June Fishing Report
The lake conditions as of today are that Kentucky Lake was listed as being at 359.35 with gates still open drawing 76,350 cubic feet per second which is greatly reduced from earlier this week. Barkley was listed at 359.05 and the output was given at 29,100 CFS. Both lakes were recording as being 80 degrees with those readings taken at each dam. Kentucky Lake is forecast to be at 359.41 with an outflow of 61,500 CFS tomorrow Friday June, 8. The forecast for Saturday for Kentucky Lake is 359.32 with an outflow of 61,500 CFS.
The weather forecast looks to be hot and humid over the next three days, but with very fishable southern winds. Friday calls for partly sunny with a high of 93. The next two days are forecast to be partly sunny as well with highs of 89. The last two days have been scorchering with very little wind to keep you cool while I was out there. I will be careful what I ask for, because we all know what too much wind does to a fishing trip.
On the fishing end of the spectrum, a lot has changed since my last report, obviously due to change of seasons. The Crappie season was a tough one for me. I had some good days, some average days, and then some I would like to forget about. It was just a messed up year with crazy weather, and a lot of water fluctuations. I never could seem to get into any rhythm and develop a consistent pattern that seemed to work. Most days I started with what worked best the day before, and went fishing and fished hard. Thankfully, I had located some White and Yellow Bass and was able to make some good catches of those when the Crappie were absent and the weather conditions allowed me.
After chasing the Crappie we began to pursue the Bluegill, and had some days where we caught them. They were not everywhere for us and we had to put in a lot of hours on the water locating enough spots to catch our fish. Some days we could hit a spot or two that held several, but usually we had to really move a lot and hit a bunch of spots to catch our fish. A lot of days I took a fruit salad approach and went after White Bass, then Catfish, and then switched off to Bluegill. Our Bluegill were caught usually in 3 to 8 feet of water dragging crickets or worms on gravel and sandy bottoms. We usually always picked up some channel cats in the process. When I specifically targeted Catfish, we bounced the bottom on the river channel from 25 to 50 feet with Shrimp.
The last couple of days I have chased the Yellows and White Bass . I have found some Yellow Bass in decent numbers, but a lot of them ran really small in size. The White Bass have been elusive for me. I know that some good catches of White Bass have been made, but not in my boat, and it has been inconsistent. My plan for tomorrow is to hit a few brush piles early in the morning to see if I can capture Crappie, and then go bottom bouncing for Mr. Whiskers.