Bassin The Rock Baxter-dam-shell Knob

[Bill Babler]

Had two swell guys yesterday, launching at Baxter. Fished from there down to 16 then Uturn and up th Shell Knob. Results were the same everywhere I went. BAD with a CAPITAL B.

11 fish toal with 4 big Keeps, early, all a suspending stick. Threw and drug everybait in the boat and just could not get bit after 10 AM.

The past 4 days have been some of the flattest water I have ever seen on the rock, and I for one just cannot get bit on flat water.

Know of 5 trips out of the Dam yesterday, with a total of about 5 bass caught by all 5 guide boats. That's not 5 fish per boat, that's 5 fish total.

Flat water and even though its warm, surface temps just are not rising. It is gettin really cold at night and it takes it till noon to recover. I believe that was probably remidied. today.

Glad for a day of the whites cause the green ones are giving me fits.

Any day now.

[Troy Gregg]

Had two swell guys yesterday, launching at Baxter. Fished from there down to 16 then Uturn and up th Shell Knob. Results were the same everywhere I went. BAD with a CAPITAL B.

11 fish toal with 4 big Keeps, early, all a suspending stick. Threw and drug everybait in the boat and just could not get bit after 10 AM.

The past 4 days have been some of the flattest water I have ever seen on the rock, and I for one just cannot get bit on flat water.

Know of 5 trips out of the Dam yesterday, with a total of about 5 bass caught by all 5 guide boats. That's not 5 fish per boat, that's 5 fish total.

Flat water and even though its warm, surface temps just are not rising. It is gettin really cold at night and it takes it till noon to recover. I believe that was probably remidied. today.

Glad for a day of the whites cause the green ones are giving me fits.

Any day now.

Bill... I knew it had to be tough, with a capital T. Like you I cannot get bit real well on Flat water, and I was throwing finesse baits. Grub, shakey head, and small jigs.

It was tough sunday, it was tough on monday, and I know it was tough again today even though I didn't make it to the lake.

The fish pond at Big Cedar is filled from the Rock and cycles about once a day. I can kind of use the fish in our pond as a guage, as we have bluegill bass and catfish. And the past few days nobody has caught anything out of the pond. Today we had 120+ kids all around our pond and a grand total of 6 bluegill were caught for a three hour period.

The Green ones are giving myself fits, as well as everyone else I have talked to, I hope those whites kick it up a notch or two... I am ready

[Jackie D]

Hey guys, I had a trip today with two guys that were good casters and we caught 50+ up the James. Without a counter it is hard to judge just how many we did catch because sometimes I caught fish on back to back to back cast and I would hand my rod to client and then the bite would seem to end, but in reality they were having a hard time feeling some of the light bites. When you don't fish for those bottom fish alot, sometimes it is hard to tell the difference from a rock and a bite until it is to late. I know because I fish for them all the time and I jerked air probably 12-15 times today on bites....I'm sure they were small spots at least that is what I told myself. Water was flat and bad foggy in the morning. There was lots of boat traffic but they were biting all day. We quit with them biting and we had several doubles. One spot had several fish surfacing which I figured was whites and it was after we caught about 6 or 8 of them, they were all small. Only caught one good white but didn't fish for them anymore the rest of the day. Clients had lots of fun and so did I. Saturday in the Heartland Buddy we only had 8 bites all day long. Today we only had two keepers with many many 12" spots and the blacks were mostly 12" to 13 inchers except for the keepers. Water had some nasty scum on surface when it was slick calm. The fish seemed to like the windy areas when it started blowing around noon. We were supposed to stop at 3:00 PM but we stayed till 4:30 because it was so nice and they were biting. I certainly couldn't win any tourneys up there but the catching is fun right now.

See ya on the water

[edwin]

Glad to hear that I wasn't the only one having challenges with the fish over the past couple days, especially in the flat calm water. My kids and I did manage a handful yesteray wayy up the James, past Cape Fair. Today was extra quiet in the morning w/o a single hit...nada.

Around 2pm or so this afternoon, the wind finally started to blow. I focused on windblown banks between Pt 11 and the slalom course in Buttermilk Spgs. I was able to manage 4 shorts on the grub on the chunk rock bank. I switched to the McStick along the bluffs with as slightly longer pause between jerks than I really wanted, ended up with 15 more, 4 of them keepers (1 3.4lb LM, 3 decent spots). The water warmed almost 5 degs this afternoon in the windblown areas.

I can't ever recall catching so few fish over a couple day period, only to catch 19 in a 2 hour span.