November is a wildly good month for fishing on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. The cooling temperatures get the fish active before winter sets in. This can make for lots of fish catching action regardless of what species you like to catch.
As you saw in the Kentucky and Barkley Lakes Fishing Calendar, November is a great month for both crappie fishing and bass fishing and bluegill fishing is dynamite too as is white bass and yellow bass. The baitfish gang up in giant schools and will move from shallow backs of creeks to the deepest water heading out of the bays.
Deep water in the creeks and bays of the lakes are easy to spot by looking at the bank or looking at your maps on your electronics. But if the banks are steep with bigger ledge rock on them, that usually means that a deep creek channel runs up against that bank. Those creek channel swings can be great places to look for fish. Deep water holes coming out of pockets, in the mouths of bays can stack up with bait and that will bring in all species of game fish.
So let’s rundown some great places to look and techniques to try for November fishing on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes.
Bass Fishing in November
November can be a wild month of bass fishing. There are bass caught on topwater on the bank and there are bass caught deeper than 20 feet. As the water starts cooling in October the fish come shallow chasing bait to feed before the spawn and then as it continues to get colder the fish start working with the bait out to deeper water.
The baitfish will congregate in the fall and get into deep pockets of waters in the bays and major creek channel arms of the lakes. And you can target bass in these deep pockets as the month progresses.
Because of that, there can be a number of patterns that are all good and at opposite ends of the spectrum. You can be catching them on a 1/4 ounce lipless crankbait and topwater in one area and be catching them in 25 feet of water on a blade bait in another area. And baits like swimbaits, Alabama rigs and jerkbaits can be good in all of the above.
I focus a lot on channel swing banks. A channel swing bank is simply where deeper creek channels turn and run along the bank for a stretch and then turn out and cross the bay or arm. You can look at a lake map and see where the creek channel swings up against and then away from a bank. That’s an easy place that bait will congregate in big schools and game fish will follow.
I recommend lipless crankbaits, blade baits, small swimbaits, jerkbaits and Alabama rigs and of course topwaters if you can find active fish shallow. You will catch smallmouths and largemouths both this time of year in the same areas.
Crappie Fishing in November
This is one of my very favorite months for crappie fishing. The fish group up in big groups in small areas and are often relating to baitfish. You can find them feeding actively getting ready for winter to settle in and slow things down. So you can capitalize on their active feeding by fishing mid-depth brush, shaded banks, channel swing banks, stumps on humps and find fish roaming over deeper water following schools of bait.
The black crappie get very baitfish and shade oriented in the fall. They will come to brush, they will come to brush on shaded areas, they will follow big schools of bait around and herd them much like bass and white bass do. This is one of the times of the year you can find large schools of black crappie chasing baitfish in the bays. This is a great time to cast a jig over brush and to also vertical jig over brush piles.
I’m a fan of Crappie Magnets on Eye Hole Jigs where I can add a Slab Bite or scent pellet into the jighead and have a compact presentation I can cast or dip. I will also upsize this time of year and use bigger baits like a Hammer or a Slab Magnet. I also like Bobby Garland Baby Shads as well as Z-Man Micro Goats and ShadFryZ. A 1/16-ounce jighead is good for most applications and you can go up to 1/8 ounce on a bigger profile bait vertical jigging. But most of the time a 1/16 ounce jig on 4-pound co-polymer line is hard to beat as well as 10-pound braid and a fluoro leader.
Other Good Fishing in November
White bass, yellow bass and even stripers school up well in November and just about anything you throw for bass or crappie is likely to tempt a white bass or yellow bass. Stripers will often fall for swimbaits, Alabama Rigs, and sometimes a jerkbait and a blade bait. Look for groups of bait and schools of fish around them.
Yellow bass are usually thick on deep brush piles this time of year as are giant bluegills. Right now bluegills are thick on brush piles in 10-14 feet of water and can be caught easily with small jigs like Trout Magnets or small spider bugs. I will often put two jigs on a line or a jig and a couple bb split shot to get the baits down to the cover quick. I love to fish them on ultralight rods with 2-pound line. It’s deadly on big gills and the occasional big red ear suspending on brush.