Quillback

Well I have not been to Table Rock in a while, but a buddy of mine fished a club tourney on Tuesday and they had some success on Ned rigs on steep banks and bluffs. If I was going to go, I'd do like Bo says, look around for bait and/or fish. I would check gravel points and points at the mouths of coves. I'd probably try swimming Keitechs deep, dragging jigs, C-rig, and maybe try a drop shot. I would be out on the lake as early as possible. Might be worth fishing docks later in the morning too.

I remember reading an article years ago where people where cutting disks out of ray wings and selling them as scallops. Scallops are tasty, if ray wings are similar they would be worth keeping.

I am dining on bream fillets tonight.

Bferg has excellent advice. I would add that your best bite is going to be early or late most likely. I'd probably go right to a jig myself, with an eye out for top water fish. Half ounce bluegill pattern or GP/Orange. And I'd use a Rage Craw as a trailer, pinching the first two segments off. I have found that PB&J color in the Rage Craw seems to be a great color for smallmouth. Smallmouth will hang around trees out in 10-20 FOW, trees and rocks is a good combo. I'd drag that jig on the bottom, and also swim it. I'd like to get out there myself and give it a shot, maybe next week after the 4th weekend is over.

I think that they are still waiting on the Mississippi and/or the Arkansas rivers to recede before they start releasing water. if anything it should provide good cover for this years fry, hopefully leading to good numbers to catch down the road.

Braid on a spinning reel eliminates all that line twist/loop stuff. You can add a leader at whatever pound test or type (mono or fluoro) you want.

Are you seeing fish on the finder? If I'm vertical drop shot fishing, then I need to see fish and I'll move around until I find them.

It's easier to throw a heavy lure with a bait caster, at least for me. Top water fishing for stripers, I need long distance as the fish are spooky and you need to get that lure on them fast. I'll throw my 3/4 oz top waters with a 7 foot rod and 12 lb mono. It doesn't hurt to have clean spool bearings on your bait caster. You want a rod that is rated for the weight you are throwing. If you're getting close to 50 yards, that's pretty good.

Way to go!

You guys done good, those are some quality fish.

Cool, I haven't used a Lazy Ike in many years. Lots of action on a slow troll.

Interesting read, hard to compare a study on a 15 acre lake compared to something as big as Table Rock and the bass that live there. https://www.post-gazette.com/life/outdoors/2019/06/13/Largemouth-bass-fishing-Pittsburgh-Pennsylvania/stories/201906130067

I haven't been up there since the water came up, but I talked to someone a couple of days ago and they said the Kings was mud with lots of wood floating in it up around the 86 bridge.

Yeah you're right Wrench I don't think he made a lot of money. I think every bass forum out there has a Mike Long thread running.

No tourney until August. You'd think they would have one in July.

Might as well go big time with this stuff. 🙂

Thought about going over to Big M today, but decided to let things shake out a bit weather wise.

It reads as "soft plastic bait" which in my interpretation would be something like a plastic grub or worm, not appendages on a fly. But that's my opinion. Certainly a rule that needs to be re-written or clarified.

Those skinny ones will still tug pretty hard.

Looks like mainly they are going to raise non-resident license fees. It's not a big enough increase that I would look at and make a decision to not buy a permit, but I sure don't want to pay more. And they state the reason for the proposed increase is that the CPI has gone up, so let's raise our fees to keep up with inflation. Increasing fees (taxes) to keep up with inflation only encourages more spending. Give any government entity more money and they will spend it. And spend it on what? Can't tell from the proposal.

Could be they get deeper later in the AM, I took that shot about 7 AM. Lots of shad up the White, but not as thick as you are seeing them. Early when it is calm there are shad swimming on top and you can see a bunch of little "V's" kind of like a wake bait moving on top.

Here's a shot from today showing some over deep water.

Another day, another fog bank. Fortunately it wasn't very thick right outside of Big M so I was able to motor down lake before getting socked in, but I was able to get to where I wanted to be. However the top water bite I was anticipating did not get going for a while, so I worked some trees in a cove with a Grass Jig/Rage Craw and caught a couple of keeper smallmouth, they were in that 10-15 foot range and ate it when it was being dragged across the bottom. I'd say about 0600 the top water bite got going, but it was another day where they were over deep water and scattered, best way to get a bite was get a cast on them right after they popped, fan casting will get some bites, but not nearly as many if you can get on them right away when they come up. I was using an Evergreen SB 115 for most of my bites and also got one on a Rapala Wake Minnow. Tom from Eagle Rock was out there and he was getting them on a Whopper Plopper. Sun came out, fogged burned off, top water bite just stopped when that happened. Dragged the c-rig off a few points and picked up a couple of shorts. Caught 17 bass and 5 of them were keepers. Lost a big smallie, he scarfed the Evergreen, pulled for a few seconds and came out of the water about 3 feet and tossed the lure. That hurt. I think the WT was 79, my temp reading on my depth finder has been squirrely lately, sometimes it shows reading like -2 or 20. But it did read 79 for a while which sounds a little more reasonable than -2. Tried a spy bait for a bit, had a couple of bites, but no hookup. Caught a white bass on a Keitech, but no black bass on it. Three amigos

Good deal - you look like Patton ready to take on the Germans. 😀