Steve McBasser

Paul and I put in at Big Bay again and fished for 2 or 3 hours in Big Creek. I caught a three pound largemouth and a couple of dinks all morning. After lunch we ran to the same spot Gary, Kirby, and I caught them last week. Again they ate that little custom painted wiggle wart like it was "fish candy".......had a blast..

Awesome Bill. Great report and great pics. Table Rock bass love the snotty weather for some reason. I know you guys must have had a ball. Now for a HOT bath.....

Thursday 3/17 Gary, Kirby and I finally got back to Table Rock. We had been hearing such great reports we couldn't wait to get there. The water temp at Big Bay when we launched was under 50*. That was a disappointment after hearing all the reports of 60* +. The bite was pretty tough starting out but as the day warmed up so did the water temp and the fishin'. We wound up with 6 or 8 keepers and a pretty good handful of dinks. We had a blast.....

Awesome....Thanks for sharing...

Back in the day I used to fish at night in March. I'd throw a big black CC Spinner with a black #11 Uncle Josh pork frog on it. Used to get some absolutely bone jarring strikes on that thing. Definitely a big fish bait. Go for it and let us know how you do.

Mmmm...There's some good eatin' there. Good catch!

Nice!!

Dang them brown fish are special......Nice catch!!

Well done.....Hope you guys stay buddies forever and fish a million times together. Sure wish I had done more of that....

Dang guys.....you're killin' me. I still have 11 more days of work before I get a day off to go. Can't wait!!!

Good job...good fish...and good report. It will be late next week before I can go again. You really got my fishin' fever up now!!!

Thank you sir....You too.

We caught the Kentuckies that were schooling in the old creek channels. Bluff banks with timber, near or directly in the deepest channel usually hold the most fish. The ones we caught were suspended in the tree tops about 32-35 feet deep. Our best bite was in the "clearer" water closer to Campbell Point. We really like to fish the "gut" of Big Creek, and the mouths of all the coves, but its just too dirty right now....

Thanks guys....We're having to work pretty hard to get bit right now but I think it is shaping up to be a great spring fishing season. Catching fish in the winter time is always a special bonus as far as I'm concerned. These milder days mixed in with the regular winter weather is just a gift from above as far as I'm concerned. I've spent many a winter snuggled up next to the wife in front of the fire 'cause it we just too cold and harsh to even think about fishin'. In my younger days I used to carry sand and ashes in the back of the van to throw out on over the ramp so I could get the boat in and out of the water if the ramp was still covered with snow or ice. I really don't like to work at it that hard any more. I guess I have mellowed a little with age. But....with afternoon temps in the 70's, you can bet we're gonna try to go. Hope ya'll are getting to go some too.

Paul and I fished the Big Creek and Campbell Point areas on Monday 2/29. What a great way to spend "leap day". Launched the Ranger from the Big Bay ramp at 8:53am. Water temp was 44.6* and air temp was 39*. It is still very stained, even muddy, but still much improved compared to the last couple of trips. It was dead calm when we started but the wind picked up steadily until about 4:30pm then just died completely, and so did the fish bite. I threw the Alabama Rig again but never got bit on it. My best two fish were a 4lb and 6lb large mouth. Both were caught on that crawdad colored crank bait I threw a couple weeks ago fishing with Gary. I also caught a handful of chunky kentuckies on that little white jigging spoon I get from Fin & Feather.

Try some up the dirtier water down lake toward Shell Knob. I'm getting bit a little bit better up there....

I went fishin' yesterday with my buddy Gary. We put in at Big M at about 9am. Water temperature was right at 44*. We had clear to partly cloudy skies and it was dead calm. The water color was only very slightly stained and there was a least a 4-5' visibility. We ran down to Roaring River first where we saw lots of bird activity and tons of fish on the graph. We threw everything we had at them trying to get them to bite but they would not cooperate. We then ran down to Eagle Rock closer to the Hwy 86 bridge...still no takers. Came back up to Roaring river again where we saw so many fish on the graph and picked up 1 little Kentucky on an A-rig. Fished several points between there and the Big M marina with no luck. At noon we decided to run back over to Big Creek. We loaded the boat and hauled it over to the Big Bay ramp. It was still very muddy, but not as bad as it was 2 weeks ago. By now the wind had really picked up. We fished some of the same banks Paul and I fished the last week in January and started picking up a few. Gary skunked out but I managed to catch 4 or 5 nice keepers and a couple more dinks. Most came on the Alabama Rig and just a couple on a deep crawdad crankbait.

