Tablerock Lake Report

[Bill Babler]

If your on the rock as much as I am, you tend to have those lucky days. I have been having a couple a week, and the other days are just fishing.

Usually good with enough to keep everyone happy, but then again there was today.

Today's lottery winners were Phil Jones and his buddy Ron from Oklahoma. Great guys and I'm sure they deserved all the eagar beavers that stretched their strings.

Things started pretty quickly at point 10 with chasing Ky's and we managed to coral 4 but not on the top, these were bottom dwellers, shallow about 16ft. Lots of company, as 4 other boats pulled in on me and we skidaddled for other spots up the white.

I was rounding goat island when Ron tugged at my shirt, I was thinking about my next hot spot. Off to the left in about 170ft of water, it looked like the lake was having a volcanic eruption. Huge whites were blowing up at least 10 acres in 3 different pods. I voomed right into the middle of-em and we already had our top waters on the ready. The boys caught about 25 whites in about an hour and a half with the smallest at 31/2 and the largest over 5. All were caught on sammy's and a crome and black pradco, redfin. Not a single boat came past during the maylay, thats why I like that area.

The other morning from my deck at the lodge, I could count over 30 bass boats and this is during the middle of the week.

Here are some quick tips on the whites; If you arn't going to eat them, KEEP THEM OUT OF THE BOAT, AT ALL COST. These fish will and can really hurt you.

always use pliers to extract treble hooks as they will flip and ruin your day. The whites we are catching are just monsters and all are full of bloody eggs and stuffed to the gills with shad. Eggs, manure and vomit are just the good things that will be in your boat if you allow them to enter. Their gill plate is as deadly as a razor knife and they will cut your legs and fin you while thrashing around the boat. It is so simple to just use the pliers to shake them off at the side of the boat. Bring a couple of pairs, I lost 1 today.

I will eat whites in the spring, but these are just so nasty that I think I and everyone that is catching them with me will just have to pass. They pretty much smell like road kill. They are without a doubt one of the best game fish in the rock and are more than fun to catch. They will pull your arms till you have to rest if you get into a bunch like we did today.

After the whites submerged and were gone, we went looking for real fish and from the photo's you can see that we found them. Some guys have all the luck.

The Ky's were scattered today and on the ends of the flats from about 22 to 52 ft. We caught several in the 42 ft. range and caught the 52 footer as I was turning the boat at the edge of the flat. Ron said he was on the bottom so I believe this was a pretty deep fish.

Again we had in the neighborhood of 20 plus keepers, after catching all those whites to boot. I am abit concerned about the lack of short Ky's, as 90 percent of these deep fish have been toads. The rest of my boy's are telling me the same thing in the white and lower james and lots of shorts in the dam area. Also a ton of shorts up the white bast twin rivers, clear to roaring river. All the Ky's were on a dropshot, plum chomper worm worked early, but watermellon candy zoom finess worm worked better as the morning progressed. Good luck

I was trying to get the graph in so you all could see the depth, but as you can see I'm not that clever. Also, you may notice there are no pic's of the whites, they were just too wild, mean and nasty to photograph. yuck, but in a fun good way.

[timsfly]

I fished up Roaring river yesterday, caught a lot of bass on my fly rod on big white and gray foam # 2 poppers real early in the morning, about 8:00 in the morning, big whites started pushing shad up in the shallows and it was a hoot, caugth several over 3 on small gray and white clousers the whites stayed around for about a 1/2 hour, when they were gone I started fishing just up stream of yellow bluff with 3" bass assasains and big rabbit strip flys on the fly rod, didn't catch but one keeper on the fly rod, but caught a bunch about 14" long, caught 3 before noon that were all keeper sized(I put em all back) good day for me on the rock, and it was a hoot.

[Cpt_DJ]

Goat Island? I can't seem to locate this on the map....at least nothing that is marked as such....is this a local name or what?....trying to locate it on this topo and study the area a bit. Thanks!

[Bill Babler]

It's the island in front of wolfpen. Lots of houseboats use it as a docking point to ski from. The whites were breaking between it and the bluff on the oppsite side of the lake.

[twosets]

Bill

These reports are KILLING me.

I know, talk less, catch more fish.

Seriously,congrats on the good trips, keep the reports comming.

George