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SubscribeAnglers with a bit of salt in their hair remember fondly the venerable Sassy Shad, the paddle-tailed, shad-shaped soft plastic wonder that caught practically anything that swims.
In the fishing lure world, what is old oftentimes becomes new again. Over the last decade or so, the soft-plastic swimbait stormed the fishing world, looking remarkably like a Sassy Shad with refinements.
With softer, lifelike soft plastic formulations and more realistic color schemes that closely resemble shad or other baitfish along with salt and scent fused into the lure, the modern swimbait is one of the most versatile lures you can throw.
Photo: Kentucky Department Fish and Wildlife
“Anything looking to eat a baitfish will hit a swimbait,” said Chad Miles, host of the “Kentucky Afield” television show and swimbait expert. “I’ve caught everything from crappie to striped bass and all three species of black bass, smallmouths, largemouths and spotted bass on a swimbait.”
Spring through early summer is one of Miles’ favorite times to fish a swimbait for black bass. He had a great trip on Lake Cumberland last spring while filming an episode of “Kentucky Afield.” They caught several quality smallmouth bass, largemouth bass in the 5-pound range and Executive Producer Nathan Brooks caught a 37-inch striped bass.
A 4-inch white and silver swimbait rigged on a 3/8-ounce leadhead fooled them all. They caught most of their fish on secondary points in Difficulty and Harmon creeks.
“The fish are up shallow at this time of year,” he explained. “I downsize the weight of the leadhead to a 1/4-ounce and use no heavier than 3/8-ounce. You do not make a big splash on the cast with a lighter leadhead. It also allows you to keep the lure from getting hung on the bottom.”
Employ a steady retrieve and work a swimbait down sloping banks that fall off into deep water or across points in spring through early summer. These areas draw shad and other baitfish, what the swimbait emulates.
“The good thing about a swimbait is you can adjust your depth and speed, which you really can’t do with a crankbait,” Miles explained. “It is all about getting the right speed on the retrieve and adjusting it according to the aggressiveness of the fish.”
On deeper lakes, such as Dale Hollow, Lake Cumberland and Laurel River Lake, Miles used a nose-weighted swimbait hook and a solid body swimbait for bass. He rigs these swimbaits hook exposed, the way most anglers used to rig a Sassy Shad.
“I use the belly-weighted wide gap swimbait hook and a hollow body swimbait for shallow lakes with more cover such as Kentucky Lake or Lake Barkley,” Miles said. “This setup is weedless and works great over weedbeds or through cover for bass.”
In clear water, the natural shad color is hard to beat for swimbaits. White with silver flakes is also a good color. “In stained water, I like swimbaits with some chartreuse or orange in them,” Miles said. “In murky to muddy water, I don’t throw a swimbait. They are other lures much more effective than a swimbait in those conditions.”
Miles said resisting the temptation to set the hook when you first feel a bite is the most important aspect of fishing a swimbait. “Keep reeling through the strike and let the rod load up a bit before setting the hook,” he said. “If you set the hook immediately, you are pulling the swimbait away from the fish.”
A medium to medium-heavy power fast action baitcasting outfit spooled with 10- to 12-pound fluorocarbon line works well for handling swimbaits.
“You are throwing a good amount of weight with a swimbait,” Miles said. “You need a rod that can handle it.”
As the days lengthen and the water warms, Miles works 5- to 6-inch swimbaits over channel breaks, ledges and submerged humps just above the thermocline for big largemouth bass on Kentucky Lake and Nolin River Lake.
“The swimbait works well in summer for suspended bass that are hard to catch on anything else,” Miles said. He counts the swimbait down in the water column over likely fish holding structures such as ledges, humps or points that extend out into the lake. He retrieves his swimbait deeper on each cast until he finds fish.
In summer, anglers on lakes with flooded timber such as Lincoln County’s Cedar Creek Lake do well working swimbaits slow and deep for largemouth bass suspended in the flooded timber.
After the weather turns cold in fall, Miles falls back to fishing 3-inch swimbaits in the natural shad color for smallmouth and spotted bass.
You can watch Miles employ his excellent swimbait techniques on a productive spring day on Lake Cumberland from a segment filmed last April by clicking on the KY Afield tab at the top of the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife homepage at www.fw.ky.gov. Once on the “KY Afield” page, click on the link “Visit our Youtube channel,” then type “Fishing with Swimbaits on Lake Cumberland” in the search bar.
Although we’ve seen many warm fronts this winter with temperatures in the 60s just this past weekend, the water in our highland reservoirs is still cold.
