Will Be Down After Easter

[Fishin Hodge]

I was shocked with the spawned out fish, but the fish I have been catching have been. Don't know if it is just how I have been going about my fishing, dumb luck, or what, but bloody tails and skinny bellies have been the norm for me. I really think with the last full moon and the close to 70 degree water a lot of them did there thing. You are probably right about several waves, but I have not caught a fat female in any of my last 3 trips on Bull-1 and Table Rock-2 in the past week.

[Bill Jr.]

Well me and a buddy of mine finally got to go fishing Friday and Saturday. We didn't go out until about 9:00 each day so didn't try the topwater. Started on friday and went to the back of the creek to see if we could find any whites but none there. We stayed for a while and caught 12 LM shallow in 5ft of water but only 3 keeps. Lot of these around 14". Around noon we started heading out and thought that we would fish some pole timber for some crappie. Game On! We quickly caught 15 with 6 over 13". only 1 short. Some caught on swimming minnows but most vertically jigged with slab slayrs. They were holding tight to the timber. Tried to find a pattern for the bass but was kinfd of frazzled with the stained water and all the wind. here is a pic of one of the slabs my buddy caught.

Saturday we got out aroud 9:30 and headed to catch a few more crappie and managed 6 with 3 more slabs. We then started fishing for bass and had moderate success. I'm a jig guy and hard to put it down so we caught 90% of our bass on the jig. Tried some main lake bluff ends and no luck at all. Went back in the creek in a few locations and lost 4 LM that were 4+lb. throwing the jig when they surfaced. That just kills the day! After going out on some main lake pole timber and catching a few more crappie, we ended up the day catching 4 keeper fat K's and a 20" spawned out LM on jig and Sqarebill crankbaits in a couple coves just trying to get out of the wind.

If we landed what we hooked into we could have had a real good day but frustrating on all the lost fish. Overall fun weekend and can't wait to see the sacks next weekend. Even though it may not be optimal conditions, i think there will be a lot of 20+lb weights.

[roy_eros]

Caught a couple nice ones tonight that were definitely pre-spawn, could get interesting this weekend...

[Bill Jr.]

Bass or crappie?

[roy_eros]

Bass...Monday and Tuesday I was consistently catching 2 1/2-3 1/2 pound females that looked like they were about to burst. A c-rig with a variety of watermelon plastics has been my best bait on secondary points towards the backs of creeks.