Bull Shoals 4/15 & 4/16

[Ham]

I fished another part of Bull Shoals closer to the dam. I spent two days doing a lot of driving and a lot of trying different things as I put my eyes on sections that looked good on the map. I had fairly decent weather. Some wind and some clouds which helped. Wednesday I got a late start, but I fished until dark. Thursday I got an earlier start, but I quit at 4 PM because I had to work all night. As it turns out, I got a 15 minute nap before heading into work. Ouch.

The fish are CLOSE to heading shallow BIG TIME. This will happen during my week at work. Figures.

I caught 130 fish over the two days. Spots, smallies, LMB. One 25 inch Walleye on susp jerkbait, a bunch of crappie, and about 15 White bass that I caught spawning on a flat just before dark. Pretty fun making them run down an RC Wake.

Water was too clear in the main lake. I can fish better when I go back up a creek until the water gets a little dingy.

I couldn't make the stickbait work very well for me.

I swam a grub pretty effectively. I switched to a crappie jig after a 14 3/4 inch black crappie grub ate my 4 inch grub. I still kept catching spots on the crappie jig. Some of the crappie had their spawning coolors on already. Some of the spots appeared to be full of eggs.

Some Senko fish. Some stickbait fish.

Lots of stuff will work.

NO spinnerbait fish which was crazy.

Water temps were about 52' both mornings, but really went up over the course of the day.

Water was so clear where I lauched that in full sunlight you can see the color of the bottom in 25 foot of water. I got to see the walleye eat my jerkbait which was really cool.

I did catch fish better in areas that had 7 foot or so visibility.

You catch about 10 > 9 inch crappie fr every crappie > 10 inches. Fun catching but frustrating if your trying to keep em.

So the fish are biting and they should start really biting soon.