top_dollar

Wt is about 82-83. Been fishing main lake points and structure, mornings and evenings . 25-150fow, 25-40 feet down. Live bait fished vertically as described below. Im catching about a dozen or so per outing, with almost half or more being keepers. Pretty good ratio of keepers to shorts this year. Lots of big fat 16 inch spots. Finding smallmouth on the bottom in 25-35fow, some even up shallower. Spots are mixed in with the smallies, or suspended 25-30 feet down over infinity. Catching most on live bait rigs. Jigging a 3/4-1oz spoon is also working very well, and catching bigger fish. Only caught a few on a ds worm. Lots of eater bluegills mixed in, and 1 5# channel cat. No walleye. gonna troll cranks for them today or tomorrow. Heres what i do... LIVE BAIT RIGS Use a whole live night crawler threaded on a #4 baitholder hook. Should be about 7-9 inches all stretched out in the water. Ill sandwich a 1/16oz bullet weight between 2 bobber stops and 2 small beads instead of a split shot and either slide it down to the hook, or slide it up about a foot. A med light or light power spinning rod, and 4-6# mono line. Idle around main lake points from 25-150 fow looking for bait and fish on the graph between 25-40 ft. Zig zag in and out of the channel and up on points and flats to see if they are suspending or near the bottom. When the graph lights up, pitch the crawler about 25 feet and let it swing down under the boat, often times it stops sinking as one grabs it. When it gets below you fish it as vertical as possible, even better if you can see your bait on the graph. When the graph goes blank, reel up and move. If you dont do it often, you may wanna upsize and use a med light power rod with 6 or 8# line with a 1/8th oz weight, but i use a 7ft browning air stream, or a 7ft st croix panfish series (light power rods), spooled with 4# maxima, 1/16 oz weight and gammy baitholders. Suspended fish in open water dont cause too much trouble, hence the light gear. Ive caught channel cats pushing 10# on that setup. Set ur drag right, keep ur hooks sharp, and trust your gear. Hold your rod with the tip about a foot above the surface. When you get a bite, let the rod load just a bit, lean the tip towards the water an inch or two and lift firmly and steadily. You dont wanna hammer em...good hooks will stick. Its probably not gonna you many giants, but its a great/easy way to catch awesome numbers of 12-16inch spotted bass and smallmouth. Also, bluegills, walleye, white bass, and catfish are possible incedentals. Hell one year we even caught a trout fishing a crawler off a deep dock in kimberling. Instead of a live crawler you can do the same thing with a drop shot worm, or a jigging spoon. I always catch 10x more with a live worm, then a ds worm, but sometimes that jigging spoon is the way to go. JIGGING SPOONS I think of them as a vertical jerkbait..generates that "get it quick!!!" Bite. I normally use the regular sized C.C. spoon, its about 1oz or maybe a bit less. Very similar to the war eagle spoons which are also great. I paint them to look like a shad, but leave some chrome. I also put a good treble hook on it, and feather the treble hook. I use a 7ft heavy power, SOFT tip rod. Im talking parabolic rod soft. You need LOTS of give. I spool the rod up with metered braid fishing line (super helpful), and tie a 5 foot long fluoro leader (17#). I use an alberto knot, but a swivel works fine too if jist fishing vertically. I fish it two ways....cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and snap it back to me in short but aggressive 2-3 foot snaps. Its important to point the rod back at the lure after each snap, just like a jerk bait. The other way i fish them is to drop it straight down to depth, using your metered line to know how deep. Usually 25-30ft, then the short aggressive 2-3ft snaps, dropping the rod tip back to the water level after each snap. This will maximize the erratic nature of the spoon. Jigging spoons are an absolutely imcredible tool on table rock. DROP SHOT: i caught more fish on a spoon yesterday then i have my entire life on a drop shot...im missing something with that technique. This post has been promoted to an article

Awesome thanks!

How did ya catch em? Jigging spoons?

