# Lake Cumberland Kayak Striper turned to Walleye trip



## LittleMiamiJeff (Oct 1, 2005)

Lake Cumberland Kayak Striper to Walleye fishing trip
I had reservations for 4 nights at the Kendall Campsite, just below Wolf Creek Dam at the Hatchery.
I heartily recommend this campsite to any and all, unless you want rustic/primitive. If you have tent to trailer to RV, this is the place. 
I arrived Wednesday evening around 3pm, checked into campsite, set up camp, and headed to Wolf Creek Ramp at North end of Dam. I had purchased a trolling motor mount from a guy in Florida, I&#8217;ll send link to whoever wants it, I need to replace the wood mount plate, but all in all a good mount. I broke original wood mount plate installing trolling motor Wed. night so I had to paddle Wed.
There was a light rain, so I was hoping for jumps action, and wasn&#8217;t disappointed. I paddled along the North bank of the lake from dam, towards Rowena, went up a cove, and was marking bait and fish on sonar. I wasn&#8217;t catching anything casting at this time. 
As I went farther upstream, I noticed boat w/3 guys in it, suddenly leave a cove and run across lake toward Indian Creek. I figured they were sitting on fish or bait and paddled over to investigate.
I could see the boat in mid lake, and as I started to paddle out I heard splashing back toward shore, the stripers were erupting and I paddled over, the guys in the boat came back by, I hooked up and pulled a dink in, Gizz3 deep gray back. The one guy was using a Chugger so I tied on my Spook and hooked up best striper of trip, just shy of 23 inches. I had another better fish to the boat and he shook off before I got a hand in his mouth. 
I had a few more opportunities and just didn&#8217;t hook up.
Went back to camp, raining, cold, wet, I had some deck wood pieces with me, the Camp Host sawed it for me, I had my cordless drill and tool box with me, and got to within 3 of 8 holes drilled at the Shower/Bath house, so I plugged charger in and set alarm for 5am. I wanted to catch early jumps.
Got up Thursday, 5am, went to dam launch ramp and finished Trolling motor mount repair under lot lamp.
Trolling motor was mounted, I had never used it before, so found that I had to sit side saddle to use it at all, turned around and duct taped half my second kayak paddle to tiller, a little TOO close to my back, I came to conclusion I would just turn motor on and steer w/paddle I used up front.
Went down same bank, up into a few coves, there were some areas with rock piles on bank, that always held bait and fish, but only caught one more from this area. I went into a couple more coves, sun was bright and ski was blue, you know the drill. Cold front moved in and seemed to lock them down.
Went in at noon Thursday, took nap, hooked batteries up to top them off, back on water at 4, out til 9, got windy and trolling motor really came in handy, no problem heading into wind back to ramp.
Little cove at ramp held tons of bait and fish Thursday night and Friday night, but no bites.
I threw Gizz3 and Gizz4 deep diver, Flitter 2, (I lost my last Flitter 4 at Bagnell Dam Lake of the Ozarks).
I caught a dink Thursday, and went back out Friday morning, as I was putting in, I could actually see busting fish all the way over past Indian Creek, water was flying everywhere. It was pretty calm at the time so I took off across the main lake at full speed ahead, they jumped for over 10 minutes, I got there in 12, some sporadic jumps once I got there but no fish. I decided to come back up the south bank past Indian Creek and Guffy, the wind picked up, getting pretty wet w/waves over the bow, but the Ocean Kayak Malibu 2 XL handled it real well. I was in 140 foot of water marking some bait when it went to 6 feet, the bait was so thick it looked like the bottom. Still no fish, I trolled a lot these last 2.5 days and never got hit, maybe a nip or two, as the rods would shake now and then.
So, got up Saturday morning ready to call it a done deal. I was talking to my neighbor sharing coffee, I had remembered Todd mentioning floating the Cumberland River below the dam, and this guy brought it up. He convinced me to try it and offered to pick me up at the take up point as I left my truck.
I put in below dam, w/trolling motor, went up through current to wall of turbine house, they don&#8217;t generate much w/low water levels, they use a sluice gate to take cold water from lower lake level, and spray it across tailrace, which I assume is to aerate it. 
Anyway, tossed flitter across face of powerhouse and picked up my first walleye of the trip. 16-17 inches. I fished there for another hour nothing.
I went just downstream and noticed trout jumping in waves at a little gravel bar. I cast kastmaster and caught my first rainbow trout since Montauk State Park in Missouri in 1972. I beached the kayak and stayed there the rest of the afternoon. I started using a Gizz3 Deep diver Gray shad, figuring if there were trout in the water the stripers would love to eat them.
Well, the stripers probably do, but I pulled another 6-8 walleye from a gravel bar that dropped to a long pool, and would slowly bounce the deep Gizz3 across the bottom from the shallow into the deep. 
I also found out if you let a walleye get it&#8217;s head above the water it&#8217;ll shake the lure out, so I would keep the rod tip in the water and walk the fish back to the island the drag it up the rocks so I could beach it.
I thought five was the limit so I stopped there, and focused on trout, thinking 2 was the limit (where does my brain get these limits?) I went back to camp to get cooler and ice.
I found out rainbow limit was 10, due to low oxygen in water. Went back to get more rainbows, and caught a few w/kastmaster. I waded upstream and farther from the gravel bar and walleye were up in shallower water as shadow of setting sun came across the river. I caught a couple even bigger than I kept, but I didn&#8217;t know I could take one more home for limit of 6, and released them.
Went back to camp, read regs, saw that walleye limit was 6 daily, and decided to try to limit out before leaving camp by 3 on Sunday.
I arrived around 8 Sunday morning, basically did the same thing at the gravel bar, caught 4 more nice walleye, 17-19 inches, even caught one on the Gold Shiner Gizz3 deep diver, but the Gray Shad was the best producer. I caught more rainbows on the kastmaster. I waded upstream and into the flow and cast the Gizz3 and caught a couple small yearling stripers, and my first 2 brown trout, they were short of the 20 inch minimum, but fun to catch and release. 
I ran into a couple (I just can&#8217;t remember their names!) and Pam from Yakangler.com, so I have a new forum to post in! &#61514;
There is a yak striper tournament Oct 30 at Burnside, I&#8217;m going to have to consider it, even after pretty much skunking on stripers. A friend Joe Self cancelled a walleye trip on Lake Erie and came down and fished Indian Creek w/charter, live shad, they limited out Saturday and Sunday. 
I&#8217;m going back to Wolf Creek Dam, I found a honey hole for walleye and the Gizz3 is the go to crank bait! 
LMJ