Great report lymorej....thanks for posting. Great pics too. Gary and I are planning to go down to Shell Knob on Thursday 2/18. I'll let ya'll know how we do.

Thanks Bill.....I appreciate the nod. I'm still a workin' man and a non-boater at this point. I can't pick and choose when or where. I have to go when I get a day off and fish where my buddies want to fish. Sometimes you have to bare down and scrounge out the bites where you can. And.......its a ball tryin' to figure it out. I always appreciate your reports too......keep 'em coming.

I've been fishing Big Bay regularly for over 40 years. It is the muddiest I have ever seen it and its just hanging right there and not moving. A buddy and I fished it a couple of weeks ago after driving around for 3 hours looking for clearer water to fish. After giving up and deciding to go ahead and fish the mud, we put on the brightest colored lures we could find and immediately started picking up fish. We caught all of them in 6-12' of water. I threw a crank bait and a hula grub in bright candy apple green. The mud had me psyched out at first. I had no confidence the fish could even see the bait to pick it up. But after catching a few, I realized they were there, in the mud, and they were chewing pretty good. Fish slow and bites will come.

The men in my Sunday School class camp out together twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. Thursday 10/8 was HOT! and sunny and the bite was tough. We still caught fish of course but we had to work at it. Thursday night that cold front went through and changed everything for a few hours. We got a steady rain through most of the night and Friday remained cloudy and cool with a real nice 20mph northwest wind. The fish bit good all day. We wound up having a fish fry Friday evening. Then Saturday was HOT! again and the bite was tough. We used to only go up on a Saturday, but now we go Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Surely one of those days we can get a decent bite going. Anyway....we had a ball. Everybody caught and ate fish. We had bass, walleye, and crappie. Next year we are going to wait until later in the month. Maybe even early November like we did last year. The main objective was to have fun and get to know each other. Mission accomplished......

That's how it is when you chase schooling fish. Its feast or famine. Its always fun while it last though....

There is a really great story behind that old boat. Andy bought it about 15 years ago. He had it for just a short time when he and his 2 brothers took it up to Stockton Lake. You know how fierce Stockton can get sometimes. It had a 115hp Johnson on it at the time and it ran very well. Anyway, long story short, while coming across the big water with the wind howling and the waves rolling, they broke the boat in half over a big wave and barely made it to shore before it sank. Somehow they got it back on the trailer and found about a 36" crack all the way through the to the bilge straight across the bottom of the boat. When he bought it, he had no way of knowing it was completely water logged and all the wood supports were gone. He spent about 3 or 4 months digging every ounce of rotted wood out of it and completely glassed in new stringers, and wood supports. I would guarantee that its better now than it was when it was brand new. He took the rub rail off and all 10,000 screws and rivets and separated the top cap half from the hull. Sanded everything down to bare fiberglass and rebonded it all back together with that super thick fiber glass mat. It was a work of art when he got done with it. He added about a hundred and fifty pounds to it in wood, fiber glass mat and resin but it is a real beast now. I wouldn't be afraid to take it anywhere.........and now we have a running motor on it again..

My buddy Andy and I have been working on an old '72 Johnson 65hp for the last several months. His brother found it for $35 in an estate sale or something and the guy said it had locked up 40 years ago. We tore into it an found that the bottom piston had seized to the cylinder wall and the rod had windowed the block. We ordered a used short block on Ebay and swapped all the externals off of the old one and mounted it on the midsection. After several hours of tweaking and tuning we took it to Aunts Creek and actually got it to run down the lake several times. We made about 20 casts and caught one fish apiece. He caught a nice brownie and I caught a little chunky Kentucky. Talked to a couple of guys at the ramp and they said they had killed 'em all day on square bills but they were all dinks......(click on the video link to watch it run) Andy's_65_running.mp4

Guys.....I'm planning to fish Table Rock Thursday. Did anybody go the last day or two? I haven't been to the 'Rock for about a month. Just wondering what kind of bite to expect.....