Looking For And Willing To Give Info

[jackdanials]

Will be on the LOZ starting 4-28-11 ending sunday. Annual trip. Staying around mile marker 12 at Lakeview Resort. Will spend most of our time between there and mile marker 7 on the west side of the lake short of one spot on the east that I know of. I will be checking this post dailey. Looking for ideas of new spots to try. Willing to as well give up a spot or two to find new one's. I do know how us fisherman can be a private kind of group when it comes to our "Honey" holes. LOZ has a lot of water and the way I look at it is that so long as your not sitting on my spot when I show up then there is plenty of fish to go around. May be willing to give up a cell number if your going to be down on the lake in the same area during the same time. I'm glad I found this forum on the net. Just hoping I'm not to far on the end of spawn this year. Usauly I'm a couple weeks earlier than this. jhamelau_tsm@iowatelecom.net

[jackdanials]

I see 80 plus veiws and zero comments......... Last year on our annual trip we came down I think it was a week earlier. Somewhat cooler and fishing was tough. Finaly found them in 30 foot of water. My guess was they were done and staging out. Most of the fish we caught came from so dep they got the benze and simply swam around in the live well on their sides. I'm seeing better weather this year for the trip this weekend. Either way I'll have good time with the boy and my good friend.

[Stoneroller]

I think everyone is kind of wondering how all this rain is going to affect things, there is a cold front coming through tonight, but a warm front coming through thrusday night/friday morning. weekend should be decent weather, well better than we have had at least. depending on lake temps I'd guess the biggest fish are probably on beds and the majority of the rest are in heavy prespawn with the males making pits and the females trying to decide which one they want. The higher water may throw all that into a tailspin, which could be good if the bass decide to change nests, if they've choosen one, as they should be aggressive and wanting to keep any smaller fish away.

I'd look for shallow flats 3-6' deep to start. with the fronts, they could be staged at the first significant depth change or on structure at the edges of the flats. but your best bet is most likely to be in water 10feet or shallower. LOZ could make a liar out of me though. I've never fished the area of the lake you are going to be in, but it's water, it's got fish, and they have to eat.

[jackdanials]

Thank you stone roller. I see the rain in the forcast but as normal with being from out of state i'm not good at telling for sure who is or isn't going to get what kind of rain. We have stayed in the Gravious arm before and as far down as a resort called Knotty Pine. For whatever reason we have been coming back to this part of the lake for the last few years. Probably because it cuts down on the drive time for us from iowa and it seems easier to find reasonable resorts to stay at. Like you said though if its got water and fish they have to eat sometime. Does anyone have a good feel for how fast the water gets stained and then again how fast it clears back up. Or should I even be worreid about stained water?

[Fishin Fanatic]

In my past experience the water clarity in this part of the lake seems to remain pretty good regardless. A good number of fish should be shallow and willing to bite.

[grizwilson]

I hope to be up Thursday & Friday, and again 5/3-/5/5 will let you know what I know, but appears to be the only fishable area around. Everything south is blown out.

g

[jackdanials]

There has been over the years somewhat of a disagreement between the guys in our fishing group. Knowing that we are only going to be down to LOZ once a year and it's a huge guessing game with trying to hit it right understanding that we have to plan everthing early enough to make sure we have lodging. I myself prefer that if we are going to miss I want to miss early with prespawn being easier fish to work with most likely the first 2 weeks of april. There is a couple other guys that prefer later and beleive that the actual spawn doesn't happen until more of the first 2 weeks of May. Anyone have more info for us to work with inregard to odds on best timing for our annual trip?

[CapnKenny]

For the past several years I have taken the first week of May and fished exclusively for crappie. I always fish with my father who turned 81 this year and the weather always seemed to be better once we turned the corner into May. Having said that, I've observed over the last few years from my experience and various reports is that the last two weeks of April seemed to offer better fishing particularly if the water warms up quicker than usual. I've experienced this on both Truman and LOZ. A couple years ago I was fishing Truman the first week of May and the spawn was basically over since the weather was unusually warm that year. I'm taking next week as vacation and will be fishing LOZ, but next year I think I'm going to move my trip up at least a week if not two. The crappie are still spawning at LOZ and have been for a few weeks. I think the cooler weather has prolonged the spawn and the population of fish is up from last year in the mid-lake area. I expect my Dad and I will have a pretty good week based on the information I've been getting.

[FishinJack]

You'll do fine. I run a guide service here and I had some clients staying at Lakeview yesterday. We had our limits of crappie pretty quickly. The lake was being sucked down in case we got poured on, but we didn't. The rain stayed south of us for the most part. So now the lake is being allowed back up. It's not muddy, or anything bad. We have been hovering around 60 degrees for three weeks now when that sun pops out thursday and friday the bite will be on, bitime. A lot of crappie still to spawn. 90% of the bass have not spawned yet too.

I had a guide trip out of Alhonna resort last week and we killed the bass right around there too. Carolina rigs and Crazy legs chigger craws worked the best. That's where the "Fish Stories" picture came from. Check it out I posted it a little ways back. I think Alhonna resort is about a mile or two closer to the dam on the right side.

fishing is pretty darn good, you'll do fine. Slowly rising lake levels and with the sun coming out the water temps will be around 64. fish will really start spawning.