Kentucky Lake 9-15-12

Kentucky Lake 9-15-12

My thumb is all scratched up from bass teeth so I must have had a decent day. We are fishing Kentucky Lake at New Johnsonville. Our club is officially fishing Pickwick but allowed any member to fish an alternate lake. Since I had no club member to fish with, I asked good friend Doyal Brown from Memphis to join me at the NJ ramp at 5:45 am. When I arrived, Doyal was already there along with about 50 other boats. There were 2 clubs fishing tournaments this morning. We were lucky to launch quickly and headed out at 6 am. I must admit, it was less than safe light as we headed down river. We met two (2) barges less than 3 miles apart on our travel north. Finally stopped at the Factory and threw frogs and crank baits. Doyal scored first with a nice 17" on a crank on the edge of deep grass beds. We moved on down the grass beds trying frogs, cranks, spinner baits and plastic with no results. Moved into the next cove that was almost totally clogged with grass. Picked up a nice 16" bass on a deep crank at the entrance to this cove

Fished up the back channel toward Pilot Knob. The grass was scattered and clumpy here and we began to pick up a few fish. Doyal caught a nice fish on a frog. I also missed a nice one on a frog. Doyal was using a solid body Ribbit buzz frog and I was using a hollow body popping frog. I began picking up a fish now and then on a Zoom Speed Worm.

Next move was to Little Dry Creek. Lots of nice fishable grass here but time was running out for our tournament. We could fish until 2 pm and now my time was up. Doyal and I had planned to continue to fish for a couple of hours after the tourney. Although we had caught several fish I only had one keeper at 2.25 lbs. Doyal, although not part of the tournament, had 3 keepers for 6.32 lbs. At exactly 3 minutes after the tournament ended, I caught a nice keeper. I then caught 3 more keepers in the next 30 minutes. I guess my timing was off. These were caught on the SBFW which some will recognize as Zoom Smoking Blue Finesse Worm. I finally ended up with 10 (remember the scratched thumb) and Doyal with 6. Not a terrible day but not as good as it should be. Doyal had 2 nice fish on frogs and missed a few more but it seemed the frog bite should have been much better. The water temp ranged from 76-81. We had cloud cover most of the day. Still, enjoyed the fishing with a good friend. We stopped for a catfish dinner at Jeff's in New Johnsonville. Got home at 7:30 pm after leaving at 3:45 am. It was a very long day. Can't wait go back.

Kentucky Lake 9-7-12

Kentucky Lake 9-7-12

Anticipation!! After recent trips to Percy Priest and Tim's Ford, Jack and I were really looking forward to Kentucky Lake at New Johnsonville. There is just something about this lake that excites you. I know I had visions of 3 pounders Thursday night. Jack was dreaming of 4 pounders. Well, it didn't work out like that.

Left Franklin at 4:15. Stopped in Waverly at Hunt Outdoors for a tenderloin biscuit. You have to have some sustenance that early in the morning. A few minutes later we were launching at the New Johnsonville ramp. After the short ride in the lane going out to the river, the first thing I saw was grass on the shoreline. Wow! Been a few years since I have seen that. Headed down to the Factory which has usually been a great starting point but not today. Grass is everywhere! I lost one bass on a crank but not bIg. We had thrown frogs, buzz baits, Pop-R, jigs, plastic and cranks. Did I mention the grass?

Next stop was Little Dry Creek. Next big shock! Almost all of Dry was topped out with grass. There was a narrow channel about half way back in the creek til it closed up with grass. We then motored up the back channel on the West side to the Pilot Knob area. Jack finally caught our first fish. He bribed me not to post a pic of this "lunker". I finally caught my first fish at 8:30. Oddly we caught several more on this bank, mostly on the Smoking Blue Finesse Worm and then they quit. Next move was back up river and into Trace Creek. Picked up one here on a Big Dead Ringer worm.

Still exploring we fished the wide grass band leading up to the entrance to Birdsong Creek. Looked great, produced nothing. Made a swing up in the Creek but didn't fish any. Last stop was the grass band leading up to the canal to the launch. Caught one more in the canal that finished us for the day. Our total for the day was 9 bass. You may have noted that I haven't mentioned size. That is by design. To be fair Jack had one about 1.5. The rest were not too big. Although, we did a bit better than recent trips we were disappointed with the results. Conditions were so promising.... We did not see a single school blowing up. But we did see fair amounts of bait.

Spoke to a couple of locals who came out at the same time. One guy said they had about 15 but no size. He said the falling water had turned the fish off. He said the last couple of weekends he had caught 50 to 100 bass, mostly schooling, including some 4 and 5 pounders. The Fall pull down started a few days ago so the lake is on its way to winter pool. So maybe we had a good excuse. I truly believe this Fall will produce some great fishing. Grass, grass, grass!!!