mixermarkb

"Do bass have trouble spawning in table rock? Do they need supplemental stocking?" It all depends on the year, but yes sometimes they do. All of the white river lakes are managed for flood control only, and if that means the lake jumps up at spawning time and leaves nests too deep, or leaves them on the bank after a fast drawdown, so be it. The spawn and fry survival rates vary often from year to year. Ad that to the largemouth bass virus of a few years ago, and its pretty easy to see why folks get upset about the topic of keeping bass.

What boat were you in wrench? I was in a light gold/black champion with a 225 opti The bite was on. I was moving that crank pretty fast, also caught a couple on a 5.8" keitech with a 3/4oz head, using the swimmer as a follow up to the crank. I had a c-rig laying on the deck but I never picked it up.

Wrench, I'm sure they were relating to brush piles on the points, but since I'm a LOZ newbie, I didn't have specific brush piles in mind. I also didn't want to run the boat over the 15-20' range I was fishing looking, so I just tried to do my best to cover water once I saw bait on the electronics

Fished 2 PM to 8 PM. 10 LMB, to the boat, seven keepers, two in the 4 pound class, lost one a size class bigger at the boat, trying to get the net unstrapped. Rookie mistake. Grr. Whoever says bass fishing isn't a physical sport has never thrown a 1 ounce deep diving crank bait all day while running the trolling motor in Lake of the Ozarks boat traffic. My arm feels like it's gonna fall off!! Water temps 80-82, main lake points, water stained but not what I would call muddy.

Truthfully I just was getting tired of trying to free hung up Ned rigs so I tied on a Fin for the boy and a spook for me. They liked the spook a lot better, but he still caught 3 keeper size bass, and had a blast

I have had decent luck with it when the lake was up, but I really hit the right place at the right time on this trip-

Hardhead- Give a spook a try for sure. Don't get too hung up on casting at the bank though- once I got dialed in, I was doing much better fishing parallel to the bank with the boat in about 15 feet of water. On the flat points I was fishing, that still put us a good bit off the bank. I wouldn't just make it a dusk thing either- with any cloud cover at all fish might just come up and whack it, if indeed they are holding up in the flooded cover and what I had happen wasn't just a fluke-

Thanks for the info Wrench-

Here are some pics- Plus I'd like to give a special shout out to Phil Lilley for having his guys dig around and find me a used trolling motor in their storage unit, and selling it to me at a VERY reasonable price. I had two boats down, with my business partner and his dad fishing out of one, and me and my son fishing out of the other. The troller on our boat shot craps midmorning on Tuesday. Having bought a used troller off of Phil from the classifieds here a while back, and being very happy with the deal, I sent him a message here on the OAF, and I was back on the water a couple hours later. Many thanks!

Hey Guys- I was down at Branson last week, fished Table Rock Tuesday, powersite dam looking for big stripers Tuesday night, Table Rock Wednesday morning, and dropped in at Buck Creek on Bull Wednesday afternoon. We caught fish on topwater and grubs around the dam area at the rock both days. Nothing awesome, but 12-15 each. Long runout points- fishing for suspended fish. We had a giant swing and a miss throwing big swim baits for the stripers- which wasn't a surprise because that was sort of a Hail Mary anyway- Wednesday Eve, I hit one of the best topwater bites I've had in years on Bull. Ham is right, there are Smallies to be caught on the Ned/grub/tube out on the gravel points in 20-40ish, but the topwater deal I found was much shallower. Still very flat main lake points, but I found solid keepers in bushes 12-18 feet deep. I saw almost no topwater activity, but running a walking bait over the top of those bushes put maybe 20 keepers in the boat in the last hour or so of daylight. They weren't blowing up and missing like the fish on TR, lots of these fish had the front treble in their lips and the back treble somewhere down in their mouth. I don't know if it's a repeatable pattern, or if I was just fishing for fish turned on by tropical low pressure, but it sure was fun- There were some floaters in the lake, but as long as you kept an eye out, it was plenty safe to run.

So what is the water color like today around the gravois/dam? I'm thinking about heading down tomorrow for a few hours-

Please post what you find out Ham, I'm going to be down early next week. We are probably staying at my friends house in Branson, so tucker hollow may be the deal if we decide Bull Shoals over Table Rock-

Theodosia Marina Resort is nice, as well as Turkey Creek Ranch

I'm just gonna point out that Ham was sure online early this morning... Don't catch em all guys, I am working every day for the next couple weeks and can't get down!

It's all gonna end up in Bull sooner or later. I'm still holding to my bet of better than 680 on Bull that I made when it first started coming up a couple months ago.

Spring Creek ramp is usable, no problems. The new ramp at Buck Creek is usable, but a pain in the butt due to the big rockpiles the corps put on either side of it that are now flooded and about 1' deep. The older ramp at buck creek is under water, but the road to it works just fine, only no courtesy dock there.

I think the big lesson is don't let fuel sit without being burned, ethanol or not. My like Wrench, my old mechanic swore by 87 octane in my old EFI, no additives needed. He also recommended nothing but gas in my optimax. Don Weed on the BBC forum recommends additives, and he's much respected. I think if you fish often, you can save your money on the snake oil. If you are gonna let your boat sit weeks at a time, ad whatever you like, it can't hurt, and any time you can buy gas without corn added, it can only help. I myself burn 87 with no additives except sta-bil if I have to leave some sit, and try and not let it sit too long in the tank. I got 17 years out of a 225EFI, so it couldn't have hurt it too bad.

I'll be back down on Bull Shoals soon, maybe as early as Monday. LOZ is over an an hour closer, and sometimes it's just easier to head there. I want to see some brown fish blow up on a topwater before it gets summertime though...

I just fished the spook right through it, ripped it hard when it fouled to try and clear it. I did get bit doing that, but I was wishing for a pack of horny toads to try on top of the sloppy crap.

The pollen is a pain, but I'll take dealing with it and catching fish. If I get to come down early next week I'm going to try throwing a zoom horny toad up on the pollen where it's blown into mats and dragging it off.

Lol, I don't BS guys. I fished several creeks in the Gravois arm, and caught fish pretty much everywhere I went. I would say you could see bottom in at least 6, maybe as many as 10 in places.

Ham, I'm sure it's probably on right now. Bull was too far, so I drug the red champ out to LOZ today. I fished 9ish to 6ish, and caught the snot out of them on top. Get out there when you can!

Got on the water a little after 9 at Coffman, fished til 6pm, and never left the gravois arm. Breezy, with clouds and the threat of rain that never really happened in any real way. Fish were shallow, biting topwater walking baits in very clear water. I kind of thought I was back on Bull Shoals at times. Lots of fish on beds. Flat gravel banks were the key, all day bite. I'm not sure how many I caught. Lots. No scales with me, but best 5 were 20", a matched pair of 18", and a matched pair of 16". I had a few things tied on, but they kept hitting the topwater so I kept throwing it. I am officially worn out. Bass thumb and sore arm. Get out there while you can guys, it's on.

He loaned one to his Dad..

I liked carbon pro a lot, but invisix is too stretchy for me. I know I'm almost as much of a broken record as Ham with his Nano, but Sunline Sniper kills on spinning tackle. Lasts really well, very durable and abrasion resistant, and handles like a dream on spinning tackle. But then again, I actually like nano for my crappie rig and on the guest spinning reels. It casts well enough to be a bit of a skills equalizer, and has even less twist than mono. For folks who don't fish much, it's pain free.