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This is our second installment of Kentucky Afield Outdoors, a series of articles detailing exciting outdoor activities across Kentucky. Check out more of these articles on our Kentucky Afield Outdoors page.
For farmers, crops do well when the rain falls at just the right time. In other years, when there’s too much or too little rain, not so much.
Natural conditions that are out of the farmer’s control can be the difference between a profitable bumper crop or a lean year. The same holds true when it comes to stocking sport fish – and whether it will prove successful.
It would reason that stocking a popular sport fish such as a striped bass would be nearly a guarantee of success. After all, the wild rigors of laying eggs, nesting and fry survival are buffered by being raised in a hatchery. However, striped bass stocked at the fingerling size must still overcome the same environmental stresses as wild-reared fish.
Phillip Garrard of Lexington caught this 42 ½-inch striped bass that weighed 35 pounds this past June from Lake Cumberland. Two poor years of survival for stocked striped bass in 2018 and 2019 put a dent in the population of 26- to 30-inch fish in Lake Cumberland, but the lake holds many fish in the 18- to 22-inch range. This portends good fishing in the coming years and the lake still holds some large fish like this one.
Two straight years of poor natural conditions in 2018-2019 have left a bit of a hole in Lake Cumberland’s striped bass population.
“We had back-to-back year classes in 2018 and 2019 where the striped bass did not do as well as expected,” said Marcy Anderson, Southeastern Fisheries District biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. These poor classes are why striped bass in the 26- to 30-inch range are not as plentiful in Lake Cumberland as originally anticipated.
“There are a lot of fish just under and barely over the 22-inch minimum size limit,” Anderson said.
Lake Cumberland anglers are still catching striped bass exceeding 30 inches, however. “We have a cohort of older fish to catch,” said Jeff Ross, assistant director of Fisheries for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “An angler caught a 40-incher this year.”
In 2019, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife stocked 132,000 fingerling striped bass in Lake Cumberland. While the number may seem high, it was less than half of what was allotted for that year.
Part of the issue was the heavy rainfall that brought Lake Cumberland to a record high level that February. High water throughout the region worsened conditions at the hatcheries that raise striped bass for Lake Cumberland, reducing production.
“We had super high water in the spring of 2019,” Anderson said. “It was hard to get stock from other locations, everyone close to us had high water. This made for poor conditions for getting striped bass fry.”
To bring the lake down, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released water at a rate of 60,000 cubic feet per second through Lake Cumberland’s Wolf Creek Dam, a new record for flow. This created additional issues.
High water in spring creates several problems for striped bass at Lake Cumberland. When reservoir managers release a great amount of water to offset spring flooding, an important chunk of the cool water habitat that striped bass depend on leaves the lake.
Cool water stored in the lake over the winter has plenty of dissolved oxygen in the depths. This winter-stored water is the primary habitat of striped bass in Lake Cumberland. This layer of habitat becomes vitally important for striped bass from late summer into fall, when temperatures rise.
Anderson explained fall is a critical period for striped bass as the amount of cool water with dissolved oxygen gets progressively depleted throughout the summer months. August and September are the toughest months for striped bass in Lake Cumberland. Anderson was rightfully concerned that spilling so much of the stored cool water in spring would impact fish populations that fall.
The impact appeared during fish survey work conducted later in the year.
“The striped bass in the fall of 2019 looked skinny and in poor body condition,” Anderson said. “The release of all of that water in spring stressed the fish in fall.” Fisheries crews also failed to see any stripers from the 2018 stocking during their sampling.
Heavier stocking numbers and better conditions this year have Anderson more optimistic. “The spring of 2023 was great for water levels,” she said. “It never made it to summer pool this year.”
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife also increased the number of striped bass fingerlings being stocked into Lake Cumberland to help buffer the challenges brought by environmental conditions. “We used to stock 350,000 stripers in the lake every year, then increase the number to 500,000 every third year. But we decided to change the stocking schedule beginning in 2020,” Ross said. “Now, we plan to stock at least 500,000 striped bass in the lake every year.”
Stocking numbers will vary with fingerling availability. Recent numbers include 500,751 in 2020; 524,972 in 2021; 600,000 in 2022; and 502,796 this year.
Stocked fish usually reach the 22-inch minimum size limit in three years. It takes about 11 years for a striped bass to reach 30 inches in Lake Cumberland.
August is often a good month for striped bass fishing under lower light conditions. The fish are deep, so bottom fishing alewives, threadfin shad or commercially bought medium-sized shiners on points in the mouths of major creek arms works well from daybreak until 9 a.m. This presentation also works in the last few hours of the day and into nightfall. Full daylight under a hot sun is not the best time to fish at this time of year.
An electronic sonar unit tuned correctly shows schools of baitfish as fuzzy balls on the screen. Fish the points nearest these balls at the depth shown on the graph. Stripers in late summer and into early fall can locate in 60 feet of water or more.
As the longer, cooler nights pull heat from the lake in fall, the top layer of water cools and grows denser. Eventually, the heavier top layer of water sinks, mixing up the water column, a process called the fall turnover.
Anderson said the fall turnover helps ease the stressful period of late summer and early fall. This is when striper fishing improves as fish begin to move into the major creeks where they spend winter.
Bottom fishing with live bait still works well in November and into December. Try points in the lower creek arm nearest the main lake. If you don’t get a bite in 30 minutes or so, move to the next point up the creek arm. Keep moving up the creek until you find fish.
With increased stocking numbers and good weather conditions this year, striped bass fishing is headed for an uptick.
“We have a lot of fish coming on,” Anderson said. “There will be some great fishing in the coming years.”