merc1997 Bo

got out a couple of days before the artic air hit. had a decent day friday with 10 keepers, and scrounged out 5 on saturday. did not catch one bass saturday where we caught them friday. pretty typical for table rock, here today gone tomorrow. we caught nearly all them on a doodle. nothing up on the bank. most bites were in the 10 to 20 ft. range. friday, we did have a couple of 3's and one saturday. we did catch several shorts both days. so, at least enough to keep you a bit warmer. it was cold all day friday. so, was expecting an even better bite saturday. could have been so but stayed too long fishing where we caught them friday. made a little adjustment later in the afternoon and found some willing. i did catch two of the keeps friday on a long bill rebel. bo

our little play house has broke up, and it is back to hunt and peck prospecting. not pattern at all today. caught bass from 25 ft. to 10. some on bottom and some suspended. jigs and jerks. ended up with 6 keeps all lmg's. 2 decent ones and the rest just nice keeps. jerkers came on the old long bill in a color that you can not buy, but has caught a bunch of them over the years. jig was the 3/8 GrassJig with a bluegill skirt. i would say that the catching will be pretty hit and miss with all the fronts coming through. bo

closed out january by going fishing. it was cold too. we did not even put in until after 11 am, and we still had ice freezing on line at 1pm, brrr. since it had been more than a week since last went, it was a hunt and peck process to see what was going on. water temp where we started was 39, brrrr. starting out fishing a longbill and i caught a 17 lmg at the first stop, but not another bite, and same thing for the next two stops. so, put that down and picked up the doodle and began prospecting with it. moved further downstream to some 42 degree water, and ran into a few bites. used that info to try some other places that were exactly the same and more bites. we were on some good territory when that last 1 to 1/2 hour evening bite occurred and stayed pretty busy. ended up with 10 keepers total. so, two lmg's (one of them as a 3+), and the rest really nice k's. caught at least as many shorts as keeps. not bad for 5 hours of fishing. most bites were a bit deeper than the last time out. most of them in the 20 ft. range. the nice lmg was only about 3 ft. deep. always that exception in there. would like to go again today, but still hitching a ride, and have first of the month stuff to get done. sure was glad to be able to get out yesterday. dang sure had enough of being couped up inside. bo This post has been promoted to an article

took advantage of being able to get out today and fish before the deep freeze hits again tonight. we fished the doodle all day. water temp was a bit over 43, but the bass still were about the same depth 10 to 20 ft. ended up with 7 keeps. 4 lmg's and 3 k's. caught a dozen or so shorts, so not a bad day for this time of the year. bo

got today to spend my birthday doing what i love and that is fishing. despite the high winds, i caught a bunch of them today. around a dozen keepers, and most were fat k's. the other day, one that i caught on a tube spit up a crawdad and it was a dead match for our bluegill skirt. so, today, i used a 3/8 GrassJig with a buzzcut bluegill skirt and trimmed down a small chunk type trailer and it seemed to be the ticket. bites were from 10 to 20 ft. caught them on bluff ledges and also out on gravel chunk mixture. for area, i will just say that no one seems to want to fish where i have been fishing. have not seen any boats at all. one thing that i will say about another clue you need to look for before just fishing some where, and that is there needs to be the presence of shad nearby. if you do not see any bait hanging around close, you need to just move on until you see some. bo

got out today and two straight days of raining and dead cloud cover certainly did move the bait and fish around. but, you just have to keep on the move looking and they can be found. sometimes catching them can take some figuring out. fished about two hours with a chartreuse spoon without a bite and decided to put on a chrome and first drop, bam at 70 ft. deep. so, might have been catching them for the previous two hours if i had been fishing chrome. only had around 10 keeps today, but did have 4 nice lmgs. they all came 60 to 70 ft. deep. bo

went fishing this afternoon and it was another windy one. finally found a bunch grouped up and caught them from 40 ft. to 80 ft. most bites where in the 50 to 60 ft. range. had one nice lmg and 3 other keeper lmgs. the rest of the keeps were k's. most were caught on the 3/4 ZincSpoon chartreuse. the biggest black came on a head i am working on that sits dead level with any gitzit or shad body. it is a 1 oz, but not for sure if the head size is too big and not blend in with the plastic. i used to use a 1/4 head with a leader and barrel swivel and i 1 oz. weight on top of the barrel swivel. just thought i should have had more bites on it than what i got. bo This post has been promoted to an article

