Fishing Plans for coming year discussion

To all, Merry Christmas and happy new year. Site is kinda dead right now, so lets get something going to discuss what we want to do next year for fishing. Hopefully, we can get some good stuff on plans, strategies, places we plan to fish and equipment upgrades planned for catching fish next year for Crappie and pan fish or whatever. Also, hopefully we can also gets some updates on the Guides on what they plan. So, please post something we all can at least have an idea on what we need to do this coming year to start having fun again fishing.

I'm spending my winter learning all I can about my Garmin Livescope. I plan on setting my boat up so several clients can benefit from the Livescope at one time. I'm putting tackle together so my clients can minnow or jig fish under a bobber so they don't have to cast. Last summer and fall was a tough trolling bite so I've got to offer more options to put crappie in the box.

I recently added a Humminbird Mega 360. It is going to be a game changer for trolling jigs and cranks.

I'm also paying to fish with some guides on other lakes and rivers to learn new tactics. Capt. Ben Goebel is a friend of mine and fellow Excel Boats Pro Staffer. He has one of the best big blue and flathead catfish guide services going on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. I want to pick his brain and maybe add trophy catfish options for my clients.

One other thing: I've began tying my own crappie jigs so I can downsize them. I just bought a carbon graphite fly tying vice and a bunch of new stuff to go with it. Merry Christmas to me!

My plans are to get out more, get more experience with my Livescope, find and mark new waypoints on my Hook 7, fish Green River Lake & Taylorsville Lake more often, get my Drotto Trailer Latch installed, and hopefully have the Spring Fling @ Green 2021 (post vaccinations).

Might even make some trips to Herrington, other than my annual Summer night Bass fishing trip. Take my young nephew out on the boat for a fishing trip. And possibly do a few trips Pushing cranks on Green this year.

I, like Crappiepappy, plan to fish more this year. I want to learn more about livescope and how to utilize it in different ways. Started fishing with it last March and realized that I had a lot to learn but it has been fun so far.

Fish,fish and fish some more. Lol


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Gonna hit Dale Hollow for the first time. I know it can be rough so I took first full week in April to see if we can figure anything out.

A buddy and myself that take a trip every year are heading to Lake O The Pines in Texas end of February and first of March for a week. We usually go to Alabama every year but decided this year to start going to some more lakes and places. Since putting livescope on my boat first is October I probably have made 20 trips now with it and I have it dialed in pretty good and have been catching a lot of fish. My kids have enjoyed it more than me I believe. It’s been different than what we were use to but it’s been a blast so far. I am blessed to be able to get out and fish more than most so hope to keep that up in the coming year. Merry Christmas to all and and Happy New year

I want to learn to utilize my electronics to their fullest potential this year. Fish some different lakes, including Dale Hollow. And just get out more


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Guys, many thanks for the responses. I really appreciate MR chiming in on his plans which are a serious commitment to his clients to check out other options along with his normal guiding plans. I personally have no boat now, but love to fish. Currently researching places I can go and fish for 4-6 days (stay in a 'cabin') and fish from a dock and/or a bank nearby.

Gonna focus my attention on learning Dale Hollow for Crappie and Walleye instead of fighting the crowds at Taylorsville

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Originally Posted by GoFishKY

Gonna focus my attention on learning Dale Hollow for Crappie and Walleye instead of fighting the crowds at Taylorsville

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The best advice I can give on dale hollow is stay as far away from the fish as you can. Those fish are SPOOKY!!. Definitely going to try to fish more this coming year. I need to work on open water fish with livescope.

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Originally Posted by Sparkysteve

The best advice I can give on dale hollow is stay as far away from the fish as you can. Those fish are SPOOKY!!. Definitely going to try to fish more this coming year. I need to work on open water fish with livescope.

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I have no doubt about that, Sparky .... it's pretty much the same for Lake Cumberland fish. You get within <20ft of a school and they're very likely to just move off or scatter ever whichaway. :Doh:

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

I have no doubt about that, Sparky .... it's pretty much the same for Lake Cumberland fish. You get within <20ft of a school and they're very likely to just move off or scatter ever whichaway. :Doh:

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I was down there yesterday, let the wind push me a little to close to a school on a tree. They were gone within seconds. Bite was super tough. Best for the day was 1.75.

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Anyone have any luck long line trolling cranks for crappie on Dale Hollow or Cumberland?

