Fall Walleyes

[lonkm]

I thought that this time of the year, the eyes and crappie were supposed to be schooling and putting on the feed bag. The best I can do is an occasional eye or crappie while trolling cranks about 2.2 mph. Working flats, points, channels and still haven't found any schools that are hitting. Whites boiling the surface in the am some days. Since the lake has been lowered the fishing has been very slow. I see lots of fish on my sonar but can't get them to bite. Any ideas?

[Sam]

Nope. I got real frustrated by a trip yesterday.

Day before yesterday I got into white bass big time. From 2 to 3 in the afternoon, they were surfacing on a flat in 14' of water about a mile below K Dock. I've never seen so many of them stay up for so long. In a five acre area the boils were constant and everywhere - it didn't matter which way I cast out, I'd get hooked up anyway. I caught a quick limit, culled some small ones and filled it again, then caught and released fish until I got tired of it.

So the next day, yesterday, I picked my 11 y.o. granddaughter up after school and we headed to the same spot. You guessed it - we worked that whole area and some besides hard all afternoon and didn't catch a single white bass. There were lots of minnows on top but no white bass surfacing at all, and no bites trolling either. The weather seemed the same as the day before, and conditions seemed fine, huge shoals of minnows on top - but no fish. I guess I'll never figure this fishing thing out.

[rangerman]

Watch the water temp. I haven't been down and don't know, but if the water temp gets to around 70 or high 6o's, the eyes should start moving shallower and feeding heavier.

[Forsythian]

Sounds like my trip yesterday. Put in at Kdock at sunrise, hoping the rain would taper off and the fish would bite... neither happened. My frog togs threw in the towel about noon, and I was done... I was soaked!

In the periods where the rain slowed, there was a decent spook bite for sublegals.

Never saw any whites surfacing, from K dock to Yocum. There were acres of gar surfacing around barn cove.

Sounds like from another thread I shoulda boated towards Beaver instead.

[Sam]

Yes, I've made maybe 10 crappie/white bass trips out of K Dock in the last 6 weeks. Some of them have been real good, but there's no pattern to it.

On Thursday, two brushpiles produced a limit of crappie (gotta love that GPS), then I caught an easy limit of white bass. Heck, I could have caught 200 white bass if I'd wanted to - I never saw so many of them surface and stay up for so long. I got to playing with them - throwing a Roostertail out and skipping it as fast as I could across the top of the water, and it'd get hit 5 or 6 times on the way in before a fish finally got hooked. Fun.

But all these trips, the white bass won't bite unless they're surfacing. I've never seen 'em act so strange - you can troll for two hours in an area where there are thousands of white bass and be lucky to get one bite. Then they'll boil up somewhere and you're catching fish with every cast.

Since they'll only bite when they're surfacing, and where and when they're gonna do that is unpredictable, it sure makes it a hit-or-miss proposition. I've found about the best thing is to run miles of the lake at about 25 mph and just keep looking. Then, once you find some surfacing stay around there because they'll come up again sooner or later. Strange behavior.

And as Lilley says, I'm afraid it may all be over now. This rain is going to wash a lot of mud and debris into the upper lake, and that may change things.

[Punisher]

I was at Beaver Creek on Fri 19th and we caught just a few bass. Compaired to most my outings it was fair to good. Water temp was 70 to 72

[Sam]

My partner and I had a good trip out of K Dock yesterday (Thursday). Nine keeper crappie, mostly about 13" and my partner caught one 16-incher. 19 white bass, mixed sizes, some up to 3 lbs., and quite a few bass including two that would have been keepers. I caught a 3' gar on a crappie rod, which was quite a fight but disappointing when we finally saw what it was.

Those white bass are being real difficult now. They started busting on top all over around Snapp Holler about noon, and we were chasing boils and throwing fish in the bottom of the boat. Then about 1:30 it was all over, and we couldn't find a white bass in the lake. When they're not boiling, they won't bite.

There's a little color to the water and a little floating trash, but that big rain didn't hurt anything. The low road at K Dock is under water again.

[Punisher]

Fished near Beaver Creek on Sat. Water temp just up stream of Beaver was 57 deg and fishing was SLOW. The creek was 67 deg. Cruised the water to K dock on Sun. the water temp was 65-70 deg didn't see any fish being caught.

[Forsythian]

I launched out of Kdock on Saturday afternoon for a quick trip... there was only 1 other rig in the lot and there was nobody on the water. I mean NOBODY... it was a little bit erie, but I soon found out why- I couldn't even get a sniff, much less a bite.

Did a little better on Sunday, fished around Bee Creek and found a slow-but-quality bite on a football jig, and even picked up a flathead on a jugline.

Saw where the Corps improved MM all the way to the water, looks like a decent launch (albeit limited parking).

[Sam]

Saw where the Corps improved MM all the way to the water, looks like a decent launch (albeit limited parking).

Yeah, I've been watching them build that ramp and I scoped all around it a couple of weeks ago. It's on a shallow flat and even with the water a little above power pool like it is now, it's only 4' deep around there. That ramp won't be usable if the water gets low.

I've heard that the corps intends to raise the power pool level by 8 or 9 feet, and if they do that the K Dock parking lot will be underwater - so maybe the MM ramp is meant to replace it. If so, it's pretty smart of 'em to build it before the water comes up.

I just got back from there - no crappie, walleyes, or white bass today, just a whole bunch of Kentucky bass caught trolling the edges of flats. I'm easy to please, and catch-and-release bass are fun - the biggest one was 15 1/2".

I never, ever crowd another fisherman - but part of the fun down there for me is a little snooping and adding points to my GPS. As I went out I saw a feller using his trolling motor to stay in one spot 'way out in the middle on the edge of a big flat where I didn't know there was a thing. Four hours later he was still on the same spot, then he came into the ramp right after I did. He asked how I'd done and I told him I'd only caught a bunch of bass, mostly short. He said he'd done the same "just fishing for anything that'll bite". Then as I drove off I saw him loading a bunch of slab crappie into a cooler.

So there's a good brushpile I didn't know about out there, and I'll get that thing located next trip. Finding one of those is better than having a productive trip for me - that's the gift that keeps on giving.