pretty nice day out, slick. just the way you want it for deep fishing. burned up about 1/2 tank of gas, but finally found a few bunched up 50 to 60 ft. deep over 85 ft. of water. had a nice mixture of lmg's and k's. the 3/4 ZincSpoon in chartreuse was the ticket. have to as the bass as to why they wanted the chartreuse today. probably had around 20 keeps, and did catch several shorts. kind of hard to figure why the shad seemed to have busted up and disappeared everywhere. guess that is another question you would have to ask the shad to know why for sure. bo

got out this afternoon and it was a bit cold. have fished worse, but that was back in my younger years. boy, did i do a lot of looking, but finally found a few. caught them around 50 feet deep. joe lane caught the biggest one on a ice jig. the rest came on 3/4 Zinc spoons, and 1 oz. GrassJig and 4" swimmer. i did have one other 3 lb. class lmg and a couple of keeper lmg'. the rest of the keepers were fat k's. really can't say how many keeps we did catch, but a good number. enough that it kept us warm. bo

i might to able to really catch some fish if the wind would lay down just a bit. sitting way off shore and right in the teeth of the wind makes if more than difficult to stay in a precise place and fish 50 to 60 feet deep. despite it all had a decent day. same two lures and most bites in the 50 to 60 ft. range. better ones are deeper and were caught by casting not vertical. bo

linda and i got out saturday from mid-day to 3:30. spent quite a bit of time looking, but found them a bunch deeper than they were. ended up with a dozen keepers and all the bites were in the 60 ft. zone. linda had a 3 lb. plus for the biggest one. pic is on her phone. spoon and swimmer still doing all the catching. got out this afternoon with leonard and we spent a lot of time looking. the shad schools were pretty busted up, but we just kept looking and finally found some wadded up. we caught a lot of keepers and the better ones were near the bottom 60 to 65 feet deep. Chartreuse ZincSoon and a 1oz. GrassJig with a 4" swimmer was the trick this afternoon. our best five weighed an easy 20 lbs. bo This post has been promoted to an article

i will let the pics tell the story. linda had 16 or 17 keepers and i do not know how many we caught total, but a bunch. the bigger ones that i caught were 42 ft. over 60 and in timber. we caught a lot at 35 ft. over same depth. same two lures - 3/4 GrassJig head with swimmer, and a 3/4 ZincSpoon in powder chrome. sorry no background in the pics. all you need to see are the pics😄. bo View full article

got to get out for a git wednesday and thursday. wednesday was more of a searching expedition because it was so cold, and we also left fairly early as it was snowing like crazy and the fog set in . did not get too far towards home, and ran out of the snow and we could have just stayed and weathered the storm so to speak. we did find a few and caught 4 keeps and several shorts. most bites were in the 50 ft. range. 3/4 ZincSpoon and a 3/4 GrassJig head with a 4" swimmer were the fishing tools to get the job done. thursday was better day temp wise and nice and sunny. and it gathered the fish and bait up better. ended up with 12 keeps. had one that would beat 3, 3 were just keepers and the rest were nice chunks. depth wise ran from on the bottom 60 ft. deep. to suspended around 35 ft. caught all of them on the same two baits. the swimmer did account for the bigger ones. when dealing with lots of trees, the Grassjig and swimmer is a great fishing tool because you can fish through the tree without hanging up. casting and retrieving a spoon through trees, you are going to hang up some and have to go shake the spoon loose or knock it loose with the retriever. so, when you can get them to hit it, the GrassJig is the way to go. i did catch on bass on a skirted 3/4 GrassJig and chunk trailer - short k. forgot to add that most of the keeps were all lmg's. good to see more of them showing up. with steady weather and sunny days, things should be looking up in the catching department. bo This post has been promoted to an article

