merc1997 Bo

you missed the toyota owners tourney on oct. 15. see why i night fish? bo

why do you need to "see".. night time is the right time. bo

well, you and i both have seen that type of thing first hand more than a few times. bo

yep. kbo

not any need of going the rest of the week because they were just eating it up tonight. that means no use to go the rest of the week. started fishing at dark. had the boat back on the trailer at 11:15. caught 12 keepers and left them biting. we caught at least 4 shorts for every keeper. you do the math. we just caught a ton of bass. still steep banks out to 20 ft. deep. 1/2 GrassJig caught all the fish. ten brownies and two blacks. the other lmg mouth was a 3 plus, and several of the brownies were 17 to 18 inch variety. bo This post has been promoted to an article

hmmm! you are right. i tried both numbers and the mail boxes on both number are full. seems strange. bo

it would be very hard to do without electronics. i just have regular sonar, but side imaging and knowing how to interpret what it is telling you would even be better. i have said this before and i will say it again. way too many fisherman need to leave their rods on the deck and spend some time looking around first and it would improve their fishing. i equate it to making a long run in a tournament. i would rather run all day and get to spend a quality hour of fishing rather than staying close and fishing bad water all day. spend a couple of hours looking around with your electronics and the rest of your fishing time could be a lot more productive. bo

got a later start this evening. did not start until 8:30 pm, and was back on the trailer at 1 am. never caught anything on the flat stuff and found all the bites on steeper bank with a jig. ended up with 7 keepers. six were brownies and one kentucky. tonight, caught everything just about 20 ft. deep on a 1/2 GrassJig. you literally just have to go find them every trip. the one thing that is the best clue to catching them is to just drive around looking for areas where the shad are the most concentrated. bo

still not too bad for this time of the year. the lake can fish really small this time of the year with the bass scattering and turnover beginning here and there. bo

well, it could be more to your liking because the bass are not very deep any place. bo

many times, if there are bass there, they can be laying flat to the bottom with the shad. just have to experiment with many lures and retrieves to see if anything will start to trigger strikes. in other words, make the hit, not beg them to hit. bo

here we are when you sure enough have to be versatile in your approach to catch bass. we started a water cooling trend, and some areas of the lake began the turn over process, and now we are having another spell of summer weather. when choosing areas to fish, do some looking with your electronics to look for those diagonal streaks coming from the bottom to the top. this will mean that area has some turnover activity going. not a very good area to be fishing in. linda and i fished around the indian point area last night and found the brownies out on very bare banks, and we got them to bite moving baits. we used a 1 oz. SpinJig, and a 1 oz. EliteBlade but with an oversized musky blade. the movement speed and sound really made the difference in getting strikes. i believe they were feeding on perch and goggle eye. pretty typical for the dark of the moon. bites were coming from 10 to 20 ft. we managed 4 keeps that were from 16 1/2" to 19", and they we fat as toads. we started out fishing jigs, but could not muster a bite, and i picked up the big bladed jig and went to getting some attention. many of these bass are just hitting the blade, but you just have to just keep slinging and one will get the hook. it is kind of like when the bass are just hitting your sinker on a c-rig. anyway going to more of a horizontal movement with both speed and sound would at least trigger strikes when nothing else would. i also believe that it was getting the lure up off the bottom far enough to get it up in focus range to take an interest in it. fishing fairly parallel with the strike zone was a must also. always change up if something is not working. pay attention to details such as where you are seeing more bait fish. does there seem to be a lot of perch in the area. the next month or so will make for some very detailed fishing to consistently catching anything. there are some that just choose to go golfing or something else, but even though this time of the year is one of the most difficult times to catch bass, it can still be productive. bo

the reason that it is happening earlier in areas is because the thermocline never did get very deep. but, we are returning back to summer weather once again, and that will change things or put some changes into limbo for a while. bo

