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Bull Shoals Half of my Trade a Trip 5/8 5/9 5/10

I reached out on the Bass Cat Owners Forum looking for someone to trade a trip on Bull Shoals for a trip down to Venice, La. I was lucky enough to find someone willing to take a chance on me. I don’t post nearly as much over there as I do on Ozark Anglers. 

My new friend Jim Cazes is another LSU alum. Retired after 40 years in sales. Has a Bass Cat Puma which he was able to leave at home for this trip. He hadn’t caught many smallmouth bass and wanted to visit Bull Shoals and the BassCat factory.

5/8 We launched out of Lead Hill. We ran down lake a ways and found some bushes in 5-9 foot of water with some wind on them and quickly caught a few bass. We relocated to a finger off a creek and caught more bass in bushes on blades. I found a flatter bank and introduced him to Ned rigs . He picked it up pretty quickly, but we were catching LMB and Spots. I had to move us to a smaller Hollow off the main lake to put him on some smallies. Honestly, I think he enjoyed the Mega Bluegill he caught as much as the smallies, but he hadn’t caught a decent smallie yet. 

5/9 We launched into Jimmy Creek. Rainy and windy. We caught fish, but the quality smallies continued to evade us. It bluebirded off on us and we Made a run to the Oakland area. Got a bass in bushes and the a few more on the Ned. I lost a BIG smallie on the Ned. We took a break for lunch and a factory tour.

After lunch and the factory tour, we headed back to Leadhill. More clouds had moved in and it turned out to be a Good move. We caught some quality fish on points in a secondary cove on Ned rigs. I think he was really surprised how hard a 3 lb smallie could pull. He set and reset his PB smallie several times. We finished up the day by both catching a nice smallie on a main lake point late in the day. 

5/10 We were on the way to the lake when he got a phone call about complications from home and he decided to cut for home. I went fishing anyway. More spinnerbait fish. More Sluggo fish. More Ned rig fish. More swim bait fish. I quit early. I was a little tired.

water is 69 to 74 degrees. Water color varies from area to area, but it pretty good. Lake level is still slowly going up. I think we were over 671 today. I’m really hoping for it to creast REALLY soon. CLOUDS AND WIND ARE YOUR FRIENDS.

Looking forward to my trip to Venice.

 

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I’m a big fan of having some extra water in the lake to improve the spawn, but Gee Whiz this starting to get silly. The lake continues to rise day after day and they aren’t attempting to watch water out with water coming in. 

My ideal level would be 663 or so because that puts water in the bushes, but most ramps are still viable at that point. If the COE wants to keep the water > 664 every Spring, maybe they should develope a few more ramps AND parking up and down the lake that are useable up to say 680. It’s a beautiful lake that still fishes well at higher levels, but it stinks when accessing the lake becomes really difficult because of lake of available boat launches.

another day another 1/4 foot higher. It was more like another 1/2 foot higher until the last couple of days. Lots and lots of floating wood and other garbage. Watch out for logs and get some of the trash out of the water if you can. I tried to catch a tricycle that I could see on bottom in 6 foot of water, but I could not get anything to stick a hook in the wheels were down in brush.

rant over. Off to do yard work.

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We need to get a gang together and tote yaks south. Redfish are pretty easy to catch if you can get to them. We would have to work a little more in yaks, but that’s no big deal. 

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Spending a little of that hydroelectric money on high water lake access would surely help. I'd even be for a program that shares some of that revenue with the resort operators on the lake during flood years, maybe in the form of offsetting their lease payments. It's got to be hard to run a viable tourist biz during a flood...

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Just wanted to add that the fishing has been fabulous...stayed at sisters creek resort and didn't have to go far to find fish as sisters creek was full of them....caught multiple smallmouth all in the 2lb range.  I kept the boat in 20 - 25ft of water and was nailing them on cranks and swimbaits.  Guess we were catching spawning fish because they still had fat bellies and red tails.  Was catching smaillies on top water in the morning in Howard creek but guessing they already spawned as bellies were not fat.....did nail a big walleye on the crank in sisters creek that would have went 8 - 10lbs but net was to small and my buddy let her jump out.  It's just a fish story now, but all fish were smallmouth with one or two largemouth mixed in.  Smallie were have way back in the coves or cuts of the creek arms  and evening bite was great with cranks up to last light 

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This document explains why the USACE is holding water right now. The water level at Newport needs to go down so they can release water.

In conversations with the USACE, they told us they are going to build a high water ramp near the dam at some point in the near future. We hope they will make it so it can be used at all levels and not just high water. We also want to build a weigh-in facility at some point in that area and that would be a great combination.

http://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/docs/White_River_Master_Manual.pdf

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