Quillback

Thanks for the report, I've been thinking about going over there, but I hear they have shut the plant down for maintenance so they aren't running any water. I think that's the reason you saw those cold (for Swepco) water temps, I believe that it makes fishing a lot tougher on that lake when they shut the plant down.

Ya'll are welcome, I have fun doing some fishing and taking some pics, might as well share them.

Nope, no accidents here, Ike wasn't in an accident either, he was driving too fast to react in a safe manner to a hazard. He's lucky he and the poor guy that was stuck in the boat with him walked away from it.

With the nasty weather forecast for later this week, I thought I'd better get out there while I had a chance. Fishing was OK, caught a dozen bass, mostly LM's and I think I remember maybe 3 spots. Got them all dragging a tube on rocky flats, or in small rocky pockets. Caught one bass that had this craw in his mouth, picture is a bit blurry, but you crawologists can get a sense of the color, green, with black borders on the shell and some orange on the ends of the legs. He was about 2.5" long. Here's a pic of a pocket that I caught 5 bass out of, boat was sitting in 10 FOW and the area where the bass were, in the back of the pocket, but not all the way back, was about 4-5 feet deep and rocky. No standing timber in the water at all. Big bass of the day, 3.5 lbs. I did not throw the A-rig, I just don't like to fish it, I have no problem with other people fishing it, but it's just not something I enjoy doing.

Looks like a few teams did very well, and the rest were just kind of average. I have to wonder if the bass on that lake are getting tournament fatigue, seems there's been a lot of tourney activity on that lake the last few weeks, but maybe it's what you see every year on that lake, I started paying attention this year to the tourney's on Grand, but it seems every weekend for the past month there's tourneys with hundreds of boats.

Must have been a tough place to fish, winner had 49 lbs., heck Beaver fishes better than that. Ike finished 83rd, should've stayed on the bank.

Awesome fish, congrats!

I fished around Big M a couple of days last week and did not see any whites, if you're after whites I'd go somewhere else, where exactly I could not tell you, might be some up around Holiday Island.

Come May or June there's a real good early morning topwater bite on and around the point by the Viney creek COE launch and park on the White river arm of Table Rock. I don't know if that's within driving range of where you are, but it would be an excellent spot to fish from a canoe, or you could wade fish there also. You can launch your canoe and be right into the fish. It's mostly Spots with an occasional smallie or LM. Once the early topwater bite stops you can pick them up dragging a 3/8 oz football jig in green pumpkin with any trailer (I like Zoom Creepy Crawlers in GP, cheap but effective), across the point. Only drawback is that if you go on a Saturday morning you will have company. If you want a little space for yourself, there's another launch about 3/4 mile north of Viney, I don't know what it's called, but I believe you can find it on GPS. You can launch a canoe there, paddle about 200 yards north, and you'll be on a point with ajacent flats that holds fish May through July, same deal, early topwater then drag jigs, again mostly spots with a SM or LM every once in a while.

Ok, well hopefully you'll be able to make it, let me know if you decide to go and I'll bring some stuff. I think I recall Bill Babler saying he was bringing his boat and tackle with him, not that I want to make promises for him, but if you're going you could shoot him a PM and see if he's bringing some BC's.

Yep I second what Al is saying, you also won't get as much line twist with a BC as you'll get with a spinning reel. I was one of those spinning only guys until I started seriously using baitcasters about 15 years ago, I still like spinning for drop shots, shakeyhead, and real light non-aerodynamic cranks like a Shad Rap size 5 or 6, but the BC's can't be beat for bottom dragging stuff like Carolina rigs, Texas rigs, and jigs. I can also walk the dog with topwaters much easier with a BC than a spinning rod. So Jack, are you going to be at the OA gathering at Cape Fair next Saturday? I plan on going and I can bring a couple of BC setups if you want to do a little test casting. I have a lightly used Citica 200D that I'd be willing to sell to you that I never use, for say, $35, which is dirt cheap for that reel. A good deal that is running right now is Cabelas has Daiwa Vientos on sale for $99, that's a great value buy for a decent reel, it has a twitching bar feature which some folks don't like, but it's not in the way and if you don't like that feature, don't use it, the Viento is fairly compact and light. I have a Viento and can bring it to the gathering if you're interested in checking one out.

Didn't see many shad, most of the winter the shad have been in the deep water down by the dam, huge schools of them, but we did not fish that end of the lake so I don't know if they are still there but my guess is they are. A couple of years ago I used to go out real early in the morning (2 or 3 AM) while it's still dark and fish until about 8 or so, did OK on bigger bass doing that. Most guys that night fish put in in the evening and fish until midnight or so, so if you go out early in the AM usually you'll have the lake to yourself until it gets light. How is that neck of yours doing Trophy?

Nice one! BTW how was the black bass fishing?

Very nice rebuild.

I do remember that, it is nice to have the LM's biting, but I get a kick out of drop-shotting for those K's in the summer also. One thing I like about this time of year is the big ones come out to play.

Good luck! I did see some surface activity this morning, I didn't throw a topwater, but I think I'm going to start keeping one on the deck. I also caught a 17" eye on a tube, he's lucky he wasn't an inch longer.

A great day to be fishing! I think every bass fisher in a 100 mile radius thought the same thing as there were a lot of boats out there today. But it's all good and I hope everyone did well. As for me, I ended up with 10 bass, all LM's except one small spot. 9 of them came from dragging a t-rigged tube on chunk rock banks. My best banks were in coves or cove mouths where it was rocky but not too steep. Best depths were in the 5 - 12 foot range. Worked a jerkbait around trees for a bit but that was not working for me today. I did get one bass on a finesse jig and it was a dandy, a bit over 5 lbs.

That Watermelon red flake looks killer! I like the idea of a phantom red craw also.

You do have to watch out for the deadly "White river fog", that oxygen less water can create an oxygen less fog on those calm summer mornings. It claims the lives of several boaters a year. There used to be a warning sign about this on the Eagle Rock bridge but the local hillbillies tore it down.

Caught a couple of nice ones first thing in the morning, 6.25 and 7.25 lbs., both came on a jerkbait, from the same location, maybe 10 minutes apart. Jeb got a 4.75 lb. fish later in the morning on a jig. Good early bite, then things got really slow, we left a little after noon. I think we got 7 bass total, and 6 of those came in the first hour. Water temp was nudging 49 when we left.

Depends what you mean by "reasonably priced". I've heard a lot of good comments on the BPS Johnny Morris Pro-Qualfier reels, never tried one myself, but I believe you can pick thm up for less than $100 when they are on sale. I picked up a Gen 3 Revo STX last fall, I'm impressed with it except they do have an issue with having to really tighten down the tension control knob if you want to fish it with a slow spool. You can get them for around 159-179 on sale. Shimano Chronarch G is another good reel in the STX price range. Lews makes a good reel from what I hear.

There's a COE park there with a launch and dock. Sits on a small cove sheltered from the wind, which makes loading a lot easier on those windy days.

I'm old enough to remember, back in the ealry 60's when I was 5 or 6, we used to drive from Wichita to Kennett MO to visit my grandparents. This was before the anti-litter campaigns came out. Everybody, and I mean everybody, when traveling down the highway and finishing a fast food meal, tossed everything out the window, bottles, cups, wrappers, bags, everything. The roadside ditches were filled with trash. Things today are much better as far as that is concerned.

Let's hope they get more than a slap on the wrist.

We've been catching them on jigs and tubes the last 3 weeks. Smaller jigs, 5/16 or 3/8 seems to be the best. We're also finding fish back in the coves, not all the way back on the spawning flats but in the deeper water that gives access to the flats.