merc1997 Bo

quillbill, summer fishing off shore above eagle rock, the lake level needs to be down were it is at now for the old river channel breaks to be good. at higher water levels, it usually puts the breaklines too deep for bass to use. any good off shore structure has to reach as shallow as the bass want to go. we did catch some bass off of some the old good holes above eagle rock this year late summer because the water level finally got low enough for some of the river channel related spots to be shallow enough for the bass to use. bo

here is the best advice i can think of to give anyone that is just starting bass fishing. to be able to consistently locate bass anytime of the year, you need to learn the seasonal patterns of bass for the area you are fishing. bass will always be where the food is, so this is the best place to begin. example would be right now. we have two classes of bass to persue. those that are staying with the deep shad schools, and those that have remained shallow. i fished the kimberling city area a couple of days ago. the shad schools were 60 ft. deep plus. once we got on the right shad school, it was like a chinese fire drill. we did spend some time probing for shallower fish. we did manage a couple on jerk baits, but it was a lot of casts between bites. the deep fish were ganged up in more numbers, and were much easier to catch because of competition. and, as i stated before, most of the bass will be where the most food is. learn the seasonal patterns, and look for the food source. you will be on your way to catching more bass. bo

well bill, i probably know every piece of off shore structure in that area, and there just is not the bass population that we used to have. in "yester" years, you could see fish everywhere on a paper graph. now, you can almost count on one hand all the fish you see all day on the electronics. i will be the first on to tell anyone that we are forcing the bass to become open water feeders. they never go to the bank or bottom, but just stay suspended following shad schools. pressure and lack of cover factor into this. but, another factor is all the sludge that is covering all the trees left and also the bottom of the lake. i believe that this brown sludge is having a negative affect on the crawdad population also. i noticed all year when loading the boat at night, it was seldom to see a crawdad on any boat ramp. you used to see crawdads all over a boat ramp at night. i will tell you that i caught only two or three big bass from big m on up this spring. but, i caught well over 100 of them from the kings down to the dam. in normal years, i will catch the majority of my big bass night fishing in the spring up here on the upper end, but not this year. all of my retired fishing buddies that live at emerald beach all had the same results as i have had. last year(2011), was a very good year on the upper end, but 2012 was just a big reversal. we caught small bass, but the big ones eluded us. bo

hey, i just wanted to put my two cents in about fishing on the upper end. it has been the poorest year for me in all my years of fishing table rock. even this spring fishing at night, could not hardly get a bite of any kind. but, go down as far as kings river and on down to the dam and would catch lots of them. the summer was not any different, and fall just the same, and as of yet, i have not wasted any time or gas fishing the upper end. the other amazing thing to me is that i have seen very few fish on the electronics. i can not figure out what is going on. the upper end of table rock has been suffering for decades of not having good spawns. maybe some success when the water is clear over all the parking lots. the biggest problem with the spawn success rate is all the cold water released from beaver. i have seen the water drop from 62 degrees to 50 degrees in a matter of a few hours. that does not add up to a successful spawn. anyway, i have always loved fishing the upper end of table rock and still do, but it sure seems that the fish population on the upper end dwindles a bit more every year. bo