Blue Cat Report

[Quillback]

Needed some fish for the frying pan, so I spent the morning drifting the flats in 20-30 FOW on the opposite bank across the lake from Governor's island. Caught 7 blues on shad chunks, but no big ones, 1 to 1.5 lb. fish, good eating size.

[Bird Watcher]

How was the water color QB?

[Quillback]

A little bit stained brown, maybe 2 feet of viz.

[Bird Watcher]

2' huh? That's crystal clear for mid lake on Grand.

Thanks for the report QB. I am going down to waste time on the Hybrids this weekend. If I come across anything of interest I will post it up for you and Darbwa.

[darbwa]

Quillback and Birdwatcher,

You guys aer both middle to upper lake dwellers right? I am a mid to south lake guy. I often wonder how much fishing conditions differ between north and south lake (and when I should head north to increase my bite). I would think that there can be a fairly significant difference because there are times when I take a drive up-lake and the water color and clarity will be much different in the north than down south. The water tends to be clearer down south from my experience. Any thoughts?

[Quillback]

Yeah BW, 2 feet might be an overestimate, might be more like 1 foot. I will be interested to hear how you do on the hybrids, I never have caught one on Grand and haven't seen any feeding with the whites that I noticed. But I know they're out there somewhere.

Darbwa, I trailer my boat over from AR and usually launch around Monkey island, so I can't really provide any info on the upper lake. But I would say that the stained water seems to come in from the Neosho, I've seen that river in the spring after heavy rain and it's an ugly brown with lots of debris when it's high, so I assume that the upper lake gets stained first when that happens and it slowly moves down lake, I have seen the water pretty stained in the Monkey island area in the spring, but right now it is not so bad.

[Bird Watcher]

Darbwa,

I'll run all over that lake, but yes, I mostly fish the upper 3/4. The biggest thing that will affect the water color on Grand, IMO, is how much water the Neosho and Spring are pushing. I always check the USGS site for Spring, Neosho, Elk, and Pensacola Dam before I decide for sure what part of the lake I want to fish. That gives you a good picture of how much water is coming into the lake and how much water is being released.

Any signifigant flow from the Neosho and to some degree the Spring, is going to make the entire lake dirty until you get below Duck Creek. It will even make Elk River dirty all the way up to about 3 or 4 miles from the MO line depending on lake levels.

Anything above paradise point on the Grand River or Cayuga on the Elk, I fish like I am fishing a creek or river. Fish will usually be relatively shallow.

Mid Lake from about Paradise point on the Grand River and from about #10 down on the Elk River to about the mouth of Duck creek is my favroite part of the lake to fish for most species of fish in Grand. There are lots of off shore humps, long run outs off of points, channel swings, coves, submerged creek channels, plenty of woody structure in the form of man made brush piles and some naturally occuring in the form of flooded willows or old willow stumps from the old power pool level in the 70s and 80s. At the same time it usually has a good compromise on water color. Dingy enough that you can usually get a bite however you feel like fishing, but clear enough that you don't have to hit them on the nose with it.

The lower lake does get a lot clearer. Sometimes that visibility is a rare commodity on Grand and if you are trying to fish for a fish with a techingue that requires them to see the bait( think crappie fishing with a jig, spooning the temperate bass, flukes and senkos for pre spawn LM) you might need to fish below Duck Creek to get bit if the upper 2/3 look muddy enough to plow. The other thing you can do is run up any of the spring fed creeks on the East Side of the lake and they will usually clear up too.

As far as when you should go up lake for a better bite? That's kind of hard to anwser. There is somewhere on any given part of the lake that you can catch fish at anytime. I believe that. The fall bite is really good lake wide for LM, but I love to fish up the rivers throwing small crankbaits from now into the fall. I have also caught some really nice LM over 5 lbs way up in the rivers and creeks all summer on top water.

What does all this mean? I don't know. I will say this about bass fishing on Grand. No matter where you decide to fish, there are bass there. It's a great lake like that. It does get a lot of LM fishing pressure so if you can find a way to be unique about fishing for them it will help. Whether that's a presentation, a lure, a depth, a time,...etc. it will help.

You probably don't need to run anywhere though. I gaurantee there are fish within sight of your dock. Anywhere I have ever decided to fish on Grand I have caught LM, just some places better than others. If you want, pm with your cove or point and I'll tell you if I have any favorite spots in your area.