Kentucky Lake Bass Heating Up Right Now!

The south winds are back, bringing rain and warmth to the waters of one of the best bass lakes in the country, Kentucky Lake. Kentucky and its brother Barkley are turning on big time, according to guide Ben Parker.

“This week I saw water temperatures in the 60s and it’s making the bass frisky,” Parker said. “Water levels are just below summer pool, so the bush-flippin’ is getting very close, and the big fish are already shallow.”

Parker is on the lake almost every day with a guide trip or one of his special educational electronics trips. He specializes in teaching anglers how to best use their electronics, especially training with side scanning units. During recent guide trips, it’s been the XCalibur Xr50 that’s been the go-to bait.

“Kentucky Lake is getting very clear in some areas and I have to adjust the colors I’m throwing,” he said. “If there’s some color to the water I’ll throw the gold Xr50 Rattle Bait, but as the clarity increases I switch to Foxy Shad, and then to Ghost in the clearest water. I can’t tell you how many bass I’ve caught over the last two years on the Ghost-colored Xr50.”

 His bigger fish have been hitting a Fat Free Shad BD7 dug into the bottom in shallower water. The BD7 runs to 18 feet deep on 8-pound line, but Parker’s cranking it through much shallower water on heavier 14-pound line to kick up a ruckus.

“If the water has some color to it I like Citruse color pattern, but I transition to Foxy Shad in the clearer water,” Parker said. “You’ve gotta make those big mommas bite in shallow water. A crankbait digging into the bottom bangs into a lot of stuff, and that makes them bite. A lot of times a big, grinding bait just works better than a smaller shallower-diving crankbait. Make a ruckus. It works!”

Toward the end of April some fish will be ready to move back out to the ledges while others remain shallow, so anglers will encounter both “ledge fish” and shallower flippin’ fish. As April turns to May, there will be several productive patterns occurring at the same time. Being the electronics guru he is, Parker locates the unmolested deeper fish and leaves the bushes to the flippers.

“That’s when my Humminbird 1197 sidescan comes into serious play,” he said. “I’ve learned to idle down ledges and locate schools of fish much faster than just fishing for them. When those fish leave the shallows I am all over them. I’m booking a lot of trips to just educate anglers on doing this.”

Parker said that the settings on the side scan unit are critical to locating bass, and he’s not about to give away all his secrets to an Internet writer.

“Once you see for yourself what a school of bass looks like you can tell if it’s a school of 20 bass or 200,” Parker said. “I saw a school of bass last year that numbered more than 300 in one small area!”

For more information on Ben Parker or to book a guide or electronics/sidescanning educational trip, go to his website at www.parkersoutfitting.com.