kmastr1

Thanks Bill, Always enjoy reading your reports. We have been coming down this same week for the last 25 years and are used to 100+ fish days consistently, this year is much slower. Especially for the walleye. The walleye fishing the last 5 years on this lake has been fantastic. However we did venture up the James today all the way past pt 12 and there was a decent amount of debris and not much action. Seemed like water was stagnant up there. We only caught 14 fish w 2 keepers. Might have to try flipin the bushes. Any reports down by the dam?

Kimberling City area

Fished the last two days and bite seems to be pretty consistent. We are drop shoting long gravel points in about 18 to 30 ft of water. Catching around 50+ fish per day w a couple nice 24/26" walleye each day. Ended up w 14 bass over 15" on Sat and 17 bass over 15" today. Biggest was 4lb largemouth. Best tip I can give is get some orange die and dip whatever plastic you use. All these fish are full of crawdads that are green w orange/red tip claws. Also if you dont have a penoptix livescope you are really missing out if you love to drop shot. Almost to the point where I can tell you what specie fish you will catch and exactly when it hits before you even know it. Pretty cool technology. Also can instantly change your depth to catch suspended fish. Would post pics of walleye but don't know how.

Came down for our annual week at Table Rock for the Fourth of July. Same as usual hot and lots of boats. However fishing was pretty consistent, fished on main lake gravel points 20 to 40 ft. We fished two ways. I would troll 6xds up and down these points till I marked fish or caught one then would drop a waypoint and drop shot. Most days caught 40/60 fish from 6 till noon. One thing I noticed this year was the abundance of big Walleye. 20" to 27". Had best luck drop shotting w night crawlers but also did well on plum chompers 4" worm and white shad fluke. Caughts lots of whites trolling as well as some big catfish on the drop shot w worm. Line size does make a difference I would recommend 8lb flouro carbon. Fish from Cow Creek to point 12 up the James. Had 10 to 15 keeper bass most days. Also lots of fish around the bridge pilings. This post has been promoted to an article

Fished kennel branch cove all day due to only having a trolling motor. Ended up w 24 bass and 7 keepers. Started fishing around 11 and threw top water kvd sexy dawg and popper for first hour + and had two blow ups and a 2.5lb largemouth to show for it. Expected top water bite to be better. Switched to a jig and picked up a couple here and there. Thought the flooded brush would produce some fish but all came half way out to boat. Two best bites came from drop shot and kvd sexy shad 5x. Fish seemed to be in that 17/23 ft range. Boat traffic was very minimal today.

Ended up boating 64 bass Monday. Fished from 6:30 till noon then went back out from 5:30 to 8:30. We started of w top water and had no success what so ever. Did not even see a fish busting. We then casted bluffs, chunk rock. Was really hoping bluff pattern we read about would hold true but id say was only fair. Then went to casting jigs, drop shotting and ned rig to points where we saw fish schooled and had very good success. Lots of fish in that 15-22 ft range. Caught a good mix of kentuckies,smallies and largemouths. Lots of fish spitting up craws. Jigs w crawdad trailer w orange color pichers was a good producer. Have to say overall good numbers but lots of 12/14" fish. Did have 10 keepers and a nice 4lb largemouth. Boat traffic and wakes were terrible. Tried the dock pattern as well w little success dont seem to be schooled on docks yet.

Was fishing Mon out on lake near Kimberling City Marina and got hit so hard from a wake that my 76 yr old dad got thrown out of his seat in back onto back deck and broke 3 of his rods. Wake actually came over back of boat. Took all me and my buddy had to stay in our seats. Then we were fishing about 40 yrds off a point and had a guy come by and troll right between us and the point. Ive been fishing this lake for the last 25 years the 4th of July week and have never experienced anything like it has been the last two years. Sure hope they figure something out or this will def be the Lake of the Ozarks all over again.