Dozens of streams that are large enough to float in canoes provide a wealth of opportunities to target mixed bags of black bass, which are normally dominated by smallmouths. Photo by Jeff Samsel.

Kentucky, the black bass state. OK, maybe it doesn’t have quite the same ring as the Bluegrass State. Nevertheless, anyone who has spent much time bass fishing in Kentucky knows how fitting this nickname would be. Beyond boasting an enormous numbers of bass-supporting rivers and lakes, Kentucky offers outstanding variety to its black bass fishermen. Largemouths, smallmouths and spots (commonly called Kentucky bass) all inhabit various waterways, and fine bass-fishing waters range from small municipal lakes to the mighty Ohio River and vary in character from shallow and turbid to deep and clear.

Along with so many waterways comes an even greater need for proper management, and fisheries biologists with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) are working tirelessly to meet those needs. Black bass research biologist Chris Hickey heads statewide black bass management efforts; he works closely with district biologists, who monitor fisheries and carry out management plans for all species within their respective regions.

“Locally, district biologists concentrate primarily on monitoring bass populations,” Hickey explained. “They have set schedules and protocols that they go by every year and they work feverishly to try and sample all the lakes/rivers in their districts at the right times.”

Along with providing biologists the information required to make sound management decisions and to build databases that paint a picture of long-and short-term trends, the information collected allows the KDFWR to provide excellent information to anglers. Much of that information, including an annual Fishing Forecast for more than 60 waterways throughout Kentucky, is available anytime to anglers at all times on the KDFWR’s Web site (fw.ky.gov).

The best news for Kentucky bass fishermen is that the overall forecast is invariably good, if not great. The combined result of the department’s intensive management efforts and the sheer abundance and variety of waterways is that good to excellent bass fishing is found in numerous locations in all parts of the state every year. The actual locations will vary some for assorted reasons, including natural cycles in bass and forage populations, localized rainfall and shifts in angler-use patterns, to name a few. However, the fishing will always be good somewhere.

One very important tool that Hickey and other KDFWR biologists use to monitor black bass fisheries throughout the state is the Bass Tournament Reporting Project. This project, which has been in place since 1999, uses fishing tournament results (that are voluntarily reported by bass clubs and other tournament organizations) to look at actual angler success on individual bodies of water.

The results provide both comparative data for various lakes and information about trends in individual lakes, and Hickey compiles the data in a report that is also available on the KDFWR Web site, and that includes good summaries of top-producing waters and many pages of charts that detail the actual results.

“We get pretty good data from bass tournaments because they are usually very well organized, and most of them want to help our agency as much as they can.” Hickey said.

The 2008 report included catch data from 308 bass-fishing tournaments, which represented 58 percent of all registered tournaments in Kentucky that year. Hickey stressed, however, that while participation has been good, he could always use more. More tournament data equates with a better picture of the bass fishing on Kentucky rivers and lakes and an increased capacity to manage fisheries effectively.