Fishing Report

Gibson County Lake
Water temperature: 38 degrees, but warming, slowly

Bass: “Bass are biting, but moving very slowly,” Trenton’s Brent Smith said. “But, they haven’t been hitting swim baits or cranks, no matter how slow.

“Small plastic worms and jig and pigs have been the go to baits producing some good fish – three-to-eight-pounds.”

Pickwick Lake
Water temperature: upper 30s, lower 40s

Bass: Since the weather is cooperating, you should be able to pick up a few bass on live bait.

Simply drift split shots with live minnows along rocky banks and you will probably pick up a few bass and some real nice smallmouth.

Stripers: Occasionally, you will come across a striper or two around the dam this time of year while trolling big Strike King Series 6 or 10XD crankbaits or drifting live bait.

Catfish: Don’t look to enjoy a lot of success. Use nightcrawlers and red worms. You might catch a few while sauger fishing with minnows. Try the 15-to-20-foot range before going deeper.

Sauger: The water is cold, but Sauger fishing is warming up.

For the time being, you will have good and bad days. You can try the same approach you did a few days ago that didn’t work, but this time around – it just might.

Kentucky Lake/Lake Barkley
Water temperature: 34 to 36 degrees
Water color: Murky to muddy in the backs of the bays, and clear to murky on main water.

“The lakes are both a foot above winter pool at 355.1 and falling slowly,” Darrell Van Vactor said. “They are scheduled to continue falling for the next few days.

“With warming temperatures this week, we are finding more ramps open, and right now you can launch at all ramps.”

Darrell Van Vactor resides in Benton, Kentucky, and he is the operations manager for Crappie USA/Cabela’s King Kat Trail.

Crappie: “Activity has been very limited with only a handful of boats on the water on the north end of the lakes,” Darrell said. “Those who have ventured out the past couple of days have found some nice size crappie in 18-to-22-feet of water vertical jigging over man-made cover using chartreuse jig heads tipped with minnows.”

Darrell said the bite is light, so you have to hold the jig still to trigger the bite – so wind can present a huge problem.

“Other techniques have been pretty slow this week,” Darrell said. “Numbers are not high, but with the recent weather any jerk on the string is welcomed.
“Other species remain dormant it seems with little attention given to them.”

(PHOTO: Lake Graham)
David Thomas, Twitter – @DavidThomasWNWS
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