Guide Gerald Bates holds up a typical Lake Cumberland striped bass. Striper fishing continues to be hot on this top Kentucky reservoir. Photo by Paul Moore.

Lake Cumberland has long been known as our state's premier trophy striper lake. Not only did our 58-pound state-record striper come from this water, but also countless anglers have gone there and caught the biggest stripers of their lives. The lake and its striper fishery are legendary, not only in Kentucky, but throughout the country. People travel from all over just to sample the excellent fishing at Cumberland.

Unfortunately, Cumberland has fallen on some hard times lately. Not hard times from a fishing perspective, but hard times from a media perspective. When the lake's water level was dropped recently for repairs to the Wolf Creek Dam, media frenzy followed, predicting doom and gloom for the lake. Some of this was driven by tourism in other states hoping to capitalize on the moment and siphon away some of the millions of dollars spent annually by visitors to Lake Cumberland. Another was just the inherent tendency of some of the media to see only the negative.

Lucky for anglers, most of what has spewed forth from the media is completely unfounded. Sure, the lake level is down some, but the fishing has continued to be excellent. Not only that, but there is a superb year-class of stripers coming on, as well as evidence of some real whoppers — maybe even a new state record!

Just last year in April, striper guide Gerald Bates was fishing out of the Jamestown Marina and had a client who came very close to the record. The client, a 17-year-old young boy, hooked what was immediately obvious to be a monster striper. After getting it on board, Bates knew right away it was going to be close to the record if not above it. After weighing the huge fish, it came up just a little short at 52 pounds. But, wow, what a fish!

Another guide, Larry Rowley, had a huge fish on that never even gave them a chance to see it. "One of the rods off the back of the boat went down and line just started peeling off like crazy. We couldn't even get the fish turned. Obviously, we keep the drag set so the line doesn't break, but usually we can put enough pressure on the fish to get them turned and work them back toward the boat. Not this one. He just kept running until he spooled all the line out and broke off."

The lake has been producing stripers like that for years, and it appears it will continue on into the near future. The dam repair has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of fish being held behind it. Just because the water level is dropped a little doesn't mean the fish went anywhere.

In fact, many people believe the lower water level has actually been helpful to the fishing.

"I haven't really found that the lake level has changed the fishing much. If anything, it's made it more consistent because the lake level has been constant and not fluctuating," guide Bates said.