Water temperatures are in the high 40s in Lake Cumberland, Dale Hollow and Laurel River Lake. Once water temperatures drop below 50 degrees for extended periods, threadfin shad begin to suffer from the cold water.
“Threadfin shad get thermally stressed by winter water temperatures, especially in late winter,” said Jeff Ross, assistant director of the Fisheries Division for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “They begin to twitch and spasm as they try to fight off death.”
Smallmouth bass, as well as spotted and largemouth bass, instinctually know to eat these weakened baitfish. The float-and-fly technique imitates stressed shad in cold water as good as anything.
“Many bass lures, such as jerkbait, use twitching movement to draw strikes,” Ross said. “The little fly twitching in place is irresistible to a smallmouth in the winter.”
Born in the deep, clear lakes of east Tennessee and inspired by crappie anglers complaining of big smallmouth bass breaking off tiny hair jigs fished deep in the winter months, the float-and-fly technique employs long, light to medium-light power spinning rods and 4-pound line to present small 1/16-ounce to 1/8-ounce jigs under a bobber.
The tiny jig is the “fly” in the float-and-fly technique. For generations, smallmouth anglers in Kentucky and Tennessee call hair jigs “flies.”
The long spinning rod, from 8 to 11 feet in length, is necessary as you suspend the diminutive jig 8 to 14 feet deep. Casting such a presentation on a rod shorter than 8 feet is nearly impossible. Fly anglers use 8-weight rods to suspend 1/32- to 1/48-ounce jigs under large strike indicators, employing light fluorocarbon line as the tippet. The lighter 1/48-ounce jig is much easier for a fly angler to cast with a leader and tippet running at least 8 feet long.
The “flies” are made of either craft hair or duck feathers or a combination of both. The float-and-fly technique has grown so popular that national outfitters carry rods designed for it. Tackle shops in the Lake Cumberland and Dale Hollow Lake region sell them as well. Float-and-fly rods also make excellent crappie and panfish rods.
All you do is load the spinning reel with 4-pound co-polymer or fluorocarbon line and clip on a 7/8-inch pear-shaped plastic bobber 8 feet above the fly. Adjust the depth of the fly until you get a “pull down” on the bobber from a fish. There are specially weighted foam bobbers designed for the float-and-fly technique that grant better casting distance. The internal weight in these bobbers makes them roll over on their side if a big smallmouth hits the fly and moves shallower.
Lake Cumberland presents an ideal opportunity to catch smallmouth bass, as well as fat, healthy spotted bass and even hand-sized bluegill on the float-and-fly right now. During the drawdown of Lake Cumberland to repair Wolf Creek Dam several years ago, trees grew on the exposed shoreline. Now with normal water levels, these trees are at the perfect depth to offer shelter for big smallmouth and spotted bass as they await a school of baitfish to ambush.
The quivering fly hovering just above the sunken trees pulls these fish out of their lairs to strike. Female smallmouth bass need to feed in late winter to power the development of the eggs in their abdomens they will drop into nests later this spring.
The best flies on Lake Cumberland are craft hair jigs in combinations of blue, chartreuse, grey or white. White, sky blue and pink craft hair jigs also work well on this lake.
Duck feather jigs with wisps of red or pink craft hair seem to draw more strikes on Dale Hollow. These colors work well at Laurel River Lake, too. Both Dale Hollow and Laurel hold trout and some anglers believe their presence makes these fly colors work better in these lakes.
Fish the float-and-fly near the main lake in winter on these reservoirs. The best fishing occurs when your back faces lots of big, deep water.
Remember to allow your fly to strike the water’s surface on the back cast. This provides resistance on the forward cast that loads the long spinning rod, leading to much improved casting distance.
Applying a petroleum jelly-based shad scent, called “fish dope,” improves the delectability of the fly to smallmouths. Tackle shops and retailers in the Lake Cumberland or Dale Hollow region sell fish dope, but any petroleum jelly-based shad scent will work. Those with glitter in them are best.
On bright days, trimming a fly to match the bend of the hook and heavily applying dope to where the fly resembles a small stick often makes the difference between being skunked or catching fish.
A month of good float-and-fly fishing awaits anglers until warming waters puts big smallmouth or spotted bass on the prowl and willing to chase lures. This technique also fools huge largemouth bass on farm ponds and small lakes in late winter.
Remember to buy your fishing license soon. Feb. 28 is the last day of the current license year in Kentucky.
Five new lakes enrolled in the Fishing in Neighborhoods Program (FINs) will receive stockings of trout in February, a boon to anglers tired of being house bound.
