Steve McCadams

An extended spell of wonderful fall weather has greeted Kentucky Lake’s fishing scene for the last week or two. It has been nice to be out on the lake with jacket mornings and shirt sleeve afternoons.

Light winds teamed up with mild temperatures to provide excellent fishing conditions for bass and crappie anglers as October faded away and passed the torch on to November.

Stability has been the story and the pumpkin month lived up to its reputation. Known for nice weather free of gale winds and changing weather patterns, October has been good for fishermen all across the reservoir.

Lake levels have remained near the low ebb of winter pool as below average rainfall has been the story for quite some time. Elevation was in the 354.7 range as this reported was formulated. Very little fluctuation has occurred.

Water color remains clear. Surface temperatures have been in the 64 to 65 degree range. Low flows have been the story too as not much current has been present in the Tennessee River. TVA was discharging only 14,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) this past week through Kentucky Dam.

The weekend forecast indicates a slight chance of rain and the fishing scene and everywhere else is thirsty. Rainfall is long overdue.

Crappie fishing has been good lately and some hefty stringers have been taken. Depths of 12 to 15 feet were producing but several anglers have reported success from the 9 to 12 foot range at times.

Up Big Sandy and into West Sandy some crappie have been caught in 6 to 8 foot depths at times. However, the shallow bite has been slow to get going this fall as most fish are opting to hold out a bit deeper.

A few cloudy rainy days would likely stimulate more crappie to move up to shallower depths as would lower surface temps.

Tipping jigs with minnows has paid dividends. Some days delivered stagnant winds and crappie were finicky at times, especially a midday when bright clear skies had the sun bearing down. The best bite has been in the early morning and late after hours for most fishermen.

Popular jig skirt colors have ranged from Monkey’s Milk, threadfin shad, chartreuse/blue and yellow/chartreuse just to name a few.

Just a plain live minnow presentation had worked too. Most fishermen were vertical fishing jigs or live minnows over manmade structure.

However, casting jigs has produced at times. Backing off and tossing twister tail grubs or tube jigs had accounted for some good stringers at times.

Seems there’s always a few boats slow trolling the open water areas or spider rigging a multiple pole presentation with a buffet of baits.

Bass fishing has been fair but even some veteran tournament anglers are having to work hard to earn a limit lately. Those high skies and no wind days have resulted in a lethargic mood swing for midday bass activity.

Still, some have connected the dots and found topwater, suspending jerk baits and even spinnerbaits working at times around shallow stickups.

Gravel points have given up a few fish for anglers tossing chrome colored Rattle Traps and pearl or bone colored crankbaits.

A few smallmouth were showing up in the creel of anglers backing off the banks and targeting main lake sandbars were schooling shad were present.

Roadbeds and rip-rap banks were also worthy of consideration during the low lake levels times.

Low lake elevation in normal on Kentucky Lake during the late fall and approaching winter months so use caution out there and pay close attention to the channel markers.