powerdive

Oh, yeah, good point, Marty. I also replaced the releases on my Offshores with standard Church clips. SO much easier!

I troll from a smaller tiller boat. Got 4 rod holders--2 standard Ram 2000's up front and 2 Folbe Advantages farther back. The Folbes are my primary holders, and I love them. They're incredibly strong in every aspect of their construction, hold the trolling rods firm, and release/reseat the rods instantly. Lift straight up to release, set down into the cradle to seat--the Folbes have a cool hinged design to open and close automatically. It's nice to not have to struggle with pulling a rod when running a tiller. I have both Offshore and Church TX-22 (reversible) planers. No problems with either. I actually prefer NOT to use the spring-loaded Tattle Flags--we don't have weeds down here, so they're really not needed. As long as you familiarize yourself with how the boards run, you can read them just fine, even if a very small fish hits your lure and comes along for the ride. I usually run a board or two when I've got someone else in the boat to help with chores. Often, though, I just run the lines behind the boat--both leadcore and flatlines. With an 8' rod set out on each side, I get plenty of separation (no tangles on tight turns)--and two lines are all I care to wrangle with when soloing in a tiller.

As I understand it, natural spawn success here is heavily dependent upon water level. The fish spawn every year, but the fry struggle to survive in most years. Extended spring high water = higher success (for all species, but especially for walleye due to their narrow window of survivability based on seasonal food and cover). Thus with the high-water years we've had lately, there are a lot of walleyes in the lake right now. Relatively speaking, anyway--don't try to confuse this with northern waters where walleyes are the most abundant predators. Bass is still king down here, for some unfathomable reason. Probably because they can reproduce in a septic tank and bite stuff a lot.

Good luck, Gary. Got some writing that needs doing.

Boys, holler when you get an outing set up, eh? Been awhile.

Spinnaker, the ratio of bass to walleyes on Table Rock is approximately 7 billion to one.

Things have changed. There was mist on the water in the morning, the surface temp had dropped 4 degrees, and they evidently had run a lot of water through Powersite. Yesterday it looked like the thermocline was either breaking up or weakening between Mays Bluff and Hogan Creek. Anyway, the fish I'd been targeting were gone.

Ha ha, very funny, you guys. Somebody'll get on 'em--at this point it's just not likely to be walleyerich. We really stunk it up on walleyes the other day. Strange, we could see 'em down there, but we couldn't get them to bite.

Yep--worst thing they ever did was put that "courtesy" dock there. They were coming out of the hills yesterday............. Got one more day to fish, so BS and I will be out there tomorrow. Prolly hit the ramp about 8am.

There's an MSW walleye tournament out of Mutton Creek on Saturday. Weigh-in's at 3:00pm--stop by, it's a good way to pick up some pointers. Anyone who wants to fish the tourney can register prior to take-off at 7:00am. Details here: http://www.mid-southwalleyes.com/StocktonOpen2.html

Had to try it again. My friend Bad Santa and I hit the water at K Dock about noon today. All we did was jig/spoon, and while the fishing wasn't quite as fast as I found it the other day, we had plenty of fun. They were hitting light, and we missed quite a few...but we ended up catching about 18 walleyes, and kept three fat 20-21 inchers plus a 13" crappie for the bearded fellow's table. We also harassed the white bass a bit--they averaged about 16". Released 'em all. Along with the usual slew of 15-17 inch walleyes, we also caught a couple 8-9 inchers. Good to see the little guys out there bellying up to the barbecue. Surface temp was up to 91 and the top of the thermocline had dropped to 25 feet today. We caught most of our walleyes right on bottom at 36-37 feet. Hope to have photos tomorrow.

Sam, what about the red meat? I understand that's what gives white bass its off-taste, but I've never learned how to remove it without hacking up the whole mess. And I'm 100% electric these days. I threw back an awful lot of easy meat, so I'm willing to give it a try...any suggestions? Or do you leave the red meat in, and the soak takes care of it??? There's gotta be SOMETHING good about white bass as table fare, or everybody around here wouldn't be so "ape" about 'em...

Lilley, it was pretty peaceful last two times out (Sunday and Thursday). 3 to 5 other trailers in the parking lot total, and not much going on at the marina.

I really don't care for white bass, although I admit they're fun to catch. All but one of the whites I've caught this week have been pretty nice, 15 to 18 inches long, and very spirited. (The runt was 12".) Caught some near bottom, but the majority were suspended right in the big schools of shad, about 25 feet down over 32-38 feet of water. When vertical jigging, it's easy to get your bait at the right depth, either by watching on sonar or by "counting up" from the bottom--with a spinning reel, just figure two feet per handle turn. So, drop to bottom, and if a big shad school is showing 12 feet off bottom, just reel up 6 or 7 turns to put it in their faces. Two of the walleyes hit up there too, but I don't know if they were actually suspended or just followed the jig up from bottom...more input needed!

