July 8Th. Fishing Report And Ramblings

[merc1997 Bo]

Bo most of the guides know how to work those out in the lake suspended fish. I don't believe what your friends are seeing for the most part is bass, especially up the White River. I think they are seeing Gizzard Shad.

From point 9 to Eagle Rock there are millions of 1 pound Gizz's. They are singles and running in small and large packs, and they have been hovering the thermocline weather at depth or on the bottom.

We have seen them all year, following caught fish and just at about any depth.

Just a thought.

bill these have been mostly on the lower end from baxter to the dam. guess i need to take time out from the lure business to get out during the middle of the day to do some graphing. graphing at night is much harder to really get a good picture because it is harder to see detail from the thermocline up at night. perhaps the newer units do a better job.

i have noticed you speaking of the lake having lots of gizzard shad, especially up this way. i have not really noticed them yet, but from past experience when we did have lots of them, big bass love them. we used to purposely hunt areas with them when searching for big bass, as big bass love them. an friend that lives on loz targets the big main channel gizzard shad schools there for bigger bass. he uses 8 and 9 inch grubs and swims them in those areas where he has graphed the gizzard shad and bass with them. he states that these particular bass will feed below the thermocline, but it will be brief periods of feeding. since you are seeing so many gizzards makes me wonder if this is where a good majority of what bigger bass we have are hanging out. it is something that i am going to think about since you are seeing so many gizzard shad.

one the ways that we used to find areas that had lots of gizzards at night, years ago, was to idle around with a spot light and shake it on the surface of the water. if there are any in the area near the surface, they will go to jumping. when you hit the right area, it was time to fish!! the ones suspended in open water and not associated with trees were much harder to catch.

as electronics go, i am not familiar with how the newer units signature different species. on the old paper graphs, bass and carp signatured the same, but whites, crappie, shad and perch all made very different marks, and i could tell the difference in them. even on most run of the mill, lower cost graphs, whites usually make more of a blotch instead of a typical hook. i do know that the better units now give amazing pictures and you can find in minutes what took the old timers lots of time finding.

thanks for the info you share. i hope fisherman are digesting your info and utilizing it to help them find fish. finding them is the always the hard part. much harder than catching them.

i had a hard time catching anything monday night in the kings and tracy was fishing around old 86 and had the same experience. i was then looking at the lake level, and noticed that during the time period that we were fishing the lake level was going up and down 1 to 2 tenths like a yo-yo. that never makes for a good bite. i think how much the corp is starting and stopping water from here, and how much is being run in from beaver can have a negative affect on the bass doing anything normal also.

bo

[dtrs5kprs]

Good update on the little rig Bill. Will be interesting to see if it continues to catch them as things get tougher. My guess is "yes", but in different places and with slight adjustments in presentation.

[merc1997 Bo]

fished the big m area tonight. fish bit decent until about 11:30. ended up with 8 keepers, but they were all just 15 to 15 1/2 inch fish. did catch about a 10 lb. gar. the bass are starting to get deeper. most bites were 15 to 20 ft. tonight. all of the bass we caught were bluff or steeper bank related. did not have on bite out on anything relatively flat. jigs and senkos got most of them.

you just about have to put the troller down and fish until you get a bite, and then slow down and fish that area over pretty well. seems like you will get 3 to 5 more, and then it is back to covering water.

bo

[Sac River Jim]

fished the shell knob wed night tourney tonight. went up the kings only 1 keeper but a few short fish on the little rig gp/orange zinkerz dragging it SLOW on secondary points w/boat sitting in 30fow most fish came out of + or - 15fow. also caught fish on a 1/4oz shakey head in watermelon candy and black/blue neon 6'' worm. we did see a quality jaw in the 2.5 range caught on some type of a topwater chugger just before dark. I didnt even get a boil on a buzz bait or on a fluke thrown into fish chasing shad. fished a paca craw and a shakey with no luck after dark and i really wish i would have thrown a blk spinner bait but i didnt. we still had a great time and theres always next week. water temps from 83.3 to 85.0

