Kentucky Lake is known as one of the top crappie fishing lakes in the country. This lake produces a lot of crappie and plenty of trophy-sized crappie year in and year out. I was able to go down to Kentucky Lake last spring to experience the crappie fishing. I ended up staying at the King Creek Resort and there were many good fishing spots within a short boat ride from the resort.
When I arrived at the resort, the weather was nice and I was excited to catch some of the spawning crappie. I ended up getting there about a week too early, but I figured that with some nice weather, we would catch some fish deeper and some fish shallower at the end of our week stay. We were expecting 3 or 4 days in the low 70s at the back end of our trip. A cold front ended up coming in during our first night there and it stayed cooler than expected during our stay. The last day I was there, the air temperature warmed up to 77 degrees and the water was up to the mid to high 50s.
Basically, we timed the crappie spawn wrong and had to fish deep the entire week. It is a lot harder to find crappie in 16 to 20 feet of water than in 2 to 5 feet of water along any type of wooded cover. We ended up finding a bunch of brush piles and if we were on the brush piles we caught fish. If we would cast 10 to 15 feet away from the brush piles we couldn't get a bite. The key to our success was moving from brush pile to brush pile catching one or two off of each spot. We ended up catching plenty of crappie, although the bite was a tough one, and 5 crappie were in between 13 and 15 inches. Most anglers vertically jig for crappie in deeper water, but we were swimming small crappie tubes on a tiny jig. The key to get a strike was to wind extremely slowly, just barely turning the reel. As our baits would slowly swim over the brush piles, the fish would bite.
I won't be going down to Kentucky Lake this year, but next year, I might head down there for the crappie spawn. I am going to wait until the spawn starts and I will plan the trip last minute. If you can get to Kentucky Lake when the crappie spawn is in full swing, you have a chance of catching your limit, especially if you hire a guide.
To find more information about the lake, fishing guides and fishing resorts, take a look at our Kentucky Lake fishing page.
Article provided by Kevin Sewell at Ultimate Fishing Site
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