I love late spring/early summer fishing on Lake Cumberland in southern Kentucky. It’s the time of year when bass and crappie, along with quite a few other fish, start to really get active. It’s just fun to throw a line in the water when it’s anybody’s guess what might end up on the other end of the line.
Not long ago, on a particularly nice day in May, I set out from the dock at Fishing Creek to one of my favorite spots on the lake. I’d been hearing from some friends that large and smallmouth bass had been active around creek entrances, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fishing report confirmed what had been passed around by word of mouth.
I was especially excited to test out some of my brand-new Yellow Bird lures a friend of mine told me about. I just feel it adds to the excitement when a new lure is put into use. I started off with the Lemon Drop short bill crank bait, just a beautiful multi-colored lure that, I suppose, could be interpreted as a small sunfish by Mr. Bass. On my third cast, I hooked a nice two pound smallmouth that gave my relatively light tackle a nice workout. I actually enjoy smallmouth fishing a little more than its bigmouth cousin because the smallmouth really puts up a scrap, especially on lighter tackle. Unless I happen to hook into a monster bigmouth, I should be able to handle them as well.
After landing a couple more smallmouth, that were slightly smaller, the morning fog started lifting and the sun came out, and the biting activity stopped. I switched over to a darker version of the same size crank, the short bill Blue Steel, with its dark blue back and light belly, this bait looks like a lot of different fish in the just past fingerling stage. After a few casts, I got into a nice largemouth of about two and a half pounds that had almost as much fight as the earlier smallmouth.
As I fished on into the day, I mostly alternated between the Lemon Drop and the Blue Steel, depending on the condition of the light. I pulled in several more bass, of the large and smallmouth variety, and even pulled in a couple of nice sized crappie as I floated by a rocky point.
I was more that happy on my first outing using Yellow Bird products, and it won’t be the last time they’re put into use. I think I’ll invest in a some more lures in the Yellow Bird lineup to see how well they work on Lake Cumberland.
Yellow Bird Products
1803 Holian Drive
Spring Grove, IL 60081
815-469-9686
