Guides / Fish
Fish
What each species does through the year, where it holds in a creek, a river or a reservoir, and what catches it.
Fish
11 pagesSmallmouth bass
A moving-water fish first. This page covers how to tell a smallmouth from a spotted or largemouth bass, where they sit in a riffle-run-pool creek through the seasons, and how to rig for them from the bank, a boat or a kayak.
Largemouth bass
The cover fish. This page covers how to tell a largemouth from a spotted or smallmouth bass, where they sit in a flood-control reservoir through the seasons and the fall drawdown, and how to rig for wood, grass, docks and riprap from the bank, a boat or a kayak.
Spotted bass
The regulation calls it the Kentucky bass, the species page calls it the spotted bass, and it is the same fish: no size limit, six a day in the black bass total. This is what KDFWR's species pages, its regulation and its own columns say about telling it apart, finding it and catching it.
Muskellunge
Four Kentucky lakes carry a 40-inch minimum, more than a dozen rivers and creeks get hatchery fish, and one lake is the reason most people say "muskie" here at all. This is what KDFWR's own surveys, stocking tables and regulations say about all of them, Cave Run first.
Rainbow trout
Almost every rainbow trout in Kentucky arrived on a truck from one hatchery below Wolf Creek Dam. That makes this a fishery of rules, schedules and water temperature more than of spawning runs, and this is what KDFWR's regulation, hatchery tables, forecast and biologists say about it.
Crappie
Twenty a day statewide with no size limit, except on the fourteen lakes where the rule is different, and the lakes where it is different are the ones most people fish. This is what KDFWR's own regulations, forecast, trap nets and creel clerks say about Kentucky's crappie, water by water.
Bluegill
No daily limit statewide, twenty a day on redear, fifteen on the neighborhood lakes. KDFWR's forecast, sampling reports and columns say a good deal about where the bigger sunfish are and when they come shallow. This is what the agency's own pages say, water by water.
Channel catfish
No daily limit and no size limit statewide, except one fish a day 28 inches or longer, and except the lakes where the rule is different. This is what KDFWR's regulations, forecast, stocking tables and own columns say about Kentucky's most widespread catfish, water by water.
White bass
Fifteen a day, shared with the hybrids, and only five of them over 15 inches. The run up the headwater rivers in March and April is the fishing KDFWR writes about nearly every spring; the summer jumps on the big lakes are the other half of the year. This is what KDFWR's regulation, forecast, nets and creel clerks say about them.
Walleye and sauger
Six a day and 14 inches, walleye, sauger and saugeye counted together, except on Dale Hollow and on the rivers where KDFWR is bringing back its native walleye, where the rule is two fish and a slot. This is what KDFWR's regulation, forecast, gill nets and hatchery tables say about all three.
Striped bass and hybrids
KDFWR says Kentucky's striped bass are maintained only by stocking, and its hatchery put out more than a million hybrids in 2025 alone. The rules change with the fish: a hybrid goes in the white bass count, a striper does not, and Lake Cumberland's stripers have a rule of their own. This is what KDFWR's regulation, hatchery tables, forecast and survey nets say about both.
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