Thread: Kentucky and Barkley Lakes Update

Here at Kentucky and Barkley we have finished compiling the results of our fall crappie trapnetting. The results are very encouraging. In Kentucky Lake the 2021 and 2022 year classes for crappie are basically equal to the long term average going back to 1985. Average doesn't sound great, but because crappie recruitment is so inconsistent this actually places them in the top ten out of the 37 years they have been evaluated. Its too soon to say if that will lead to good fishing as we don't yet know how many of the 2022 year class will survive the winter, but hopefully we will see good numbers of age 1 fish in the fall of 2023.
Lake Barkley was similar, although the 2021 year class of white crappie is among the highest we've ever seen. White crappie in lake Barkley have really good growth and most of that year class should be over the 10 inch mark by fall of 2023, (assuming we have a good shad spawn). Some of that year class will be over 10 by this spring, but I would expect a lot of short fish so please practice some restraint with those illegal 9 inch fish.
Crappie in both lakes are in really good condition (as evidenced by high weights relative to their lengths). This is likely due to the good shad spawns we've had over the past 2 years.

All in all, I was very pleased with the recent results and hope that leads to some good fishing. Kentucky lake should have a near even mix of white and black crappie, while lake barkley will have mostly white crappie. If I were picking which lake will fish best, I would give a slight edge to kentucky during the spring and would expect Barkley to fish much better in the fall.
I know this was brief, but let me know if you have questions.

-Adam

Thanks for sharing this with us.