[merc1997 Bo]

we did see several boat moving around while fishing last night and figured they were from the tourney. when i fished in the kings monday night, we caught the bulk of what we caught in a jig and a senko. bite depth was about the same as yours. i did try spinners for a bit, but did not have a bite. just seems like the fish are not roaming and chasing. we did not start fishing until just before dark, and the bulk of the bite seemed to be over by 11:30, but we fished until a bit after 1.

that shell knob tourney is a bear with only 4 hours to gather something up. you can not hick up or you are in trouble, lol. pretty night last night.

bo

[Alex Heitman]

I was down at the lake in the dam area over the holiday weekend and only fished off the dock in the morning and after sunset in the evening. We didn't even bring the bass boat down because we didn't want to deal with the trafficI'm the morning. I caught several on a shaky head rigged with a senko that was red shad in the mornings and also some on pbj. They would just tick the bait and swim off. Caught a nice 5+ lb black doing this. Then at night I threw a big black spinnerbait and would let it sink on to the bottom in 20+ ft of water and slowly retrieve it while bouncing bottom. Had some pretty violent strikes doing this and most of them came within 10 ft of the dock. I don't know if I just happened to be in a great feeding area or what but most of the fish were taking both baits in less than 10 ft of water. I managed around 10 keepers in 2 days of fishing just an hour or so in the morning and evening. I can't wait to get back down and run way up one of the river arms to get away from traffic and target some resident fish. I love doing that this time of year and you can catch some bigger fish as well. I can drop shot and deep fish but that is just to boring for me.

[Sac River Jim]

Alex there was a good moon last night and it was in a good position where i think the sillohette of a big black spinner bait slow rolling or thumping just under the surface might've just brought a suspended fish or two up. Even thought about a blk jitterbug trailing behind the boat but in a 4 hr. tourney you dont have alot of time to figure things out i just stick to my game plan and do the ole make or break me thing and last night is was the break me plan. At least we did get a few dinks in the boat.

[Sac River Jim]

we did see several boat moving around while fishing last night and figured they were from the tourney. when i fished in the kings monday night, we caught the bulk of what we caught in a jig and a senko. bite depth was about the same as yours. i did try spinners for a bit, but did not have a bite. just seems like the fish are not roaming and chasing. we did not start fishing until just before dark, and the bulk of the bite seemed to be over by 11:30, but we fished until a bit after 1.

that shell knob tourney is a bear with only 4 hours to gather something up. you can not hick up or you are in trouble, lol. pretty night last night.

bo

Bo we marked alot of suspended fish at 20 to 25' in sixty to 90 fow on a couple channel swings I dont think all of them were gizzard shad couple of the schools looked like there was alot of fish in them i dropped a spoon down to em but didnt do any good. i made a major hiccup last night and knew better, i found suspended fish on a break in 30' of water and instead of positioning the boat in 30' i moved up on the 17' flat thinking the fish would move up on after dark. If we could've have stayed on there another hour or so they might have but who knows for sure.

[Sac River Jim]

i need to make sure of something to make sure its not breaking a tournament rule. i hadnt done it since the late 80's actually cant even remember if i did it in a tourney or not its been so many years ago but on a full moon in the summer we'd pull up on a spot to fish and we'd throw the jitterbug off the back and just let it set then reel it a few feet put the rod back down and go back to worm fishing or sit and eat a samwich when we'd move we'd reel them in. I'm glad I didnt do it last night because i never thought about it but it's probably on the borderline of what would be considered trolling. Best thing ta do is probly just not do it at all when in a tournament i never caught alot of fish doing it anyhows but there was a couple times when Wham!!! and it was on!!!!!!

[jmes]

Typically In some tournament's they have a rule that states only one rod in the water at a time