Flemingsburg Old Reservoir, an 11-acre lake in Fleming County, gets 900 trout while Leary Lake, a 5-acre lake on Lloyd Wildlife Management Area in Grant County, gets the same amount of trout. The 9-acre Logan-Hubble Park Lake just south of Lancaster in Garrard County will receive 900 trout as well.
The 2-acre Kess Creek Park Lake in Mayfield in Graves County will get 500 trout as will the Clinton Rotary Park Lake in Clinton in Hickman County. Both of these lakes are in the Purchase Region.
“We are stocking a larger-sized trout in all of our FINs lakes for 2017,” said Dane Balsman, coordinator of the FINs program for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “The larger trout now average about 10 to 11 inches long and one-half pound in weight.”
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife formerly stocked its traditional “stocker” trout of 9 to 10 inches in the FINs lakes. “We wanted to improve angler satisfaction and utilization as well as reducing hooking and handling mortality. These fish won’t be caught as many times and anglers are more likely to harvest a larger trout.”
Balsman cautions anglers fishing on a FINs lake to practice beneficial catch and release tactics when they catch a trout, especially as the water warms. Anglers can purchase inexpensive fish grabbers to prevent touching or squeezing a trout when removing the hook. These devices prove valuable when handling fish that may cause injury, such as a catfish or fish with teeth, such as a muskellunge.
Forty-three lakes across Kentucky are in the FINs program. They offer fantastic fishing for trout, but also excellent fishing for catfish and largemouth bass.
“We will start in March with the catfish stockings in FINs lakes,” Balsman said. “Due to hatchery expansion, we now have the capabilities to raise all of the FINs catfish in house. We will stock about 125,000 catfish in our FINs lakes.”
Largemouth bass anglers usually turn to waters such as Kentucky Lake, Barren River Lake or state-owned lakes, such as Lake Malone or Lake Kincaid, for a chance at a trophy fish.
“We see exceptional largemouth bass in the FINs lakes, many of them big bass,” Balsman said. “We saw a 9.7-pound largemouth bass from Mike Miller Park Lake this past year, my personal best I’ve seen in a FINs lake. We routinely see 6- to 8-pound bass in the spring.” Four-acre Mike Miller Park Lake lies near Draffenville in Marshall County.
Balsman recommends early spring as the time to catch these bruisers. “We stock these lakes with trout and the bass eat them and grow big,” he said. A white spinnerbait with a silver Colorado blade works well for trophy pre-spawn largemouth bass in small lakes, especially when rains colored the water a touch. A large soft-plastic swimbait in trout colors may also work well in these lakes.
Many anglers flock to Kentucky Lake or Lake Barkley each May for the redear sunfish spawn. Anglers do not need to go that far.
“Some of these lakes have really good redear sunfish in them,” Balsman said. “Three Springs Park Lake near Bowling Green and Madisonville City Park Lake South have great populations of redear sunfish. Both lakes offer trophy potential of 10-inch and longer redear sunfish.”
Lake Mingo in Nicholasville, just south of Lexington has moderate numbers of redear sunfish, commonly called shellcrackers. However, Balsman said some of them are true trophies, running 12 inches or more.
“The trout and catfish are for put and take fishing,” Balsman said. “There is trophy potential for redear sunfish and some of these lakes are great bluegill lakes as well.”
The main point of the FINs program is providing a place close to home for folks to go and have a reasonable expectation of catching fish.
“We want people to be able to go fish the FINs lakes after work in spring and summer or take the kids and fish for an hour or two on the weekends and catch fish,” Balsman said. “The convenience factor is whole point of the FINs program.”
Remember, current fishing licenses expire Feb. 28. It is a good idea to buy your fishing license soon.
Photo From KDFW
It seems to Kentuckians that someone accidentally dropped the sun down a storm drain about three weeks ago and it hasn’t been found yet.
Day after day desolate gray skies discharged rain every few hours. Although it has been warmer than usual, this January has been a long slog.
February is the month tinges of hope arrive back in many anglers’ souls.
“Before any change of season, there are hints of the season to come,” said Mike Hardin, assistant director of Fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “The change from late winter to spring is not abrupt. By the third week of February, you can hear spring peepers calling.”
This translates into a time when someone suffering from terminal cabin fever can catch a fish for the ages.
Warm February rains muddy the water and provide a temperature spike. “You get that good muddy water in mid- to late-February and you can pull some sows out of it,” Hardin said. “Females are gearing up for spawning. They need healthy fat reserves to get them through rigors of spawning. Instinct tells them they must eat.”
This situation is a fantastic time to catch a fat, pre-spawn female largemouth bass. Back in the day before graphite rods, bass boats or sonar units, gritty anglers would brave the weather during the first warm rains of February and employ the “jigging” technique to pull huge largemouth bass from shallow water.
