rkbrowntrout78

This is very true. I came home from our trip feeling like I was missing something; like I left something on the table (see what I did there). I caught fish but it was like one fish here and another over there and so on. Never figured out the pattern. I was in need of a guide.

Yes, they are beautiful lakes. Okoboji can get real busy. There are weekends where 50-75 "pleasure" boats will be anchored in one bay. Spirit Lake is the home base for Berkley and the Pure Fishing Corp. Who was your guide? I work at the GM/Toyota dealership in Spirit Lake and our parts manager, Shannon Green, happens to be a guide. So this fish is a big white bass.

If you don't mind an outsiders perspective I will say this; In the short three days of fishing I had on TR this last week, my home lake is definitely fishing better than TR is right now. My lake happened to make the list at #67 (West Okoboji). It seems we have more and bigger fish per location than TR does. Or perhaps it's just more fish willing to bite per location. I don't know if your numbers are down or your fish are just more educated due to pressure. I know one thing is for certain; we don't have the tournaments on our lake that you do. Sure we have small club tourneys and such but not the majors that you guys have. Hiring a guide is almost an essential for out-of-state weekend fisherman on TR if you want to spend more time fishing than locating. It's big water and finding fish is half the battle.

Greetings everyone, my name is Ryan and I am from the West Okoboji area in Iowa (see Bassmasters Top 100 Bass Lakes of 2015; #67). I originally came to this forum to research current tactics and trends on TR as we were staying in the Clevenger Cove area this past week for a family get together (Disclaimer: I am not the psycho meth-head that attacked the bow-fishermen). The reason for my post is I need a positive ID on a fish I caught trolling from point to point with a KVD crankbait. We have white bass here in the Iowa Great Lakes region but I don't fish for them and they are typically less than 13". I've never fished striper water so not sure if this one is white, striper, or hybrid; my guess is hybrid. Measured fish out to 18" and 2lb 10oz. This fish fought like a whipped stallion and was barely hanging on the hook when landed. As far as the fishing went I had a decent couple of days considering the high water. Had some luck with a jig and craw in orange/brown, KVD deep crank in chart. sexy shad, and a Rebel Pop-R in the Ole' Bass color all dependent of course on time of day. Tried a Foxy Mama colored Super spook Jr. and a BPS Slim Dog in pearl red eye without any success. I thought the Slim Dog would be close enough to the bone colored Spooks I've read have been working so well but apparently not. Top-water bite was just all around difficult. First and last light were key. Drop shot was not working for me either save for a few angry little rock bass. Don't know if it was just where I was fishing or the whole lake. I loved fishing Table Rock; incredible resource you guys have there. Very different fishing than our natural glacial lakes as they have a mix of jungle like weed structure and gravel, stone and rock bottoms. Hope to return again some day.