Seth

Thursday, May 31 Me, dad and mom got out on the water for the last few hours of the evening. The water was moving pretty good. I ran up to Fall Creek and drifted down past Short Creek with only a few bites to show for my efforts. My next stop was the big eddy just down and across from Cooper Creek. From there down to the second creek was very productive using pink power worms and trout magnets beneath a float about 5' deep. We probably ended up catching 30-40 fish between us and kept three limits of very nice stockers. I'd say most were around that 1# mark. Those fish would pile in to those current seems when the water was cranking and you would get a bite every cast on the pink worm/magnet or a jig. Friday, June 1 Got out on the water around 6am and threw a 5" jerkbait from Cooper Creek down to Monkey Island and had three encounters with nice browns. Two followed the bait to the boat, but didn't bite and one absolutely crushed it and I over reacted and broke him off on the hookset.... It looked to be a 20-22" fish. After doing that for a few hours, I went back to the room and grabbed some food. I was back out on the water around 10:30am and fished just below Cooper Creek again. With the water off and light winds, the fishing was harder, but I still caught quite a few out deeper on a sculpin/peach jig and a pink trout worm about 8' deep. Dad and a nephew got back from Steal Your Dollar City around 1 so I went and picked them up and we fished till 3. My nephew had never caught a trout and he ended up catching five or six. A few were on powerbait and the others came on the pink trout worm under a float. His mom got back around 4ish so I dropped him and dad off at the dock and headed to the trophy area. The water was still running pretty hard so the trout were stacked in the eddy below Lookout. White and sculpin/peach jigs produced a bite nearly every cast. At 6pm, I got a call that dinner was about done and headed back. Saturday, June 2 Dad and I ran up and hit the area about halfway between Fall and Short Creek around 7:30. We caught a couple on jigs, but nothing crazy. We headed up to the narrows around 8:45am and saw a bunch of midging fish. I rigged my fly rod with an olive micro jig and dad with a brown orange head micro about 3' beneath a float and we proceeded to catch around 20 fish each over the next three hours. While throwing that around, we saw a couple fish blow up on shad in shallow water, but they quit before I could troll over to them. Around noon, we went back to the room to grab some lunch and rest a bit. The water was starting to turn on when I got back out so I broke out the jerkbait again and hit the Narrows and fished the rip rap down to Fall Creek. Two browns followed, but didn't bite and one bit, but didn't get hooked up. All were around 18-20". A couple of very aggressive stockers were all I caught. After that, I ran to the cable and floated all the way back down to Fall Creek and while tossing the jerkbait. I caught a few stockers again, had an 18" class brown chase the lure to the boat by Trophy Run and then finally connected with a 20" class brown just above Lookout. He was on for about 5 seconds, tail walking and jumping before the bait popped out of his mouth. Fished the jerkbait the rest of the way down and caught one more little stocker. My next run was to the cable again, but I threw a white 1/8oz jig this time and caught several rainbows. A few were really thick 16-17" bows. Around 6pm, I headed back down lake and threw the jig and trout worm below Cooper Creek and caught several more really nice rainbows up to 15" before calling it a day and heading in for dinner. Sunday, June 1 I got on the water around 6:30am and threw the jerkbait between the last docks below Cooper Creek about 1/2 way down to Monkey Island without any action. After that, I ran up to the Narrows and fished for a few hours before heading back to pack up and head home. Fishing was a lot slower than it had been the previous few days, but I did watch a guy boat a keeper brown near the rip rap. He was staying at Lilley's so maybe he got a pic of him with the fish. Not really anything new as far as presentation and lures. Threw the micro olive jig on the fly rod and a 1/16oz sculpin/peach or white jig around midging fish and caught a few. Summary The quality of stockers down lake is really good right now. We had several fish that were in that 1.25-1.5# range. Fishing was easier when the water was running as it pushed the trout in to the current seems by those creek mouths and eddy's across and down from Cooper Creek. When the water was off, we still caught them around there, but they were far more scattered and the bite wasn't nearly as good. The Narrows is full of fish, but we actually caught better quality fish just below Cooper Creek. The better quality fish in the trophy area came when the water was running pretty hard between the cable and Trophy Run. Committing to a big jerkbait can wear on a person. It's a lot of work with not a lot of action (for me at least), but the few bites you do get seem to be from very nice fish. I'll post videos to go along with my reports once I get a chance to edit the GoPro footage. Between work, baseball games and getting caught up from being gone the past four days, it may be next week before I get it done though.

I broke out the fly rod this morning and caught 19 or 20 using a gold head olive micro jig that I tied up 2-3' beneath a float. Dad fished a brown micro with an orange head on spinning gear and was right there with me on numbers. Had the GoPro running so expect a video soon. I have plenty of other fishing details to share as well, but I will make one big post with everything once I get back home.

Dad said he will loan you a few night crawlers when we get down there tomorrow.

I'm confused here. Hasn't MDC always had that information anyways? I've used my SS# for as long as I can remember when purchasing tags and licenses.

FYI, I was making a joke, hence the picture.

