Newbie Fishing At Beaver Lake

[wc1063]

Just bought a fishing boat. Couldn't wait to go to the lake. The problem is I don't know where to start?

I'm in Rogers, so I guess the closest ramps will be Prairie Creek and Hwy 12 bridge. Is this a good area to fish?

Or should I go to Rocky Branch or Lost Bridge where from the fishing report are the places to fish now?

And what type of lures should I be throwing around this time of year?

Thank you for any ideas!!!

[jeb]

Congrats on the new boat! Beaver Lake, as you will find out soon enough, is not an easy lake to learn to catch bass on. There is abundant structure like points, rocks, current bends, humps, bluff walls, forests of trees, etc, etc. And there is also plenty of forage for the fish right now. We saw so many schools of minnows today, it's a wonder the fish ever bit anything artificial! And there are 3 types of black bass that can sometimes run together and like the same things, and sometimes not.

Basically you need to figure out what the shad are doing. The predator fish tend to follow them around the lake. And this time of year with the waters cooling, the shad should be moving to the backs of coves. And that was happening recently, but then the really cool weather and cold rain (3.75" here in the PC area over the weekend) kind of changed the pattern. I'm not sure what the shad are doing now. Haven't seen the white bass working the mid-cove shad balls the last few days or anything. So you'll have to figure that out along with the rest of us.

What baits to fish is always a good question! Today I used topwater, weightless and weighted jerk baits, texas rigs, senko worms, carolina rigs, etc. So you need to be ready to try different stuff to figure out what they want. And they may want one bait down towards the dam and something else entirely up in the river arms.

Not trying to discourage you, just trying to say you will have to put in some time to find where the fish are and what they want to see. Might start with shakey head jigs and small finesse worms in some kind of green color. Rig them weedless. Try them along sloped gravel banks in larger coves and around and in trees. Try different retrieve speeds, but probably slow and shaking the jig a bit would be best to find them.

[wc1063]

Thank you for the advice!!!!

[wc1063]

Dad and I went out today for the first time. Fished around PR, caught 2 small LM and a good size wally. Had a great time! There was a tournament today, I saw some of the pros carried numbers of big fish in their bags. Wish I can fish like them!!

[Quillback]

Did you get the tournament name? Just curious, me and jeb went out last week and we saw a couple of wrapped boats in the Hickory creek parking lot, we were wondering if they were practicing for a tourney this weekend and what tourney it was.

[wc1063]

I don't know the name of the tournament. I was too busy trying to catch my fist fish from Beaver.

[derekburleson]

BFL was yesterday on Beaver. What it take to win?

[jeb]

BFL results

I don't feel so bad about the limited number of fish we've been catching on Beaver lately after seeing that!

[wc1063]

Went out today for 4 hrs. Mainly fished around the 12 bridge, the nearby island, and the shoreland from PC to the bridge. It was a great day to be out on the lake, catch a few more fish would be even better(only caught one bass)! Met a guy who told us to stay til 7 pm, the white bass might be scholling on top near the bridge, but couldn't stay that late.

[Quillback]

Wow, those BFL results are eye opening. Tough fishing for sure.