Fishing Report 9/20/10

[Mike Worley]

Fishing patterns on Bull Shoals are in transition from Summer to Fall. The shad are moving and can be found shallow some days and deep the next. The water temp had been dropping for the last 2 weeks but a week of very warm days has brought it back up into the lower 80's. Trolling with shad type lures is producing some nice sized Walleyes as well as Bass & Crappie. White or silver raps seem to be the ticket fished 30'-40' deep on leadcore line. Walleyes are also being caught on crawler rigs / bottom bouncers and jigging spoons.

Al Denninger & I fished the Mid-South Walleyes tournament this weekend (2-day tournament) We weighed a 12LB+ 5 fish limit on Saturday to take the lead by 3+ pounds. We caught our fish on crawler rigs 30'-35' deep. Sunday the weather was hot & no wind and the Walleye bite slowed on the crawler rigs with most that we caught being in the 17" range. We did manage a 20"er on a jigging spoon outside a brush pile in 34'FOW. It was on the first cast or drop that we caught our only keeper Walleye of the day. We tried trolling Reef Runners in deep water and jigging spoons though out the day which all produced fish including some descent size bass but no more legal Walleyes. End result was being bumped out of first place by the team of McMatt & Brown by 1/100th of a pound. The winning weight was 15.29LBS we had 15.28LBS for second place with the big fish pot going to Bill Struthers. The winning bag of Walleyes were caught on the leadcore / rap pattern while Bill's big fish pot winner came on a crawler rig on Sunday. I think the results show that the Walleyes are pretty scattered though out the lake and can be caught on several patterns.

[Mike Worley]

After a slow day on Sunday I am happy to report the bite turned HOT yesterday. I took my boat out yesterday afternoon to check some adjustments and did a little fishing at the same time. I found White Bass & Walleyes biting jigging spoons very well and caught them on pretty much every drop for about 20 in a row. Then I switched over to B/B crawler rig and caught 2 Walleyes 23", 25" on a main lake point just before dark. The fish were again blowing up all over the lake chasing shad. I also caught Walleyes & Spotted Bass on shad type crank baits on leadcore.