People will argue till they are blue in the face (or their fingers hurt from typing) over the internet and not convince either party to change their opinion. It's a waste of time. I can think of many other things I'd rather waste time doing online than bickering over political parties that don't give two squirts about the average Joe or the 2035823508 different versions of religion that are out there..... @Flysmallie don't like you're innocent. I found this pic of you online!

If you really want to get your nickers in a twist, skip the Tablerock forum and head on over to the smallmouth only section! They show less mercy than Sensei Kreese!

Just tell them they aren't supposed to do that and direct them to a sign. Some people truly don't know. If they do know and continue breaking the rules, then just hope they eventually get caught or make a call to the Game Thief hotline and move on. That's all you can really do.

Ditto! Only reason I won't shop somewhere is they have wronged me in some shopping related way. Otherwise, I could care less if you're conservative, liberal, straight, gay, gender fluid, etc as long as you have what I need and for a decent price.

That's God's way of telling you to give those poor brownies a break!

This was in early May on a 175 acre lake near where I live. I had hoped to get the video done soone but time was in short supply between fishing, mowing grass and getting roped in to helping my buddy coach his sons ball team.

This is the first year in a while that I've actually experienced a good spawn bite. Dropping a jig and float on them and watching the float go under is always a blast!

Try PBJ first. If that one isn't working, then try PBJ. Lastly, if they still aren't biting PBJ, try another PBJ. I bought some Swingoil NED heads with the wire hook keeper as backups for when I forget the super glue. I've been using them for the past few years more often than not because it seems my glue is always dried up when I actually do remember it. It's not as good as using super glue, but it holds the bait in place a lot better than with no hook keeper.

I know you put them back, but their mouths will still be sore by the time I get there. Just don't HOOK all of them so I can tangle with a few. 11-13" rainbows are about the only thing I bother keeping. When I bake them, the pin bones soften up enough that you can just eat them and not worry about getting stuck. Anything much bigger, and they are big enough to where I have to cut around them or just cut them out before cooking.

As far as I know, Legend SS only offers the rod box in the 60" wide boats. I run an 1860 Legend SS vbass and it has the rod locker. If you want a smaller rig with a rod box, they would have to have one custom ordered. Call Cowtown, tell them what you are looking for and they can get you a price quote. I'm a big fan of Legend SS boats, but if you are looking for something a bit more custom, then you would be doing yourself a favor to call Troutt and Sons and get quote for them. Jeff McMillen is the main welder/rigger and he can build you anything you want. Here is another tip for side rod lockers. Make sure you get it with an open front end and use rod socks. You can fit a lot more rods in there. Side rod lockers with grommets for a set amount of rods wastes a lot of space IMO.

I mostly use the power worm these days, but I still break out the magnets now and then. They still catch fish. I've not fished them enough side by side to really see how they compare.

May 19 was kids fishing day. I took a long time friend and his son down. He never has been much of a fisherman and his son had never caught a fish before. We started off drifting trout worms under a float, but he just couldn't get the hang of tightening the line and setting the hook so we switched over to yellow and rainbow powerbait on the bottom and he was able to catch his first four fish of his career. The trout cooperated and would swallow the hook so the lack of a hookset didn't really matter. My dad was also down helping my brother in law and his boys and they caught several as well. As we finished up, my main bass fishing tournament partner and his two oldest girls showed up. He isn't a trout guy so I basically set them up on bottom with powerbait as well and the trout cooperated. They both caught a nice limit of trout. I'm not the most patient when it comes to helping others fish, but I think I can safely say that we all had an absolute blast getting them to catch some fish. On Sunday, I went back down and took my fiance and her parents. The fishing wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. My fiance caught her limit of decent fish on a trout worm, and my father in law caught six, but threw back a couple small ones. It took him most of the day to catch them drifting bait below a float. I caught quite a few, but I had to resort to some micro sized jigs to get them to bite. They would bite a regular jig and trout worm, but most would only grab the end and never actually got the hook in their mouth enough to hook. I saw several lunkers caught on Saturday by the kids as well as few left overs on Sunday by adults. The two biggest fish caught on kids days when I last checked was a pair of 6.8 pounders. Supposedly a guy pulled an 8 pounder out of the slow hole at the upper end of the park by the handicap area that morning.

Save a few hungry browns for a lowly clip on jetter.

I've used both and really didn't notice a difference in snagging up, but I typically only use them in the winter on fairly clean bottoms.

I'm on my Iphone 8 Plus more than anything else when I am not at work. I've got an Ipad as well, but I rarely use it since the 8 plus is fairly good sized. I've got a desktop at home that I built for gaming that I rarely use anymore since I'm not in to any sort of games as well as a laptop that I mainly use for editing my fishing videos as well as work stuff.

I've always just fished them like a traditional jerkbait.

This brown frenzy just needs to hold out for two more weeks. I'll be down May 31-Jun 3 with nothing but fishing on the agenda! I need to break my curse for catching a legal brown.

That would be my guess. I can't imagine a crappie of that size not being at the end of it's life cycle.

JUMBO!! Is that another big triploid?

One flew in our to our window which has a big screen covering it on the outside and got his beak stuck for a bit yesterday. I was just about to go out and give him a helping hand, but he finally worked his way out on his own.