Walleye Limit

[rps]

Fished the Devil's backbone yesterday but only caught 3 under size walleye before the heat and boat traffic forced me to flee.

Fished near Holiday Island this morning and had a bit more luck. Four fish, 19 to 24 inches, all of which hit a Storm Thundercrank trolled on 120 feet of 10 pound braid (20 feet) in water 22 to 35 feet deep at 1.8 to 2.4 mph.

Note I did not report I went out early. I didn't. Both days I went out around 8:30 to 9:00. With no topwater bite and only limited jig bite, I drink coffee and read the paper instead.

[champ187xr6]

Great day and report RPS!

[dwiebenga]

Those are some great Walters!!! Good Job!

[Trout Commander]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

[Martin]

Super catch rps !!

[glennL]

Nice fish... whereabouts is devils backbone?

[Martin]

There is no such place on Tablerock. It's at Norfork.

[rps]

Martin, shame on you. We should share the backbone because we know 50% of those who fish it will curse us for putting them in a drowned forest with refrigerator size boulders. The other 50% will fish the wrong part and wonder why we fish there.

The devils backbone is a 400 to 500 yard long, backwards J shaped, forested underwater point at the mouth of Rock Creek.

What I will not post are the locations of the underwater trees and the trolling runs needed to fish the good parts of the point. That knowledge cost me many hours, gallons of gas, and lures. And from my report, I obviously still have much to learn. The picture fish were caught almost six miles away.

[Martin]

Well you're right about the submerged forest and lost crankbaits....and bottom bouncers.....and crawler harnesses....lol...It can get very frustrating when you start a run and get only 40 feet or so and get hung-up. My first go-round there I lost 4 - $8.00 crankbaits in about 20 minutes. When the lake very very low, (a long time ago), I marked all the nastiest tree's with danger waypoints. I STILL get hung up every trip.

By the way, I hit the lower lake this morning and caught only Kentuck's. 38 or so feet seemed to be the ticket. I didn't troll any cranks. Just bottom bounced with crawlers / harnesses. It got HOT and rough (boat waves) around 9:30. I hung in there until about 10:45. One of the Kentucky's was huge. They all went back to their deep water shad schools.

[rps]

I fished again this morning (Sunday) and used the full moon to drive up to the DB. It had been awhile since I had a fix of topwater fishing so I spent the first hour and a half doing that in Rock Creek. I caught five fish and missed several. None in the boat would measure though none were midgets.

After that I started serious walleye hunting. I started at 17 feet down since that was the last depth I had success. I caught two undersize as well as a dink spot. Besides the fish at 17/18 feet, I marked several at 26/28 feet deep. They looked large so I made several runs with a #7 Fat Free Shad on 100 feet of 10/4 braid. That puts the bait at 26/28 feet. Caught none on the DB, but I picked up one keeper in Owl Creek and another out of the trees on the bluff on the other side of 86 from Eagle Rock. In addition I caught four more spots, including one keeper.

I also caught a hotntot, a thunderstick, a bottom bouncer with chartreuse worm harness, a lead jigging spoon, and about fifty feet of what must have been 20 lb. test mono. When you go deep you never can tell what you will snag.