razorbackfan4life

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.

Full moon on May 1. Last wave of spawners will be on beds. Will that be the winning pattern? Or will the post spawners feeding up on shad be the winning ticket? I think if the weight minimum is 2lbs then you will see more guys beating the banks up. If it's only 1 lb then I imagine the Kentucky's will come into play. Smallmouth should be a big player. If you can find one of those areas where they are piled in.

Good pictures. I'd be out there but we lost the lower unit on grand this past week. Should have it fixed early next week, I'll try to make it out before the MLF shows.

I was also shocked there wasn't anyone fishing swim baits, for Jaws, with that wind. You can put the trolling motor on high and just fan cast that thing till you find a group.

Thank you TJM I found a post on their facebook page from a few days ago. Sounds like the first round of spawners are up. Which means next two weeks should be gang busters. I've already cleaned the boat, tied on everything I want to throw. Hopefully its a memorable trip. Quillback, I caught my one and only wall mounted fish on Lake Eucha when I was maybe 12 years old. It was 6.45 lbs. Fish was almost big as me.. haha. It was part of the Like Father Like Son fishing circuit that my uncle and I fished together.(Dad fished it with my older brother). I went over there a couple of years ago looking for crappie, but didn't have much luck. Caught several bass though. It's a great little lake.

Great stuff. I told my dad Indian Creek would have been good today. We caught a lot, but water was cooler around Lost Bridge South 57-59. No bloody tails, all fresh fish.

I'm probably going to go over to Grove and bass fish this upcoming week. I cannot find any bass reports online other than the generic ODWC reports. Just curious if the spawn is just getting started, full boar, or over. Water temp etc.. Thanks

I already started noticing some white bass today when we went out. Not every pocket had them but they were mid way back to 3/4 of the way. Never realized that about the buck brush. I do remember it being thick several years ago, just never gave it much thought since then. We caught probably 25 today. 12 keepers. Lost bridge south area. 3 good blacks. one about 3.75 one about 3.2 and one about 2.75. Few solid brownies/meanmouth. That part of the lake is weird right now. Water temp is still running about 57-59. Smallies haven't spawned totally IMO. Either that or the numbers of them have gone down significantly. I fished all my typical spawn banks and half of the fish came in 10-12 ft and the other half were in 3-10 ft. Didn't catch but maybe 15 of them(and I was fishing hard for them). Main lake spawning areas I saw maybe one or two beds with fresh fish on them. Water was slightly cooler there so maybe we were a little early. Got more brown bites in coves and pockets than on main lake(saw a few more beds, but nothing crazy) We used to go out and catch 50 plus during the spawn, so I honestly think they still haven't fully committed. The black bass was kind of similar, one pocket I caught the two FRESH 3.2 and 3.75 and lost a couple more. The next pocket it twas tougher. No rhyme or reason. Maybe they haven't committed fully either. I imagine mid lake towards the river the spawn is full boar or close to over, but up by the dam it just seemed like it's just getting started. At least where I was fishing.

Looks like West Fork got over 3" and Huntsville area was similar. We are currently sitting at 1116.14 which is about 4" higher than it was before the rain started. It appears that it will rise an inch an hour for the next 24 hours. That will put us up above 1118, and 2.5 ft shy of normal pool. Depending on if they start generating or not it could slowly creep up to 1120 after the short term gain. I wish this would have happened in early March, but I'll take it anyway we can get it. I imagine fishing will be really good for the next few weeks before the fish start to transition towards summer pattern.

I saw that. Looked 100 percent like a meanmouth. I grabbed a screenshot of it.

Sounds like a great day! Dad and I drove up from NWA to fish same day. He enjoys Indian Creek so we put in there. Caught 3 good keepers right off the bat at the fork of Big and Little Indian. Shad were thick in and around main channel. But didn't want to scope all day and we went back into Big Indian to try the jig bite. Not even a nibble in 1.5 hours. Tried wart on a couple of banks and didn't have any luck. We caught our 3 on Jerkbait, Swimbait, Spinnerbait.

We went to Table Rock(Indian Creek) only caught 3. Wanted to catch some shallow, but they were MIA. Could have caught more out in main creek channel, but didn't want to scope all day. Should have gone to Beaver.. Thought about it, but had heard the bite was good on TR and I haven't been up there in several months.