By Chris Erwin
I have one more weekend on Cave Run Lake before I plan to cover the Military Appreciation Tournament, which is the weekend before Poage Landing Days.
This past week, I took an old friend I met back in junior high school to the lake with me. As many of you know, I have been deeply involved in music most of my life, and it started in junior high school.
I was in a four-piece band called the Midnight Callers and there was another band that started at the same time called the Outcast. I think it’s safe to say the Outcast is a band many in the area remember, its singer, Ralph Morman, went on to play with legendary greats like Joe Perry.
Well, the lead guitar player for that budding band was a guy by the name of Kenny Edmonds. We have remained friends all these years and while Kenny is still active in playing music, he now works a day job for the Boyd County school system.
We decided to do a little catch up on the many memories of the distant past and hit the water about 5 p.m. to catch the best of the evening fishing. On our trip last weekend, the question we had to answer was whether the bass were still active on the crankbait pattern I had been fishing for the last few weeks.
Kenny is just beginning to get involved in fishing, as he has spent much of his life on stage making music with some of the great musicians in the Tri-state, leaving little time to get out on the water. It didn’t take long though for Kenny to get right into the swing of things as we plugged away while the sun started slipping down behind the mountains bordering the lake.
It wouldn’t take long before Kenny would catch the first fish: a slab crappie. As he retrieved his lure past the treetops the fish decided to eat his crankbait.
The lake was getting slick, and the bass were hitting with some regularly. I put the bait two inches from the bank, and as I did a little stop and go retrieve action a nice bass hit my lure like it was the last bit of food left in the lake.
Our time on the lake was not only fun, but it brought so many memories back to life it will be a day I will remember for the rest of my life. Names like Billy Hughes, Bobby Oliver, the Collinsworth brothers… The stream of people we brought to life that day is what a day on the lake is all about.
While we took a trip to the past, the fishing didn’t let us down. We caught about 10 bass that evening. Cave Run Lake is a beautiful thing to be on right now. The water is as blue-green as a post card picture and the wild game is teaming around the lake. The lack of rain these last few weeks has drawn many critters to the water’s edge.
We were casting a medium-running Bandit bone-colored crankbait on 10 to 14 lb. test line. Most of the bass came from laydown trees near deep-water banks. Our best success was fishing the outside bends of the Licking River. These were areas where the channel sweeps near the bank. We didn’t catch as many crappies on that trip as I have been catching; however, the pattern continued to hold.
I have spent many days on the water fishing tournaments, and guiding, but it’s hard to beat just being out there with a friend and having a good time talking about all the times we could still remember. Thanks Kenny, it was fun to have you along on the 4th of five weekends. I plan to fish again before taking a break.
Chris Erwin is the Author of Camping Kentucky, founder and publisher of Kentucky Angling News an on-line magazine available at www.kentuckyangling.com/magazine Chris can be reached by email chris@ashlandbeacon.com
Be the first to comment