Fishing Cave Run Lake

Editor’s Note: This column first appeared in The Greater Ashland Beacon on July 13, 2011 and is being republished here with permission.

By Chris Erwin

It has been my pleasure to fish Cave Run Lake since its first day of being available to the public. I have spent many days nestled in the hidden coves watching nature come alive in front of me while I engaged in my favorite pass time…fishing.

This year has been different. Cave Run flooded early and often as the water never once had a chance to fall to levels that, as a fisherman, I felt the least bit good about. Yet some anglers, and I include myself in their numbers, did what we had to do to get a boat out on this flooded lake.

According to the Morehead News, on April 29^th at 5 p.m. Cave Run set a new flood stage record, reaching 757 feet above sea level or in laymen terms, 30 feet above summer pool, breaking the old record set in 1978 of 755.05 feet above sea level.

This was somewhat shocking to many of us that watch this lake regularly, but what was even more astounding was the fact that while other local lakes fell Cave Run kept getting pelted with severe rain.  On June 1st Cave Run was still 17 feet over summer pool and falling .04 feet a day.

By the end of June, the Cave had finally returned to normal. By Since then the fishing has been red hot.

Normally, July is hot and slow when it comes to fishing. Water temperature reaches into the 80 plus range and the dog days of summer grind out slow, but this year the bass fishing has been as good as it gets.

On the July 3, I took my grandson Tyler fishing on the lake. We didn’t really know what to expect but we started trying to put some kind of pattern together that would put a few fish in the boat.

Piece by piece, the parts of the puzzle fell together and the fishing got better and better.  By the end of the day we had boated 60 bass! I might note here, that I don’t keep bass, I only count them and take their picture before returning them to the water. However, the fish I do keep to eat -crappie – were also taking our offering and we kept enough of them to have a tasty fish fry.

To help you have your own a successful trip on Cave Run, I’m going to tell you how and with what we caught them. We used a white two and a half inch Bandit medium running crank-bait with red eyes and a blue line down the middle of its back on 14 pound test line. The water was only slightly stained with visibility of about 4feet. The fish were right on the bank in areas where old road beds and points dropped off into deeper water. The crappie hit on ultra-light tackle using a 1/8 oz. jig dressed with one and a half inch chartreuse and white twister tails around flats in brush.

As most lakes are grinding down for the hot days of summer you might just get the fish of your life if you’re brave enough to face the heat on Cave Run Lake.

Cave Run is located just outside of Morehead. Travel west from Ashland, or east from Lexington, on I-64 (approx. 57 miles east of Lexington) to Exit 133 – Sharkey/Farmers. Turn on to Rt. 801 toward Farmers and go on to junction with US 60. Turn right on Rt. 60 and then left back on to Rt. 801. Travel for about 2 miles. Scott Creek Marina and the Twin Knobs Launch Ramp will be on the right side of the road across from Mrs. Hook’s Boat Storage.

Till next time,

Good Fishing!