you will see small bubbles coming up all over. you can also see it on your electronics. it makes diagonal marks. what is causing those is the air bubbles are being detected. most often the O2 is dminished in these areas and any bass there are not often active. what gets fall turnover started is the cooling of the surface temps. it will begin to push the thermocline deeper until there is enough mass on top of it to push through and then the water flipflops and the gasses in the bottom layer come up through the water column. the water normally has a funny discolor to it and you will also bits of gunk floating on the surface. you have to fish above or below turnover to be very successful catching bass. once it is complete the food and bass can be anywhere in the water column. bo

i have fished with this particular spoon for decades. being made out of zinc is part of it because the zinc will have a ring to it as the split rings rattle in the holes as the spoon shakes or hits bottom. but, the big factor is the unique and random fall this spoon has. most spoons just wobble back and forth as they fall, and they do catch bass, but i have not found any of them to catch bass as well as this spoon will. it twirls sometimes as it initially falls and all at once will just dart out and glide on a horizontal plane and then shimmy and take off in another direction. it is this randomness, that in my opinion, makes this spoon a better fish catcher. i use it casting or vertical fishing. it works for both suspended bass, or banging on the bottom. i adjust sink rate by line size. example would be, if the bass are hitting a smaller in size spoon such as the 1/2 oz., but want a very fast sink rate, i will go to a 15 or 20 lb. test braid to accommodate the needed sink rate. one thing to note on line choice is that when the water is cold enough that you have to just let the spoon hang, i will use mono and no swivel for this technique. you need twist in the line so that when the spoon is hanging, it is slowly twirling back and forth as it hangs. bo

a spoon could include both flutter type spoon or a jigging spoon. bo

i did not say that there was not, but a spoon is one of those lures that is almost a year round catching tool. most of the time, you can take a jig, a spoon, and a spinner bait and catch bass on one of those three anytime of the year. those three lures are the best and most versatile fishing tools we have. never leave home without them. bo

well, i have had them out surfing at night no less. bo

a spoon is like that credit card you are not supposed to leave home without. bo

i can tell you that those that do not fish a spoon with water temps above 50 in the fall and winter, on this lake, are missing out. bo

hurray! labor day weekend is just about gone, and hopefully some of barge boats that are just about as destructive as hurricane driven winds. went do to the dam area friday night, and it was a darn good chore just to stay in the seat and not get thrown off the deck, and there was not really many boats out. gives you a good idea of the problem when there is. anyway, the summer has been pretty productive as far as numbers and numbers of keepers. there a few better quality bass to be caught, but the amount of boats on the water definitely makes the go into hiding. there some deeper bass to be had, but mostly in the daytime. right now there is a very thin thermocline around 28 ft. in the dam are, but i have found very few fish in contact with anything that depth at night. the lake as a whole has fished very shallow for me. goes to show what high water will do, and also not having any clear water. other than in the winter, i doubt we will ever see summer bass hardly ever past 20 ft. i have been busy transplanting brownies all summer. when eagle rock is only 13 miles from the house, it sure would be nice to have a good brownie population up this way. someone posted just a while back that they had tangled with a 3 lb. brownie at eagle rock, but it got off. see, it is already working. night fishing will still remain very good on up into november, but will cooler daytime temps and a lot of boat traffic not on the water, i do still enjoy daytime fishing. will be interesting to see how fall turnover develops this year, since what thermocline there was never got very deep. heck champ you could be in luck this fall, and they all stay shallow. wherever all the baits ends up will always be the deciding factor. bo

Prayers sent for family and friends. bo

hey, you are not supposed to be catching my transplanted brownies. i caught on of them the other night myself. might be heading down to see if we can bring back a few more tonight. bo

right now on the lower end, there are two groups of fish to go for. some are very shallow, and the other group is 25 to 30 ft. deep. looking for deeper bass often requires to leave the rods on the deck and just go looking with your electronics. shallow bass often requires looking with you eyes to watch for shad activity. with the higher water levels, and the amount of water being moved through the lake, don't assume the bass will be where you think they should be. only the bass know where they will be, and that will not be far from food. also, many bass are just remaining out in the lake following bait around. and if you spend the time looking, you will find bass and food are scattered everywhere. the trick to catching them is to find a place where they have laid down to rest from their shad chasing. everyday is different. bo