That's a heckuva good day, Mike! Nice report.

Then again, I use a 1/2-oz. bullet sinker for live bait rigging with a floating jig at bouncin' speed, and I can easily stay on bottom in 20', with enough line out. Probably that's the difference--when bouncing, your line should be at a 45-degree angle or less (I prefer to run as close to the boat as possible, no more than 50% more line out than water depth). So, less line out = more weight needed to achieve depth, assuming boat speed stays the same. By the way, the "bottom bouncer" is kind of a misnomer. We've pretty much learned not to run on bottom--especially in these waters--just let it tick occasionally for reference. It'll be interesting to hear how you do. I haven't used an inline spinner in years--caught an awful lot on them in younger days at higher latitudes. One of the favored techniques on my home lake (Geneva) in Wisconsin was to longline troll a #4 or #5 Mepps gobbed with a crawler, over the weedbeds at night. The weeds grew to about 4-5' under the surface, and you wanted to just tick the tops. Walleyes would slam 'em like tarpon.

Sam, for bottom bouncing with a crawler harness (with spinner blade), the rule of thumb is 1 oz. of weight for every 10' of depth, at an average speed of 1.2 mph (the usual range is 0.7 to 1.7 mph). The blade does provide a bit of lift, but the effect is lessened at slower speeds. For achieving depth, over-weighting is easier to fix than under-weighting; just increase speed or shorten the line out. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I suspect you might need more weight ahead of your Vibric. But really, the only way to know is to go! Sorry about the photo above. For some reason it posted as a thumbnail, and I haven't figured out how to resize it. Yet.

Went out of K Dock again today, and had a much better day. Caught about 2 dozen walleyes, mostly short, but with a limit of 19-22 inchers (kept 3 for the pan). Also caught about 20 sow white bass and a 13" crappie. Most were caught vertical jigging in 32-38 fow. Thermocline looked to be topping out at 19' today..... ! Was only out about 4-1/2 hours...sun was brutal...no wind most of that time. Very tough on the old bod. Here's the pre-fillet pic:

Forsythian, have you tried a drift bag? You only need to get down to 2.5 or 2.75 mph or so, if that, this time of year. A bag under the bow would almost surely get you there, and also give you better tracking. Just a thought.

I figured the thermocline at 23 feet on Sunday; surface temp was 90. But thermocline depth does vary somewhat between lake sections, I've noticed. My fish came off the edges of flats within sight of the marina. Bouncing should work great; looks like there's a lot of panfish down there, though. Some guys at the ramp had one 20" walleye, which they said they caught drifting a crawler at 15' across a flat.......

Fished the K Dock area for walleye yesterday. Didn't catch a ton, but there were some well-fed Bull Shoalsians mixed in. Had a very fat 23" walleye with an 8" shad in its gullet, an 18" walleye, a 21" bass that was about as wide as it was long, and 4 white bass all between 16 and 17 inches. Oh, and a coupla gar. Trolling cranks at 26 feet. Fun day.

Bass are also great for the garden.

Yup, I met FoE that day too, after Marty and I "eliminated some water." A striper guy first (hence the D/Rs), walleye second, but knew his stuff and didn't mind sharing info. Enjoyed the chat.

rps, when bottom bouncing we use long, limber, soft-tipped rods with mainline braid. We allow the weight to tick bottom from time to time, running our harnesses mostly just off the bottom. You get to where you can tell right away which species is taking your bait--bluegills tend to machine-gun it, bass/drum pop it fairly hard and quick, and walleyes usually suck it in slow and easy, often with a gentle steady pull like it's hanging on a weed. We wait out the walleyes until the rod tip loads up--the tough part is that it can take a painfully long time, say 30 to 60 seconds if they're not active. The key is to not jump the gun or mess with the rod during the bite--leave it in the holder and let the soft tip do its thing. When the fish are inactive, "nursing" the bite with light pressure like that will often get them to commit.

rps, congratulations. Real men drive tillers. Rain and sleet pelting the face are a fact of life, a badge of courage, and help you live more intensely. How much more deeply did you appreciate your arrival at the dock than some person in a fufu windshield boat, wearing a goofy facemask with a NASCAR logo, would have? Rampant convenience will be the downfall of us all. Just kidding. Yeah, it does kinda sting a bit.