Hammering On Hard Rock Today

[Bill Babler]

Hit the water out of Aunt's creek today at 5:25 AM with a good young fisherman, Michael Smith and his mom and dad. Dad didn't fish, but mom did and caught the most.

Decided to lay off the lower James, and hit some stuff up the White. Major mistake probably on my part. Day dawned clear as a bell and as flat as a mirror. I guess it dawned, but with the full moon, even I could have read a newspaper at 4 AM.

My jig and hula grub bite just flat went as flat as the water, 1 swimmer, and this is ashame as this kid could really throw and fish. We worked it as hard as we could and that was it.

Mommy on the other hand was just plain speading the butter on the bread in the back seat with a crawler. 8 solid keepers up to 3.5. The shame of this was her dropshot fish came out of about 18 to 22 feet, while we hammered the bank.

Move out and fish that 22 ft. range you say??? Did that and a big goose egg on anything but a yummy crawler.

Right before we went in, we did catch 6 with 3 pretty good keeps on the purple lam. DSW. All were at 18 suspended off the bottom at 25. Momma would have caught those also, but I had her dragging her worm on the bottom and Mike was able to just drop on the suspenders using the soft-plastics.

About the same number of fish I had on Tuesday, but not at all the same kind of day. Yes we had some nice keepers today, but catching those Big fish on a FB is night and day ahead of DS worm dangling.

I know Chris had a great day on the hula grub, and I will let him post on it. I must just have been in the wrong lake section.

Don't guess I should fuss about that many fish, with most of them keepers of pretty fair quality in mid-july, but I sure wanted this young man to catch some mean old Table Rock SJ's on that football jig.

I am taking this weekend off, although I have had a dozen calls for Saturday and Sunday. My son is coming in, and we are going to fish. Going to start at Viney on Saturday Morning and fish the Big M. area till 8 AM and then go into the Marina Cafe for Breakfast. He always beats me. I just love it.

[Whack'emGood]

Thanks, as always, for the report Bill. Glad to hear you are gonna get some good quality time and fun fishin' with your son this weekend. Y'all have fun- catch a bunch, but please leave some for us amateurs!!

My dad is my favorite fishing partner-- I wouldn't trade him for anyone.

Whack'em

[techo]

We did pretty well today. I thought I saw you (Bill) headed back into Aunt's Creek this morning. I was on the point in a Skeeter and gave a wave. We caught early on the Jewel jig tipped with the doublt tail grub. Nothing huge, but we could have weighed a bag full in a tourney.

On a side note.... I have always used the yama or Kunami grub tails. Sometimes I use the BP or the something else, but almost always use the Yama. Babbler mentioned them on here and the pegs are empty at Bass Pro! LOL

Had to stop by Table Rock Marine to reload.

[Chris Tetrick]

Seems like everything was bass-akwards. Started out good in the fog, hula grubbin it up shallow. No telling how many the guy I had on my trip today shoulda caught off it. Seen him let 2 Smallmouth let get up and tos the jig head out, fish over 4lbs. He could though land the shorter guys, the younger fish of Table Rock that hasn't been well trained on how to throw a hook yet.

When the sun broke out seemd like about an hour or so of a slow down. Before it picked up again and just kept seemed to keep on getting better. The wild thing was we was catching K.Y.'s and the brown ones, here in Mid July on a sunny day, not a cloud to be seen, the wind may of hit 3 m.p.h. on a good run, and boats swarming to the left right, north south, behind us, next to us, on top of us but yet they kept bitng the jig, split shot, didn't matter. I never went to a point and stayed deeper than 26 foot casting up towards the brush line.

Never seen these guys, esp. the spots wanting to be so shallow on a day like this. All's I could think about is bfk............(Before Fish Kill) when we used to catch them like that lots of times when I was growing up.

Any of you fellows got any suggestions why they've been hanging around shallow now? I got to wondering about crawdads and if they spawn. Maybe that's it. What do you boy's think?

[Whack'emGood]

Someone may correct me, but I think crawdads spawn twice a year. Once in the spring when the water temp nears 50* and then again in the fall when it drops down close to 50* again. So that's not it. It's odd though, aint it? Does anyone have a theory?

Whack'em

[techo]

I still wonder if it has to do with the water being let out of Table Rock this year. Last year you could almost feel the dam being turned on and knew the fish would be moving. This year water is flowing a bit more freely.

This week the bass are spitting up shad when we catch them. In weeks past it was the crawdads.

[Predator1]

MAN! You guys are killing me with this weekday fishing. That's it, I'm telling my boss tomorrow I quit and I am taking up fishing full time ..well maybe not but I am pulling my boat to work tomorrow, maybe he'll get the picture and cut me loose early.

Nice catch today Techo.

I went down to the James after work yesterday and counted 7 LM in shallow water. Two of those were in the 5lb range. Looks like the James dropped another 2ft. Lots of bass concentrated in shallows near deep holes feeding on small bait fish.

I'll make sure to post pics this time.

Good luck this weekend all.

[Champ188]

On the subject of jig trailers, just wanted to add that I've been using the Zoom Creepy Crawler doubletail this year with quite a bit of success. It's a smaller profile than the Yamamoto or Kinami but works well for me on a fb jig. But its real niche for me is on the back of a 5/16ths Eakins jig. You might give it a whirl.

[CaptainJoe]

Chris,

I believe that the fish may be shallow due to the high water. In the past, the fry and shad had no where to hide, so they went deep and the big ones followed. Now that there is cover, the fry and shad are staying shallow in the bushes. I am seeing so much fry and shad shallow vs. the last three years. The fish are following the food and the food is shallow.

Just my thoughts.......

[ryan]

I have been graphing shad everywhere from the surface down to about 30 feet. Most of the fish I have caught have been about 18-20 ft deep. There are fish up on the surface chasing shad but they are tough to get to bite, a buddy and I caught a couple on DD 22 the other day but could not get them to eat a swim bait or a rattle trap which they should be eating both the way they are up on those shad. The top water bite was dead for me the other morning, most fish came on a drop shot or FB jig in 15-25 foot of water. I havent been able to really find any big concentrations of fish, just a few here and a few there. Best bite for me has been on a DSW.