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Originally Posted by GoFishKY

Anyone have any luck long line trolling cranks for crappie on Dale Hollow or Cumberland?

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Gonna try longlining Dale this coming spring. Quickly becoming my favorite lake. Cumberland still gives me fits...lol

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Originally Posted by Sparkysteve

Gonna try longlining Dale this coming spring. Quickly becoming my favorite lake. Cumberland still gives me fits...lol

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Cranks would have to work as well.


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As most of you have posted I always want to spend more time on the water. :biggrin Looking back thru my stuff I've been out over 60 times in 2020 but rarely fished in July/August & September. That needs to change in 2021. I need to get on those Catfish in the Ohio river & make a effort to get out to some of these ponds in my area.
* Continue to learn/refine using my electronics.
* Really learn to become a better multi-species angler.
* Sort of roll thru the seasons with whatever species should be biting.
* Snap more pictures is another goal.
* Hit the road for new waters.
* Start a fishing journal/logbook.

Moved to Lexington, so spending more time at Green and Cumberland this year. I bought a bunch more walleye gear to mix things up from just pulling cranks for crappie all the time so we shall see.

Doug, you may already know or have heard of Greg Fenn. He runs Camo River Guide Service on Lake Fork in Texas. Greg was the first crappie fisherman I knew who started using LiveScope. You might be interested in looking at some of his videos for he fishes several clients at one time in his pontoon boat with all of them using one pole set-ups like you mentioned. LiveScope really works fine for him and the way he operates. Just thought I'd share this with you. Hope you are doing well and have a great Christmas.

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Originally Posted by kyfishman

Doug, you may already know or have heard of Greg Fenn. He runs Camo River Guide Service on Lake Fork in Texas. Greg was the first crappie fisherman I knew who started using LiveScope. You might be interested in looking at some of his videos for he fishes several clients at one time in his pontoon boat with all of them using one pole set-ups like you mentioned. LiveScope really works fine for him and the way he operates. Just thought I'd share this with you. Hope you are doing well and have a great Christmas.

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I’ve watched a bunch of his videos. No doubt he has a technique that works great for him.


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Mr, just some information that may or may not make any sense to you or anyone else here. Since you may be going after large catfish, will give you some weird stuff that happened to me at the Santee Cooper lake years ago. My friend had a pontoon, at fall, water getting cold and the shad were balling up. We decided to troll on his pontoon, 3mph minimum with his 4 stroke with some lures looking for stripers. Not much luck until I dug out a 'Hot-n-tot' out of the bottom of my tackle box. It has a very special wobble. So, all at once we caught two nice Blue catfish in about 15 minutes running through the shad schools. Found another of this lure in my tackle box, and proceeded to catch 6 more Blues from 6-30 lbs. What surprised me is that these cats would chase a bait at this trolling speed. May not work for you, but they continued to work for us during the cold weather

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Originally Posted by perchjerker108

Mr, just some information that may or may not make any sense to you or anyone else here. Since you may be going after large catfish, will give you some weird stuff that happened to me at the Santee Cooper lake years ago. My friend had a pontoon, at fall, water getting cold and the shad were balling up. We decided to troll on his pontoon, 3mph minimum with his 4 stroke with some lures looking for stripers. Not much luck until I dug out a 'Hot-n-tot' out of the bottom of my tackle box. It has a very special wobble. So, all at once we caught two nice Blue catfish in about 15 minutes running through the shad schools. Found another of this lure in my tackle box, and proceeded to catch 6 more Blues from 6-30 lbs. What surprised me is that these cats would chase a bait at this trolling speed. May not work for you, but they continued to work for us during the cold weather

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I'll go ya one better, PJ .... my Grandpa told me of a guy that fished Herrington, pulling a Bomber lure (like pictured below) behind a flatbottom wooden boat with a 10hp motor @ WOT ... and catching monster catfish. :yikes (Now I don't know about the "WOT" part, but he was a church going Baptist & not prone to lying about stuff, so :dono )

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/b3...d58d0aabc1.jpg

Pappie, yep, the Hot-N-Tot has a similar style as your picture. We used a silver/black at Santee. Used these for the few years I was there before moving back to KY. Seemed to work most of the time when we found the 'pods' of shad during late fall and cold weather for the Blue Cats. Could not get the Stripers to hit this bait. We had to use live shiners (long lining/drifting for the Stripers).(3-5 inch). Same thing, the stripers were in the middle of shad 'pods'. You could see their large arches in the electronics in the middle of the shad pods. Once you saw this on your electronics, just a matter of seconds/minutes before you got bit.

