don't get me wrong. I love catching and eating them just as much as the next person. I just won't decimate the population in one bedding area. Find more beds to keep more fish or as MRDUX says, throw those females back to seed the area again. Don't blame the Asian carp for what we are doing to our bluegill fishery. We just have to use our heads when it comes to gillin. And chances are that you may not be the only one that takes fish from that hole.

I do typically practice catch and release on the females. The first year I came down, we kept a handful of females that were pregnant. Once I filleted them and saw how heavy the roe was, I've kept maybe five in three years.

I try to fish several different spots for bluegill and redear. I certainly don't want to cash out a nice spot. I've probably caught fewer than 70 keeper redear this year, so I'm certainly not hurting the pop. I actually threw back a half dozen 9 inch males this spring.

I caught 4 nice female redear Monday morning and they were heavily pregnant. I'm actually thinking this coming full moon just might be somewhat productive for ears/gills.

Not on Kentucky, but I released 20 -25 big females last Sunday. Hope it helps.

Went to Barkley yesterday in search of some nice bluegill which didn't turn out to well, found lot's of them just not the size I was wanting. I did stumble across some bedding Redear manage to catch 7 nice ones in a 5ft area, I released all of them but snapped a couple pictures of the best one.
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I gave up on finding some big bluegill so I tried a few crappie spots, ended up with 14 keepers before the pleasure boats ran me off the water. One thing I noticed was how thin the fish were I figured from the stress of spawning, I threw back a few that would have measured but hardly any meat on them.
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Darn fine shellcracker...I think I'll slip out a couple of evenings this week and chase them around this upcoming full moon.

I too used to always be more concerned with returning the females and keeping the males until I watched an episode of In-Fisherman. In it they talked about lakes with monster bluegill and they stated to keep the smaller fish to eat and throw back the biggens. They also said that if you do want to keep the biggens make sure it's the females. So after thinking about it, it makes sense that even though the females have the eggs, that's all they do, the male is the one who fans the bed, fertilizes, and guards the bed and young for a short time. He's the reason they hatch and get life started. I now throw back the males and keep the females.

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Originally Posted by Will_P

I too used to always be more concerned with returning the females and keeping the males until I watched an episode of In-Fisherman. In it they talked about lakes with monster bluegill and they stated to keep the smaller fish to eat and throw back the biggens. They also said that if you do want to keep the biggens make sure it's the females. So after thinking about it, it makes sense that even though the females have the eggs, that's all they do, the male is the one who fans the bed, fertilizes, and guards the bed and young for a short time. He's the reason they hatch and get life started. I now throw back the males and keep the females.

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This is a great point that most people miss. Throwing back males is more important than throwing back females for those interested in preserving more large sunfish for the future. Redear in ky and barkley have been shown to survive up to 9 years old and have decent growth rates throughout their lives. The overall harvest rates are very low in both lakes, so its not a huge issue, just something to consider.

It is potentially even more useful to throw back large male bluegill. Not only do they do a better job of guarding the nest than smaller males, but some studies have shown that immature males who grow up in the presence of large males will put more energy towards their own growth and be more likely to become large males themselves. Alternatively, an immature male who grows up around other small males, will be more likely to put more energy into reproduction than their own growth, making them smaller in the long run. Rotating your fishing spots to relieve some of that pressure on the large males is a great idea.

Just remember that few bluegill in ky and barkley live past 3 years, so feel free to load the coolers up before natural mortality takes its toll. Overall harvest numbers are also lower than most people would expect, so the bluegill population can definitely take the pressure.

My problem with keeping the females is when I fillet them and jerk five ounces worth of roe out of them. That's why I don't keep the heavily pregnant redear. I start to realize that I just killed off 10,000 baby redear...that's a BAD feeling. The amount of roe a 1.5-2lb redear carries is pretty crazy once you fillet a big one and see it for yourself.

I have started to throw back 8 to 9 inch males that I know will be studs the following spring.

males without females = no fish and the same is true in reverse so I'd say it doesn't matter which you release because 1 is no good without the other. JMO therefore I release some of both and keep some of both for dinner