Anyone Seen Any Whites Busting Topwater In The James Yet

[Josh Holt]

I was wondering if anyone has seen any schools of whites busting shad yet.

[mwfischer]

I'm not 100% sure of the arms of the lake as it was my first time down this weekend, but we were on a main lake point across from Big Cedar's complex Sunday morning and caught two really nice 2-3# whites/Hybrids that were blowing up the surface about 25yd from the boat. Maybe 75yd from shore.

Caught them on a Sammy.

[Bill Babler]

From Aunts Creek to Long Creek is just about CRAZY. Buster had close to 80 fish this morning and Beck and Lisek report unbelieveable catches. i fished out of Kimberling City and we had between 50 and 60 topwater fish with a few whites, but loads of Smallmouth and Largemouth. The dropshot is close. Our best 5 would have been 18lb+

I boated about a mile total this morning. My lady Mindy about 10 oclock looked back at her husband after 3 unsuccesful casts and said " They have stopped biting, lets go do something else."

He mentioned we could take her to the bank and put her out at anytime. She caught one on the next cast so all was well. I don't believe we had overy 4 cast in a row without some kind of bass. We caught all 5. Matt was the photographer and as soon as he sends me some I'll post them.

Good Luck

[Josh Holt]

thanks for the info

[abkeenan]

The are all over the dam area right now. Come up randomly and just hope that you are near them. Had them back in creeks in pockets/coves and on main lake as well...doesn't matter. Had a big school come up in about 4 ft (yes 4 feet) of water on a pea gravel mainlake point across from the Branson Belle. I've never seen them that shallow bust the top like that but I guess they just pushed the shad into a corner against the bank so to speak. Brother and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and threw our 3-arm a-rigs into them and caught them while they were in a feeding frenzy. Didn't last long but it was fun and the ones we caught were absolute tanks. All 3+ lb'ers and brother had one pushing or over 4lbs. Too bad we couldn't weigh them in during the KVD tourny. Nuts.

[lildave]

We only got into them once last week, but they were BIG! We found them in the mouth of Basin Hollow across from Mill Creek east near Shell Knob

[Bill Babler]

In all my years on the Rock, I have never seen the numbers of Threadfin Shad. This lake is bursting at the seams with forage. I fished one of the Mill Creeks today and was blacked out most of the day, from 50 ft. to the surface with shad. They are about the size of a dime and there are simply Billions and Billions of them. The other boys reported the same conditions on each lake section they were fishing. Lots of food for those hungry Mama's.

Good Luck

[Hunter91]

Been catching them surfacing near Baxter as well as in the Kimberling area this weekend. Whites and bass mixed.

[dtrs5kprs]

  On 5/20/2013 at 11:47 PM, Bill Babler said:

In all my years on the Rock, I have never seen the numbers of Threadfin Shad. This lake is bursting at the seams with forage. I fished one of the Mill Creeks today and was blacked out most of the day, from 50 ft. to the surface with shad. They are about the size of a dime and there are simply Billions and Billions of them. The other boys reported the same conditions on each lake section they were fishing. Lots of food for those hungry Mama's.

Good Luck

Always neat to see what looks like a brushpile on the graph only to find out it is a huge wad of bait moving around, see the graph unable to shoot through it.

[fishingaddiction]

Good report Bill. I can 't wait to get out this weekend and get after them! Hopefully the water temp is too cold for skiing/tubing, but I guess we just have to put up with it.