Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Late-spring bass fishing throughout Kentucky is one of the best periods of the year to connect with largemouth and smallmouth bass. It's a time when most of the Commonwealth's waters are sufficiently warmed to increase bass activity levels, and a time when the spring floods and weather ups and downs have finally planed out enough to pattern bass effectively.

Kentucky has a lot of opportunities, some quite good this year, to catch bass in just about every region. We're going to highlight several waters for you to consider this month, as the spring spawn closes and in most instances, bass haven't all together left the shallows trying to escape the full brunt of the summer heat just yet.

To find out the most up-to-date information, tapping district fishery biologists with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) is a pretty good way to get a pulse on what anglers can expect in terms of the health and availability of largemouths and smallmouths at various reservoirs. Many on-water studies are conducted throughout the year that help biologists keep tabs on how fish are doing, reproduction, food supply, and if there are any apparent problems that may slow fishing from what usually occurs.

Let's see what the experts have to say about some of our top choices for late May and through June for 2005.

LAKE BARKLEY
In the western end of the state, the two powerhouse bass fisheries of Kentucky and Barkley lakes often have similarities as far as each lake's bass fisheries are doing. I've selected Barkley to focus on in this article, the shallower and less talked about water to perhaps increase your success on this particular 50,000-acre impoundment this summer.

According to Paul Rister, the KDFWR's lead fisheries biologist for the western region, while sometimes the developments and trends on Barkley tend to mirror what is happening on Kentucky Lake, these two lakes have quite a few differences, as well.

"Bass fishermen on Barkley will find themselves in an environment where shallow-water technique tactics are going to be more productive," Rister began.

"The lake does have dropoffs and some deeper points along the main-lake channel, but back in the creeks and embayments the bass don't have the really deep-water retreats and cover you find on Kentucky Lake.

"Even when water temperatures began warming up, I think many bass can still be taken pretty close to the banks. The fact that the water stays colored, or gets stained more readily in Barkley, keeps the largemouths especially keyed on shallow cover longer into June after nesting activities conclude," Rister said.

The health of the largemouth fishery on Barkley should get a little boost this spring, based on what Rister has observed the last year or so, and heard from fishermen. Drought years tend to play havoc with bass production, and Barkley has experienced a down cycle a couple of times during the last decade; but Rister believes anglers are going to be catching better fish in the heart of the fishing season this year.

"We had a pretty long valley, if you want to call it that, for largemouths on Barkley in the mid- to late '90s when our largemouth spawns just weren't what we been used to getting," Rister said.

"Poor spawn years tend to leave a noticeable hole in the quality of fishing a few years afterward, when fish that should be reaching harvestable size just aren't there in normal numbers. We took a pretty hard knock from 1995 to 1999, but saw the upswing return in 2001 and 2002, which means last fall and this summer is going to improve for fish over 15 inches within the population."

As Rister alluded to earlier, he recommends anglers don't abandon working the woody cover along Barkley's banks too soon. Several approaches will yield bass in shoreline cover and along shallow ledges in 8 to 15 feet of water. Terry Yarborough, who has fished both Barkley and Kentucky for many years, concurs with Rister on looking closer to the water's edge for visible structure that still will hold early-summer largemouths.