Trophy Area

[Jhoff]

How is the trophy area fishing right now?  Is it wadeable?  Thank you for any replies.

[Phil Lilley]

It's ok.  Very little wading still.  Could be more early in the mornings with only 1 unit running.

[Haris122]

I went down there Sunday to Tuesday and did better than the prior two times, but still nothing amazing unfortunately. We got to fishing only around 8 at night on Sunday, and just picked the quickest place we could get to, which wound up being somewhere in-between the first two outlets (#'s 5 and 6 I believe). The water was slightly into the grass so it wasn't too high, but with the drastic 2 foot drop-offs a little out from the grass and it getting even deeper further out, it felt like you couldn't go wade out too far from shore. Since it was getting dark quick and we weren't thinking of fishing too late into the night, we went with stickbaits I already had tied on. Last time rainbow trout colored stickbaits worked the best, but just to diversify I started out with a smaller green/gold one on my rod too. My girlfriend caught a ~11" rainbow trout on the rainbow color one within the first 5 minutes of being there, as a matter of fact, right after I returned from the car to grab the headlamp, she brought it in. She kept getting bites on that for a while but all the rest got off. I alternated through a few stickbaits before trying out a brown trout color scheme one similar to hers, when I got my one and only bite that night. It wound up actually being a ~14" Spotted Bass. With the bite having slowed down noticeably by then, we called it a day and left around 10 after a few more casts.

The next day I tried doing a few too many things. First stopped for some jigs and such at Lilley's Landing while simultaneously seeing what they were biting on, then fished from the dock at Cooper creek access for hour and half without bites using several lures (too much vegetation seemed to be floating around constantly getting caught on line), rented a canoe at Table rock state park marina to experience fishing that lake too (which amounted to fruitlessly fishing 1 small cove there for hour and half in a rather uncomfortable canoe packed with too much stuff, hoping we don't tip over), and then stopping at a few lookouts on Table Rock before heading back to the trophy section. First I thought we try out fishing at the staircase downstream from the boat ramp, but the water would've been too high for my girlfriend to wade in, and not much room for bad steps for me either, so at about 7 in the evening, we went back to the spot we were at the night before. There the fishing was pretty steady on stickbaits again. We'd cast into the current, let it take it for a bit, and in the retrieve they would hit. I got 4 fish in that way, with some more bites and ones that got off, and my girlfriend got 2 and many more bites. This time they were mainly just Rainbows. Each time I thought I had bigger fish on than I actually did. They either knew how to use to current or were very strong fish, or both. But in the end 3 of the fish were pretty much stocker size, ranging between 11-13". Finally I switched it up and used a bigger jointed bass pro minnow, and got a bigger one to hit on the last cast. It fought good again, but only wound up being 15-16". That one came in on the last cast for that day.

Tuesday, we got some souvenirs for people, checked out the Table rock dam lookout, and scouted out the bank access on the opposite bank from the hatchery, then visited the hatchery, and then went back over to the opposite bank and fished from there, near this little island, starting around 3. The bite wasn't all that hot, and there was more vegetation floating about getting caught on stuff but still, the thing that worked was stickbaits. Water was still on the high end there too, but somewhat easier as far as wading cause there was an easier gradient, but getting down to it was a pain in the rear. I tried some jigheads again that look like eggs tied by a friend of mine, under a slip bobber, a few roostertails, a few marabou style jigs, but what worked was the usual, but not by much. Though to be honest, by then I was throwing it more than most anything. This time I only got 2 bass. Another decent 14" Spotted, and a 12" Smallmouth. I thought at one point I had a bite on a brown-orange marabou jig but in the end I never got any followup bites on it. The main reason why I thought I had a bite on the jig was cause I had what looked like a fish scale caught on it. Anyways, at 6 we hit the road, and that was that for this time.