To all, giving this post a 'bump'. Like to keep this going since we are mostly home wishing we were fishing during this cold weather and I'm sure we all have our best proposed plans to fish this coming year and I suspect most on this site would like to hear from you For my interest only, if anyone has some good suggestions for bank/dock fishing areas for the upcoming year, I would appreciate the advice/location. I do fish the FINS lakes and really appreciate our State for stocking these lakes/ponds, but most do not have many decent bluegill/crappie, just trout/catfish.

Well I did something new this week I had been wanting to do for a long time. Hit the Cumberland river below wolf creek dam while they were generating. Went twice, 2 walleye, 3 trout and a smallie. Great fun! Going back after some stripers.Attachment 391991Attachment 391992

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My plans are to fish more and make a trip to Dale Hollow for a fishcation to try some of the trolling techniques I learned from Capt. Steve (kyfishman).

Sparkysteve, good luck with the stripers. Just my opinion only, but I think you will need some nice size shiners for these if you can find a bait shop that has them this time of year. Get some serious weights, and drop them down to their range and drift. I marked my poles with a 1 foot length on the rod, placed them in a rod holder, bait just contacting the water and dropped/pulled/peeled from the reel (example 15 times for 15') to get to where they showed up on the electronics and drifted through them. Don't know if this will work below the dam at Cumberland with the current and unknown depth they may be at.

I plan to fish my old D.A.M. Quick reels this year.
D.A.M. Quick Microlite (265) (1961-1967) on Berkley Cherrywood HD CWD2-561ULS and D.A.M. Quick 110 (1967-1974) on Fenwick HMX56UL-MFS.
I took the 110 out yesterday. It was cold out and I don't think the 110 likes the cold. It will take a little getting used to, but I feel like it's going to be a lot of fun.Attachment 392017

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Ok, will post my plans for the upcoming year. I'd like to go to KY/Barkley for a week. I no longer have a boat, so I plan to hire a guide for 2-3 days in early to late May. This is on my 'bucket' list. 3 days, no hassle, enjoying the day with someone who enjoys fishing as much as I do. I don't care what I catch, just want to get out and enjoy the time on the lake. I will need to find a guide that is flexible. Example, I have NO SET preference what they 'guide' for. I like anything when fishing, from catfish, yellow bass, LM Bass, Bluegill, Shellcrackers, and especially Crappie. Will need to find a guide that will take me out for whatever is biting at the time during this period. I may try to find an area to bank fish during the week. I always liked the area below Barkley at the place where Barges come in, but they have this area 'Blocked' with the dang 'BAFF' system for the Carp.

I plan to do two things this year.

One is to start removing the stunted bluegills from my 1/4 acre pond behind the house. I've owned this house for 20 years and never removed any fish other than the golden shiners that were in it when I bought it. It took about two years to eliminate them. The local group of raccoons were always grateful when I pitched one up on the bank. I'm sure they will appreciate the bluegills as well.

The second thing if my health holds out is to take a trip to Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. I've been there a half a dozen times, but just to sightsee, never fish.

Clint, yep, there is a FINS lake here in Georgetown that is FULL of 'stunted' bluegill as I discovered. From the locals, it's been this way for years and the DNR has not addressed the problem with any management. Went out last spring to catch a 'Mess' of Bluegill for dinner on this lake/pond for over 6 hours. Caught 123 bluegill, yes, I kept count ( two boxes of wax worms)and only 5 bluegill were over 6", will never try this again. So, looks like you got the same problem. I did have a personal lake years ago, about 2 acres and I went to the Butternut resale store in Lexington and bought what they referred to as 'Hog Feed'. I'd pull in their building and load up with 200 loafs or more of past due bread/pastries for $15 in the back of my Jeep Cherokee. I'd take it home and shred the bread/pastries into about 4 garbage bags/cans. I'd then go to my dock on the lake and dump out/spread about 10-15lbs each day. The Bluegill and Catfish would tear it up, and they all got to really nice size. Maybe you can try to 'feed' them. They probably don't have anything to eat.