i have been communicting with shane bush the mdc biologist at branson. if everyone would start communicating with him with their personal view points and observations changes might begin to happen. i assure you that shane will answer an email. here is his contact info again: Shane Bush Fisheries Management Biologist 610 Hatchery Road Branson, MO 65616 Office: 417-334-4859 Cell: 417-533-2344 shane.bush@mdc.mo.gov bo

champ should be out beating up on the bass. just his kind of weather. cold, nasty rainy, and no one on the lake! on the flip side, this stretch of weather we are having and going to have to a while, should really help to get a good portion of the lake through turnover and the water settled back down so the bait and bass will be able to get to wherever they may want to go. only time will tell if more are up shallow or more out deeper. bo

got out yesterday afternoon back up my way. fished high and low without too much results. what bass we did catch were on a spoon. had 3 keeps and a few dinks and a couple of whites. loaded up before dark and headed down to the cow creek ramp to get in a little night fishing, and had about the same results. had 4 keeps, 2 brownies, 1 lmg, and 1 k. we tried flat stuff, back in coves, bluffs, you name and we tried it. i did notice lots of bass suspended out in the lake at various depth and that is why they are so hard to come by right now. the lake started to turn pretty hard with the colder temps, and then it warmed back up and everything has went into the limbo mode. even though i hate cold weather, that is what we need right now to get out of the limbo mode and back into some more normal patterns. the good part of the trip was seeing some amazing colors that are appearing here and there, and saw a couple of bald eagles. and, to add to that, the moon was nice and bright last night. it was just good to be out and enjoy it all. bo

i fished monday afternoon, all day yesterday with a tourney angler that wanted me to go with him to hunt fish, and fished this afternoon. much of the lake is in the process of turning over, and that makes the lake fish oh so tiny. monday afternoon we caught several small bass and some whites 20 to 25 feet deep. tuesday, i was just riding basically. this afternoon based on the previous two trips of observation did some adjusting and settled in on a very small area and just circled like a vulcher. with these conditions, you take what little you can find and be happy. we caught several small bass and some really nice whites, but we did end up with 6 really nice lmg's. two were around 3 1/2, and the other 4 were good chunks. found one little area where the channel butted up to a flat. the edge of the flat dumped off right at 20 ft. the fish had the shad pushed up onto the channel edge and had them pinned. the reason to search these types of areas right now is finding those that have turned and further out in the channel the water is still turning. that will push the food base and the bass into these very small seams of better water. zinc spoons in powder chrome, big wobbler in a shad color, and 1 oz. Elite tandem spin with gold willows did the catching. when i said circle like a vulchar, that is what i meant. we caught some of the bass by sitting in shallow and working back up the hill. you kind of have two options right now. one is to burn down your troller batteries and make a zillions casts or burn up lots of gas and do a lot of looking with the electronics to slip up on the one little area that has better water, bait, and a few fish with the bait. things should improve a lot in about 4 weeks. bo

went back to big m yesterday evening to try a prop out, and fished for a while. it was a k dink fest. could not tell you how many we caught, but a lot. weeded out 6 keepers. lots of fun though. all the bites were 25 to 30 ft. deep. all were on channel banks where there was a 25 to 30 foot edge. caught everyone of them on a 3/4 GrassJig. don't know where the lmg's were. we quit at 11. bo

got a late start so we fished the big m area tonight. fished about 4 1/2 hours. ended up with 9 keepers. 2 k's and the rest lmg's. all were caught on a 3/4 GrassJig and they were all right at 25 ft. deep. found them on bluff ledges and the ledge had to be 25 ft. and then off into the channel. tried a couple of flatter areas but did not get any bites. bo

took my brother for a short fishing trip last night, and there were geese flying all evening headed south. good sign that cold is coming. on the fishing side, we fished till midnight. shad are out in the lake and fishing something steep offered the best opportunity to connect with something. this was the first time i had taken my brother fishing in decades. he hates losing to me at anything so it is hard to get him in the boat. we ended up with 11 keepers with a couple of lmg's in the 3 lb. range, and a couple of brownies in that same range. 3/4 GrassJig caught the majority, but did get a few on the big wobbler and the black widow. caught them from 10 to 30 ft. a real pattern. bo