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## BrianSipe17 (Aug 5, 2006)

Great read and great job. That sounds like it was a blast.


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## thebige22 (Oct 26, 2007)

Sounds like an awesome place for fishing. I have a friend that has a place at Dale Hollow which isn't too far away. Would a 14' canoe be adequate for the area below the dam since the water is down? Thanks
TheBigE22


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## LittleMiamiJeff (Oct 1, 2005)

thebige22 said:


> Sounds like an awesome place for fishing. I have a friend that has a place at Dale Hollow which isn't too far away. Would a 14' canoe be adequate for the area below the dam since the water is down? Thanks
> TheBigE22


They were launching bass boats below the dam, still enough to get around in, go for it.
LMJ


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## Mean Morone (Apr 12, 2004)

Nothing worse than blue bird high pressure skies. You did pretty well considering. Way to go. Nice job on the report.


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## cpr_mike1 (Feb 25, 2009)

Thats like my dream trip. Great read.


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## TPfisher (Aug 31, 2009)

Not many people know how good the Cumberland can be for Walleye. I have been fishing Lake Erie for almost 6 years now at least 3 times a month and the biggest walleye I've ever hooked was not from Erie, it was from Cumberland. was an early spring fish, full of eggs and easily over 9 lbs. I hooked her on my ultralight trout setup and she must've thought I was really ugly because when I bent over to try and get her in my net, she took off and broke my line, and my heart. There's some monster brown trout in the river too.


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## LittleMiamiJeff (Oct 1, 2005)

Yeah, I'm going back for sure!


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