Fishing Report 7/15/13

[Mike Worley]

Lake level 660' water temp 85-87 degrees. We have had a few cooler days this week and fishing has been very good. Bass are biting top water lures early in the morning and soft plastics & live bait during the day. Crayfish and night-crawlers fished on split shot rigs are working well on brush piles, points & drop offs in 25'-35'. Walleyes are biting crawler rigs trolled on bottom bouncers and crank baits in 23'-40'. The water is still very clear in most areas and and the better fish seem to be holding in and near the thermocline on main lake points and flats. Jigging spoons are catching walleyes, bass & crappies on brush piles and bluff ends in about 30'-40'. There are some nice size bluegills biting in 25'+ on worms and crickets........Mike Worley (http://www.bullshoalsfishing.com/)

[Forsythian]

Thanks Mike... my son and I had some pretty "okay" action last weekend bottom bouncing crawler rigs around DC. No keeper walleye, but some shorts and otherwise a variety of fish were caught. Kept mostly between 25 and 35 fow. My graph seemed to show the thermocline setting up about 20'. Seems kind of shallow, what is your understanding of the current thermocline? Thanks,

Ken

[Ham]

Thanks for the report.

[powerdive]

I saw a lot of fish hanging at 20-24 feet. We caught eyes at 24-30. Big problem: mayfly casings all over the surface. Haven't quite figured out the best approach when that happens. We caught a couple nice ones on crawler rigs, but not the numbers we were hoping for..........

[powerdive]

Interesting. Or maybe even a half-crawler on that jighead. Hmmm.

Thanks, Bry!

[Jeff Olson]

anybody been out lately? ( for walleye ) I fished D-C area all day yesterday, pulled crawlers and only caught 3 eyes, 2 shorts and 1 legal and lost a legal . pretty slow day except for all the bluegills! walleye were caught in 24 to 30 ft. going to try tucker hollow area tomorrow, any info would be great. thanks.

[rangerman]

Jeff,

I didn't fish up that far but I had a good limit in between DC and Tucker on Wednesday on the points. Fish in between 19 an 23 inches. Had a half dozen or so shorts. They were in between 25 and 30 foot deep. I found working the ordinary contours along a precise depth did not work for me. I had to actually work from the inside of the contour outward and bring the crawler rig off of the contour into deeper water. As soon as the rig hit deeper water they would smack it. So basically bounce bounce, bounce, come off contour and bang. Also caught a couple on a jigging rap in the same areas. DC flats has been dead for me anytime I tried it.

Hit horseshoe bend. There will be fish there.

[Mike Worley]

Ken, good question about the thermocline. I have been seeing something on the graph at about 20' that appears to be a thermocline also one in 25'-30'. I was a scuba diver for 20+ years and do remember seeing more than 1 thermocline at times. The deeper one always seemed to be more dense with a thicker mud line. I have been catching more keeper walleyes in about 28'-32'. It seems like shallower I'm getting more pumpkimseeds and short walleyes along with a keeper every once in a while, but the bait robbers are thick in the shallower water. Some days a bigger blade like a #3 Colorado or a #4 tomahawk works better around the balls of shad. But also I have been having good luck with just a 4mm bead and a #4 or #2 slow death type hook. I've been trying some of the other brands of hooks and the Trokar is definitely getting to be one of my favorites. I think when I'm in a area with a mayfly hatch the smaller lure seems to work better. Some days the flats are better and some days I've been finding them inside the larger coves and creek mouths. When I find them on the flats they always seem to be on some kind of structure like a ditch or a break line or a brush pile. In the coves they seem to be on fist size rock. Using a pretty heavy bottom bouncer on braided line will help to find different types of bottom on the flats.I try to find a patch of harder or rockier bottom out on the flats. That is another type of structure that holds walleyes.

[Jeff Olson]

thanks for the info Mike and Rangerman ! had a good morning today in the rain storm. 4 nice eyes, 19 to 24 inches, no shorts. 25 to 30 ft . 3 fish caught on trolling cranks & 1 on crawler.

[powerdive]

Way to go, Jeff!

Good info, boys. That's two votes now for the Trokar Re-Volve. Guess it's time to try it. I gave up on Mustad's Slow Death--they straighten out too easily for my taste, so I've been using Tru-Turns.