By JOEL WILSON
For the Daily Times
GLASGOW —
Fishing stories abound this week with the spring season in full swing. Promised last week to report on an upcoming visit to the crappie haven Kentucky Lake. An oldtimer buddy Wilbur Carroll and I fished the big impoundment last week at this time and while it wasn't a tremendous trip, it was still a pretty good one.
Untimely changes in the lake level has affected the crappie fishing in the Paris Landing area where we had chosen to visit and while the overall numbers were down, the quality of the fish was excellent. We caught several slabs and Wilbur, who was the top man of the day, pulled in the most and the largest with a 15-incher. We ended up with about 30 and we caught a bit of everything. We had two big cats, one approaching ten pounds, a nice redear, some big bluegill, and a nice yellow perch in the livewell. We also caught several bass, a big drum and some of those pesky little yellow stripe. While they weren't the crappie we had come after, it's always exciting to experience that pull on the hook. Most of our big crappie came casting road runners tipped with plastics into stake beds.
We saw a few fishermen spider rigging but after talking to some of them, we felt our day had been among the best on the lake.
We were both too tired to dress fish when we returned Thursday night but since they were iced down, we decided to wait until the next morning. We ended up with some hefty bags of filets which will come in handy for some family and church events we both have coming up.
Some Glasgow friends were fishing Kentucky Lake the same day and had planned to stay for a second day but the bite was so sluggish, they returned to Barren and doubled their catch.
The veterans at Kentucky say the crappie season is virtually over there, impaired by the sudden changes in water levels which saw the lake drop two feet over night, only to come back up two days later.
Crappie have definitely moved to the shallows to spawn at Barren with many being caught in two feet of water.
Pre-spawn bass are coming on also with spinners and mid-depth crank baits producing best.
The hybrid bite has also been improving. Joe Litera and Mike Bresslar had a double hookup on umbrella rigs late last week.
The great thing about spring at Barren is you never know what you'll have at the end of your line. Kevin Myatt and his dad were crappie fishing last weekend and Kevin had a crappie jig on four pound line dragging behind the boat when something nailed it. After a fight of several minutes and Kevin struggling to keep whatever was pulling his jig from breaking the line, he pulled in a beautiful big smallmouth.
Still others we’ve talked to are having good success with cats and early bluegill.
This weekend of Kentucky Afield TV, segments will feature turkey hunting in Greenup County and spider rigging for crappie in Lake Barkley stakebeds.
The show airs Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. and repeats Sunday at 3 p.m. on KET.