Table is a great lake to fish out of a pontoon. They are great for vertical fishing over deep cover.....which is what table rock does best. My whole life I have fished from my uncles 18ft 1980 something bass buggy. He has a little graph on the front, and a stout trolling motor up front which will move it just fine in all but the worst winds. We hang crawlers, use drop shots, and jig spoons over deep drop offs, points, and submerged trees. I actually prefer the pontoon to my little aluminum bass boat for that type of fishing. Obviously youll have a rough time running way up a creek and playing shallow bass games, but for jiggin a spoon over a school of bass its hard to beat. Also crankbait trolling is a great option for the toon.

That one walleye is a real giant.

Interesting about the planar boards...ive never tried those before. Longline trolling cranks, jigged spoons, and live crawler rigs work for me very well during the summer on walleye, bass, and whites. Were the planar boards running shallower? I, sometimes, find walleye very shallow (8-12fow) in the summer, even in the middle of the day.

The toad runner is not the same material, nor does it have same hooks as the original pad crasher or the sprinker frog. The hooks have a smaller gap, and the material is stiffer. They also weigh a ton and hit the water like a depth charge. IMO a regular buzz frog is better than the sprinker/toad runner type things, as the plopper tail gets all gummed up with grass and moss, whereas a plastic buzz toad just gargles on top of that suff. In thick lilly pads the tail doesnt even have much of a chance to get moving. Ive tried both the sprinker and the toad runner, and much prefer to use either a texas rigged keitech noisy flapper or a regular pad crasher. They also dont "plop" at the slow retrieve speed that a whopper plopper does. They kinda seem like gimmick lures to me...but they worked on me cuz i bought 2 of each lol.

I've found (being sufficiently overweight) that fishing in a speedo keeps people at a minimum of 100 yards. Or, when in doubt crank up some death metal.

Probably a bit early for this, but with this heat it might be soon....find a good long main lake gravel point, that stays fairly shallow (15-30ft) way out into the lake. Idle around there looking at your graph for little squiggly lines (technical term) just off the bottom. Those are bluegill. Use a split shot with a worm or cricket (tiny jigs and spoons also work). Once you find them they are super easy to catch. Those same types of points are pretty much where to fish all summer long. Bass, whites, walleye, catfish, and bluegill all hang out on those points during the summer.

That keitech skinny, 2, 2.5, and 3 as well as the 2.8 fat are the best crappie baits ive ever used. I love those things.

How do you fish your hair jigs? Do you tip them with a plastic at all?

1 dollar bob

Is this regarding table rock panfish? Or panfish in general? On table rock fish for them from late may through the fall. They will be on long runnout gravel points (like everything else). Idle around watching our graph from 20-30feet. Sometimes shallower or deeper but thats a good starting point. They will show up right on the bottom as a long squiggly line. Use a med light or light power spinning rod, 4lb line, and a small chunk of crawler, or a cricket (small plastics also work) with a split shot about a foot above.

They work great for me! I personally like fox squirrel tails. I also use rabbit strips. They work extremely well for me during clear water situations. Warm or cold water doesnt matter for me, just needs to be clear. They work well at table rock and stockton for me, as well as on the lower meremac ( when its clear) and upper big.

Id take a day in the teens or twenties over a 95+ degree summer day anytime. Especially if you can coax a few into biting.

Yes. Weird.

On little crappies and bluegills i like to leave the tail on one of the fillets. Its a crispy little treat.

Fishing on the lower meremac is good right now around valley park, castlewood, and emmennegar (sp?) Park under 44.. I like when its so low cuz i can scurry around the banks and catch them with some luck. Ive been catching black bass, white bass, and drum using jerkbaits, swimmin minnows and jig worms.

Holy cow, nice eye.

Wow those are some sweet looking little lures.

Ive done alright with grey squirrel tail. It has a nice baitfish color to it, never as consistent success as a plastic swimmin minnow though. Fox squirrel tails are great crawfish mimics as well with bands of orange and black Couldnt tell ya how the sink rate compares to polar bear hair, that is some serious specifics.

Its also a bit concerning that folks advocate violence at the thought of keeping a bass to eat lol.

How did missouri streams used to be like? I am pretty sure that missouri streams have NEVER been free of giggers. Even before Europeans colonized them, the native americans gigged before they angled. Republicans are a WAY bigger threat to Missouri streams than giggers.