They would use stout cane poles and a large hook tied to heavy black dacron line. These anglers would impale as many nightcrawlers as possible on the hook and using a skulling paddle for stealth, drop this combination beside any stump, log or other shoreline cover they could find.
Modern anglers can do the same thing with a ½-ounce black and blue jig and a flipping stick.
“That muddy water in late February is good flipping water,” Hardin said. “My uncle loved it when rains warmed the water to 51 degrees along the shoreline. He would flip a jig to the shoreline cover along those outside bends of Cave Run. That is when he caught his biggest largemouth bass. He had better weights in 51 degree water than in 70 degree water.”
Hardin said rains from the south in February also bring large muskellunge to the shoreline.
“That is when I first get my muskies,” said Hardin, who caught a 50-inch muskellunge from Cave Run Lake this past fall. “When you have a 42- to 48-degree main lake with warmer water coming in that is in the mid-50s, this is when you find fish along the shoreline.”
Some fish live suckers along the shoreline for big February muskellunge. Those anglers are strongly encouraged to employ a quick strike rig to prevent catch and release mortality. Large rattle baits, such as a muskellunge-sized Rat-L-Trap, also work well for shoreline muskellunge during this time of year.
“I also like a soft plastic bait called the Bulldawg in February,” Hardin said. “I like two-tone colors such as brown and orange. I also like the firetiger with a chartreuse tail version. I also throw jerkbaits like a Suick Thriller when they have their nose on the bank. They see that jerkbait work over their head and they hit it.”
A pronounced warm front in mid-to-late February draws big female smallmouth bass from their winter lairs into shallower water to feed heavily in lakes such as Lake Cumberland, Laurel River Lake, Dale Hollow Lake or the lower section of Green River Lake.
If warm rains accompanied the warm front, work white spinnerbaits with chrome Colorado blades right beside any submerged woody cover. This is an excellent presentation to catch huge smallmouths, especially if the water has some color to it.
If the warm front simply warms the top layer of water a degree or two without rain, big smallmouth will move up onto a flat to feed. The best flats lie adjacent to the channel on the main lake or major creek arm.
A medium-sized live shiner bottom fished in these areas is one of the best ways to catch the heaviest smallmouth bass of your life. Some anglers crawl the shiner slowly across the flat with just enough split shot weights to keep the shiner down. Others prefer still fishing shiners on the flat using a 1/4- to 3/8-ounce slip-sinker rig with a small black barrel swivel tied on the main line. An 18-inch leader of 8-pound test fluorocarbon line is tied on the other loop of the barrel swivel while the hook goes on the other end of the leader.
A size 1 Octopus-style hook works well for both presentations. You can also fish these rigs right in the middle of small cuts and tiny coves along the main lake or major creek arm for large February smallmouths.
“If you like catching big fish, February is a great month,” Hardin said. “A big fish warms you up better than a big coat.”
Remember to buy your fishing license soon. Feb. 28 is the last day of the current license year in Kentucky.
The end of the year is a time for reflecting on the past 12 months and envisioning the possibilities for the new year.
Officials with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources recently previewed what’s ahead in 2017.
From firming up long-range plans for the restoration of ruffed grouse in Kentucky and management of the state’s black bear population to expanding the popular Fishing in Neighborhoods (FINs) program and releasing thousands of rare mussels into the wild, a common theme stretches across the Fisheries and Wildlife divisions. Conserving fish and wildlife habitats and populations and expanding opportunities for hunters, anglers and others are top priorities.
In Fisheries, Asian carp will continue to be a major focus. Commercial harvest is an effective tool for large-scale removal of the invasive fish and Fisheries director Ron Brooks said a multi-year effort to help the Asian carp processing industry expand in Kentucky is expected to bear fruit in 2017.
“We’ve been working on this for about two years and it’s finally coming around,” he said.
The department has been working with fish processors, commercial fishermen, legislators, government agencies and businesses to find ways to make a greater dent in the Asian carp population.
The proposed system would train new commercial fishermen how to harvest Asian carp and assist commercial fishermen already harvesting Asian carp while reducing costs and delays for processors, Brooks said.
“We’re reaching out to help the Asian carp-harvesting industry meet its needs and hopefully lead into expansion of their businesses, all to get rid of Asian carp,” he said. “We’re focusing a lot of our efforts on Kentucky and Barkley lakes because we believe we can have an immediate impact there. We’re trying to ensure our sportfish species aren’t taken out.”
