Lake Cumberland Striper Report

[daymere]

We have had a lot of rain in the Lake Cumberland area, similiar to last year. The water level has been extremely high. The Corp of Engineers has had to pull the lake at a rapid rate in order to keep the level where they need it to be. Unfortunately, what happens during this scenario in the summer months is that all the water is pulled from the bottom of the lake, therefore removing the cooler, more oxygenated water that the fish desire. This makes a stressful environment not only for the stripers but for all species of fish. It also makes the fish a little sluggish in their feeding patterns. Many of the stripers that we have seen caught this summer have been slim and seemed to be under stressed conditions. Our best success is coming by using down riggers at approx. 60' over the main lake open channels. We are not seeing the schools of fish that we normally do for this time of the year. The few bunches of fish that we are coming over are moving quite rapidly. The live bait fishing is what we would normally do for this time of year. Fishermen setting over the top of suspended fish or using planner boards with live bait have had limited success. We are down rigging 3/8 to ½ ounce white or chartreuse bucktail jigs with twister tails behind them. We are only seeing one, two, or three fish in a group at a time, working in some schools of bait fish. I hope that this pattern doesn't copy the pattern of last year. After the stressful summer of 2003, the fall fishing was poor also. The fish remained stressed as they descended into deeper water. We were extremely concerned about our fish surviving this condition however, this spring(2004) proved to be one of the best that we have ever had for good quality fish. The fish had returned to being healthy and fat. It is going to be a wait and see situation to see how the fall fishing develops this year. The ale wife shad are extremely hard to get right now, and almost impossible to keep alive. Their life span on a hook behind a planner board or down rod is only about 15 minutes. Most of the fishermen that are using live bait are either using shiners or catching gizzard shad out of the lake. The gizzard shad are fairly hard to catch at this time and of course even with the gizzard shad, the summer months can be difficult to keep them alive. I have had only a few reports of the night time trolling with the deep diving crank baits however, that success has been limited also. Generally, during the months of July and August at night approximately 35-45 feet of water proves to be successful. However, we have not seen this case this year. We went basically from an excellent spring to a poor to only fair summer of fishing. We will wait to see how the fall fishing develops for us, and try to keep you up to date on what is going on. If you are coming down in the next few days or weeks, I would recommend putting your down riggers on your boat, and stick some doll flies down at about 60 feet, and start preparing to cover a lot of water. The morning bite does still seem to be the best with some action in the late afternoons. Until next time.

Sincerely,
Tim Tarter,
Licensed Professional Guide
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