razorbackfan4life

Love to see it.

Livescope never stood a chance this week. Exciting finish! Happy for the young guy, but still feel bad for Strader.

Mr. Babler, From my 30+ years of fishing on Beaver Lake I have noticed a significant reduction in the spotted bass. Not sure if it's the striper, the local population explosion that has made the lake overcrowded, or just the lack of food. I remember when I was younger we would catch the daylight out of them and some good sized one's as well. But interestingly enough the walleye population and quality has done fine. Only reason I'm mentioning that is because I just saw Shuffield catch two in a rown.

Gill is catching fry guarders out in 12-15' of water. Pretty neat seeing the fry on the livescope. When I fished the lower end during the spawn I would just cast from the bank all the way out to those trees in 10-20 feet of water. Caught them from shallow to deep. No livescope. But towards the end of the spawn like this I could see livescope being useful because there aren't as many doing the deed.

None of these guys seem to know you can just burn bank with a swimbait from Rocky Branch on up and catch brownies. No livescope needed. You just have to put it on high and cast away. When you start to get bites slow the trolling motor down. But livescope is like a darn pacifier for these guys. I knew it would be tougher. A lot of post spawn fish. Cold front.

There will be some new spawners, but the bulk have already done the deed IMO. I went out yesterday, and we caught about 30 in 4 hours. Out of those 30 I'd say about 12 were scoreable. Biggest being a 3.2 smallmouth. Most of the scoreables were that upper 1 lb to 2.2 lb range. When I switched to the ned rig, I caught better quality than the swimbait I was throwing. When I was throwing the swimbait I had the boat at 12-14' casting towards the bank. When I picked up the ned I was sitting in 6' casting out to 10'-15' towards standing timber. Sometime around or shortly after noon, the fish just stopped biting. Classic Beaver lake. I even went back to the spot where I caught them on the ned rig, and couldn't get a bite. Stripers had moved in and that may have had something to do with it, but Beaver Lake can turn like a light switch, good or bad, any day you go out.

Fished yesterday, the only thing I found in the backs of creeks/pockets were white bass with the exception of one 100 yard narrow pocket. I saw a couple of bedding fish. Most of the bass I caught were midway to the mouth of pockets. Water temp's where i was fishing were 64/65

Fish were probably picking your bait up and moving it off the bed. Try throwing either a swimbait, jerkbait, or topwater. Also a Ned Rig can provide more hookups when they are being finicky.

Looks like Saturday is the only day to fish from the weather forecast I saw. I'll be heading out to lower end with a friend. He loves catching the brownies. Dad went out with a buddy today and they caught probably 60. Mostly brownies. Said he had one black that was close to 6lbs throw his bait by the boat.

I think that it would serve the sport better if we cut down on the total amount of tournaments and upped the prizes. I love fishing regardless, but the competitive side of tournament fishing is a thrill. Trying to beat 100-200 other anglers is a challenge. And the reward to me isn't the money, it's the thought that I was the best angler out there during those days. I'm going to go out next weekend since the boat will be out of the shop. Gonna go check in on the smallmouth bite.

I found where Wheeler is fishing via satellite. I'll keep it in the memory bank if I ever want to go fish for jaws on TR. It would be nice if they'd bite the same style swimbait I catch them on Beaver Lake with.

Beaver is a solid lake, especially of late. Glad you had one of those days. Cant beat em.

Seems like all the lakes around the region are fishing the same. The bite is different from one area to the next. You fish an area that looks great and get skunked. You move up one pocket or creek and the bank doesn't look as good, but the fish are biting like crazy. It's been that way on Beaver lake, and even Grand Lake(I just fished there last week.). Good indicator that the fish are prespawn, spawn, and post spawn. You just have to keep hammering away and you will come across them.

Gill would struggle fishing traditionally for an entire tournament. Fortunately he's fishing during the spawn and the wacky rig bite where he's at has been good(it's what kept him with the lead). His live scope ability is top notch and has paid off tremendously both yesterday and today.

I don't know how I feel about them all going back to 0 after making the cut. One thing it does is add more drama. Typically two days after the cold front(tomorrow) the bite is the toughest. With that being said they are in the middle of the spawn so fish should still bite. Scopers will, once again, have a major advantage tomorrow.