Fishing Report Archives

Kentucky Lake’s fishing scene has been the beneficiary of some great weather this week. That scenario has been long overdue.

Some cooler days gave way to warmer weather as the weekend arrived but not to worry; cooler fall weather is expected to return early next week. Jacket mornings and shirt sleeve afternoons are now in play for fishermen.

Tennessee Valley Authority has done a great job pushing water through Kentucky Dam the last week or so as they began increasing discharge rates over a week ago in anticipation of the wrath of Hurricane Helene.

Lake levels are in good shape as discharge rates have kept the reservoir’s elevation at around 355, which is pretty much normal for this time of year. Currently TVA is pushing around 75,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) through Kentucky Dam.

Fortunately, TVA has been able to release a large volume of water for more than a week now as the Mississippi River has been low and able to absorb high discharge rates from both the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.

Surface temperatures have been in the 73 to 75 degree range as warm weather lingered last week and earlier this week. Anglers can expect a drop in surface temps as the weekend approaches as cool nights this week were forecast to dip to the upper 50’s and low 60’s.

Next week’s cool spell will further influence the fall to lower surface temps. Fishermen should see surface temps in the upper 60’s next week.

Water color is clear in the Big Sandy area but some stain exist along the main Tennessee River channel. Overall the lake is in good shape.

Decent stringers of crappie have been taken lately, although a few days of north winds that brought the cool snap to our door, caused whitecaps in the open water areas at times.

Depths of 16 to 20 feet were giving up crappie the last few days. That’s likely the result of warmer surface temperatures lingering into the start of October.

A few crappie were caught in 7 to 12 foot depths by anglers stalking manmade fish attractors such as brushpiles and stakebeds. Fish were finicky and scattered in the shallow to midrange depths so it required a lot of stops to accumulate decent numbers of keeper size fish.

When fishing the deeper holes a lot of credit has gone to the use of live minnows fished on tightline techniques. Some are just tightlining minnows while other are using jigs and tipping them with a shiner minor.

Sometimes that live minnow seem to enhance the bite. Other times switching colors and experimenting sizes of jig heads—from 1/32-ounce to 1/16-ounce---has worked best.

Anglers should see an increase in the shallow bite by next week since surface temps will be cooler down to their normal early October range. Shad will increase in numbers swimming around the shallow flats and backs of bays which will lure the fish to their shallow locales.

The overall attitude of shallow to midrange crappie should improve in the days ahead. Some cloudy days will also help the bite from light sensitive fish.

Bass fishing has been fair with most tossing shad colored variations of Rattle Traps, shallow running crankbaits and swimbaits. A few have attempted tossing a spinnerbait and shallow running crankbaits around shallow stickups.

Some surface activity has been seen out on the main lake from white bass and a few largemouth busting into schools of shad meandering out over shallow sandbars at times.

Catfishing has taken a backseat, at least to a degree, out on the main Tennessee River channel due to the increased current. And, catfish are beginning to move up a bit to midrange depths as crappie anglers are tying into one on a regular basis when fishing the 9 to 12 foot depth zones.

It looks like fall conditions have finally arrived and it’s nice to be on the lake these days. Some warm days will return now and then but overall nice pleasant weather will hang around for the next several weeks.

Don’t miss out on this autumn angling!