Fishing in Kentucky

“The Happy Hunting Ground,” a term Native American Indians used two centuries ago to describe the game-rich landmass that would become the commonwealth of Kentucky, probably took the region’s excellent fishing into account as well.

Kentucky is blessed with a wide diversity of fisheries. These range from wild brook trout in the eastern highland region along the Virginia border to world-class crappie and bass fisheries in the lake country of the western lowlands. In between, some 86,000 miles of rivers and streams course the landscape. This is more running water than exists in any other state, and it provides a smorgasbord of flowing-water opportunities for the likes of white bass, smallmouth bass, rock bass, spotted bass, muskellunge, and catfish, plus it offers almost untapped crappie and panfish populations.

Numerous state-owned lakes are scattered throughout the commonwealth, and these provide excellent opportunities to catch bass, crappie, channel catfish, and other species from small boats or by fishing from the banks. A host of large and small impoundments offer outstanding angling as well.

Beginning in the 1940s, when Dale Hollow Reservoir and Kentucky Lake were completed, and extending into the 1970s, when many flood-control reservoirs were constructed across the state, Kentucky anglers underwent a transformation. Having almost exclusively fished streams and rivers, they began to try their luck in the newly formed reservoirs. Some Kentucky anglers now do nothing but fish the lakes, especially the larger ones.

Several small reservoirs provide good fishing in the eastern highland region. Among the better ones are Yatesville, Paintsville, Dewey, Buckhorn, Cave Run, and Carr Fork. In central Kentucky, such famous and larger waters as Lake Cumberland and Dale Hollow receive much of the fishing pressure and publicity. Numerous smaller reservoirs like Barren River, Rough River, Green River, and Nolin contribute a combined 23,000-plus acres of additional angling opportunity.

The greatest attractions for bass and crappie anglers continue to be huge Kentucky Lake and nearby Lake Barkley. Kentucky Lake, a 184-mile-long reservoir that straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border at the western end of the state (50,000 acres in Kentucky), grows tackle-rattling largemouth, big smallmouth, and football-shaped Kentucky (spotted) bass. Rod-bending flathead, channel, and blue catfish are so plentiful in Kentucky Lake that it supports a fairly large commercial fishing operation, and the crappie fishing is nearly legendary. Lake Barkley, just across the nearby ridge line, adds 58,000 acres of prime bass and crappie habitat to the already bountiful opportunity of the far western region.

In addition to great bass, crappie, and catfish angling in various waters, Kentucky boasts some of the finest muskie fishing in the South, rockfish (landlocked stripers) up to 60 pounds, and record-size walleye and sauger. It also supports an astonishing number of trout fisheries for a so-called “Southern” state.