The Road To Table Rock Lake - 2008

[HeavyC]

Hello Everyone!

We made it back as originally planned, but the only thing that actually kept us from extending & staying through this weekend was the darn Gustov weather hit that area on Tuesday

First off, great place, area & we had a wonderful time!

Began our trip the evening of the 27th knowing that we would not make it to our destination for another ~15 hours. The plan worked well, traffic was light all the way and we just slipped through the KC area before rush hour hit. Made it into the Branson area late morning and a made a pit stop by the local Wally World for those last minute items and of course; ICE! Headed strait to the campsite to get things set up. The plan WAS TO get camp set up, take a quick nap and get on the lake for the last couple of hours of sunlight. So much for making plans with a very cocky 17 year old in tow!!! Never did help driving through the night, and now playing his little game and still sleeping in the truck!! (Kids these days. If it were only 30 years ago! Boy if I ever woulda tried that w/ my parents or relatives I would have been looking at & feeling someone's big ol boots kickin me you know where!) I tried to play his litte game and thought I needed a nap anyways, since I had just drove over 15 hours and all. NO WAY! The heat and humidity had other plans for my sweat glans!

So needless to say I started unloading and setting things up. (Moving rather sluggishly I must admit) Then the Carey (the nephew) must have started feeling a little guilty and drug himself out of the truck; HUNGRY of course. No problem there, as I understand what other 17 year old boy is not ALWAYS hungry So he set-up the ol` Coleman and cooked himself up some ball parks. Followed by some actual assistance setting some things up. (He really is a great kid, wired tight and going to test me every chance he gets, but a good kid )

After canopy and tent are set-up I again try and lay down for a power nap to no avail Now I am hungry, so I throw on a couple of dogs.

Now I am dead tired and he is wired on a half a bag of Crispy Cream miniture cake donuts! Humidity is killing me and his constant bugging convince me to get the boat on the lake for the last hour of daylight. I had previously printed some maps showing underwater brush piles dropped-in by the Army Corp of Engineers & BPS and I had some that showed a couple of banks right across the lake. Well we head out just past the first main lake point and start drifting back over it. I was using a shaky head with a watermelon & red flake Chomper's Drop shot worm and Carey starts out throwing a Heddon Puppy on top. The pattern for the trip started early - my first cast a big fat bluegill his second cast a gill on the top water! A couple of casts later out in ~20fow I get the first short spot of the trip! Dink for sho, was maybe 6" ) I am exited though! That very first evening we both managed a couple of short spots and a handful of bluegill apiece in maybe 30 minutes on the water! NICE!

The very next morning we had a guided trip planned w/ capt. Don and got on the water a little late, sorry Don!. (those 17 year olds sure do not want to get up do they!) We hit a couple of main & secondary lake points and managed one very decent smallie What I wanted even more from Capt. Don was locations for the remainder of the trip so we bounced around much of the eastern portion of the lake and he rolled over some points and graphed them for me and we gave them a little try. By ~10:30 we decied to get on some fish and switched to some drop shot rigs and immediately started pickin at the Kentuckies suspended at about 25'+. For the next 3 hours it was non-stop action mostly on short spots & gills, but several decent sized mixed in! The trick was to get the crawler past the bluegill who were all suspended between 1-20'! Great end to a very productive day in my mind. I then used the locations Don showed me the rest of trip; and with good success

The rest of the weekend proceed similar to the guided trip. We always managed a couple decent smallies or spots on the points and in some coves, and then headed to the drop shot areas later in the morning and into afternoon. Deep water docks, and the bridge pillars were the ticket, but we found the spots to be hanging even deeper in ~35-40fow! It was awesome to watch them come up on the graph and take the crawler, that is so cool! In the evenings we tried with only little success some topwater tactics. The evenings seemed to be the same as the morning and sporatic jig bite being the best.

Jigs still seemed to capture the vast majority of the keeper size fish all week, followed by the drop shot and then topwater. Though more number of bass were on the drop shot and crawlers! I also wore out the bluegills on the Gulp Alive leeches! They absolutely must love those things. I did manage quite a few Kentuckies on the leeches when drop shotting w/ them; if I was successful at getting them through the bluegills which were suspended much shallower in the same locations.

Even though I am not a big picture person, I will post a few for everyone's viewing pleasure.

Thanks everyone for the advice and reports I have been getting here on OA! Thanks to capt. Don for the trip and all the locations we wore out the next 4 days!

Some decent shorts:

More pics - - - - -

[rps]

It is fantastic to read a vacation success story. It looks like you all had a great time. All of us hope you and your family come back again, soon and often. BTW, the pictures of the son are the ones I like. It's the generation thing, you know?

[Whack'emGood]

Way to go HC! Looks like you had a great time and did well. You also got the privelige of learning from one of the best (Capt Don). Take that knowledge and stash it away to use for next time. I enjoyed reading about your trip. It is always nice to hear about a great family vacation. Come back and see us soon!

Whack'em

[Don House]

H/C, glad to hear your week ended out so great! I was wondering about you guys when:

1) Seen everything about that Helio crash, I guess it was pretty close to your campground. And I guess we just missed it by getting off at 3:00pm..

2) The RAIN... I knew you guys were in a tent, oh boy!!

Anyway you made it fine, I did see you guys a few times during the week, once when you went by the bridge.. So happy it all worked out and you got that young one up from his beauty nap.... Had a great time fishing with you guys, glad the weather held out for us during our day. Hope to see you guys back again next year..

Best Safe and Good Fishing

Capt. D

[motoman]

Great pix HC, and even better write-up. Like the others, I love to hear great stories of adventures down at the Rock.

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And hats off to you for having the patience to take a road trip (camping no less) with a teenager!