Larry Self.

JULY
Kentucky Lake
Catfish
For those who thought catfishing was also a process of sitting and waiting on one to come by, forget it. When it turns July hot at Kentucky Lake, the channel cats move along the river channel where you can find them and find them in a big way.

This is far from slow fishing and you catch plenty of them along with the big ones to boot. With sweat running in your eyes during the hot mid-day temperatures, you can put as many as 40 or more channel catfish in your boat from the quality eating size all the way up to 30-pounders and bigger.

Cut bait will work here like other lakes, but the best catfish action seems to come on rigs set up with a heavy split-shot and a small bait hook with a dead tuffie minnow onboard. And if you thought catfishing was lazy, you’ve never hung into a 20-pound-plus bull of a cat that simply doesn’t want to be in the boat with you.

AUGUST
Center Hill Lake
Catfish
Catfish have been caught and filleted in a zillion ways since anglers began prizing them centuries back. From the now modern stink baits to limblines and rod and reels to trotlines, there’s definitely a variety of ways to skin a cat and Center Hill Lake is a good starting point with the dog days of summer on us.

For Center Hill catfish in August, it’s time to wait for the sun to go down. If you haven’t tried turning nocturnal for cats, you need to make the move. Jugging for catfish is a basic technique that utilizes anything from old milk jugs to other watertight bottles to target catfish at select depths all night long. You can also forgo the old jug method and use swimming noodles like those found at pools all across the country.

The rig is a simple setup designed to make jugging easier. Cut a piece of 12-inch foam noodle from the standard section and rig it with an 18-inch piece of coat hanger wire to set the trap. The noodle is the flotation portion of the rig and the wire acts as the foundation for the hook and line.

SEPTEMBER
Old Hickory Lake
Stripers
This lake offers some of the best topwater striper opportunities in the state. And then there’s the potential of boating a “real nice striped bass.” Real nice to the tune of 40 pounds or better. A 40-pound fall rockfish is the same fish in the spring that weighed 55 pounds. They’re just more slender and longer appearing without the big springtime girth they carry.

Striped bass tend to eat smaller baits in the fall. Their outlook on survival differs slightly, and they’re not as apt to hit a big bait like a 15-inch skipjack or even rainbow trout. The fall is when the gizzard shad steps into the spotlight on Old Hickory for foraging stripers.

A striper is a different animal in the fall compared with the spring. In the spring, they’re mad and hungry and hit vigorously. That means you usually get one shot at hooking them and then they’re gone. Fall fishing may not have the impact strike of the spring, but it offers more opportunities for hooking up. They almost play with the bait. They’ll smack it around, knock it sideways, and then come back a few minutes later. That leads to two or three chances of hooking him when he hits the bait. Stripers will even exhibit the same behavior of leaving and then returning to take a fall topwater bait.

It’s nothing for a striper to come up to take a dangling shad in even a 20-foot-deep hole in the headwaters of the lake. They use areas with bars as ambush points -- that’s the nature of the beast. That nature makes breaks, bars and humps key structure along the Cumberland River that feeds Old Hickory.