Elsewhere in Fisheries, a long-term project to increase forage and improve fishing opportunity at Cave Run Lake will wrap up in 2017. The project focused on the Ramey’s Creek and Warix coves in 2016. Department personnel added around 1,000 trees, 500 pallet structures, 150 bucket stake attractors, 10 wooden cable spools and 50 plastic pipe trees. A map showing the locations of these fish attractors is available online at fw.ky.gov. Type “Cave Run Lake Fish Habitat Improvement Project” into the search box on the homepage.
The popular Fishing in Neighborhoods (FINs) program is adding five new lakes to its lineup: Flemingsburg Old Reservoir in Fleming County, Kess Creek Park Lake in Graves County, Leary Lake in Grant County, Logan Hubble Park Lake in Lincoln County and Rotary Park Lake in Hickman County. The addition of these lakes brings the number of FINs lakes to 43 across the state.
Anglers can start planning now where they want to fish and for what species in with the new Fishing Forecast for Kentucky’s major fisheries. The 2017 edition is available on the department’s website by clicking on the “Fish” tab and choosing “Forecast” from the dropdown menu. The annual compilation highlights new, expanding and improving fisheries across the state.
Deer hunters in Kentucky have enjoyed another successful season in 2016.
“We’re going to end up in the top 5 in terms of our overall harvest total,” said Steve Beam, Wildlife Division director for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “We’re producing tremendous numbers of trophy quality bucks. At the same time, our herd is healthy. Things continue to be wonderful.”
At its December meeting, the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to expand opportunities for youth and muzzleloader deer hunters on several wildlife management areas in 2017. The 2017-18 Kentucky Hunting and Trapping Guide, due out in July, will note these and any other pertinent changes.
John Hast was a biologist in the department’s deer and elk program before taking over as coordinator of its bear program in January 2015. He anticipates having a draft of a long-range management plan for Kentucky’s black bear population ready in 2017.
“We’ve been doing in-house research since bears returned to the state,” Hast said. “We just completed the project that’s going to provide our foundation for management for the next 15 years.
“A management plan, to me, gives me an opportunity to summarize all of that data and put it in one spot and distill it out and translate it. The plan will set forth what we’ve got but also what we’re going to be doing in the near future to refine things.”
Also in 2017, expect to hear more from the department about wild pigs in Kentucky, Beam said.
“We have re-evaluated and are in the process of increasing our efforts on wild pig eradication, working with landowners and cooperating with our partners,” he said.
In the department’s Wildlife Diversity program, led by coordinator Sunni Carr, biologists plan to conduct a statewide survey of osprey nesting locations and also start a loggerhead shrike banding project in the hopes of learning more about the migration and causes of decline for the species.
Additionally, the statewide survey for eastern whip-poor-wills and chuck-will’s-widows will be expanded to examine trends for Kentucky’s night birds. The department’s Center for Mollusk Conservation (CMC) plans to release endangered pink muckets in Kentucky for the 10th year. There are now several thousand of these mussels at more than 23 locations.
The department’s website provides a wealth of information about the work being done by each of these divisions. While there, consider purchasing a 2017-18 hunting and fishing license. The new license year starts March 1.
State and federal agencies, working in cooperation with volunteers, commercial anglers and fish processors, are launching a “Carp Blitz” on Nov. 8-10 to help gauge the population of invasive Asian carp in Kentucky and Barkley lakes.
At least a dozen sampling crews will be netting, electrofishing and working with licensed commercial anglers to collect as many Asian carp as possible during this three-day period.
“This very large effort is primarily a sampling or data collection exercise which, if deemed successful, will be repeated annually in order to provide relative abundance and population demographics of Asian carp in Kentucky and Barkley Lakes,” said Ron Brooks, fisheries director for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Other participating agencies will include the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 2013, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife sponsored Carp Madness, a first of its kind tournament for commercial anglers whose primarily goal was the thin the Asian carp population in the two western Kentucky lakes. It proved successful, as a handful of participants collected more than 83,000 pounds of Asian carp during the two-day tournament.
Brooks believes if weather conditions are good, the Carp Blitz effort will easily eclipse the Carp Madness tournament. State and federal fisheries crew will use electrofishing equipment to drive the wary Asian carp into the waiting nets of the commercial anglers.
“All Asian carp harvested will be donated to the commercial anglers assisting with this effort,” Brooks said. “Kentucky’s fish processing businesses will purchase all fish harvested.”
As part of the effort, researchers with Murray State University are working with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife to tag fish with telemetry markers. This will allow researchers to discover the movement patterns and habitat use of Asian carp in Kentucky and Barkley lakes.