9/6 Shell Knob

[Donna G]

Me and Champ188 headed out in a few minutes. Hope to connect with Bill B and Denjac this morning. Haven't seen them in a while. Report to follow tonight. . On the fishing...not the "meeting."

[Quillback]

Good luck!

[Donna G]

Long day on the water in the rain the better part of the day. Not as good as we had hoped, but caught a fair amount. Only two keeps, though, if you don't count Champ's big gar on a top water and my toad bream on a drop shot. One was a 4lb LM burning a white War Eagle buzz bait. Skinny. Would have been very nice with a little meat on him. Champ188 will provide more detail later with some pics.

Could not get a bite down until we finished the day with a drop shot on bridge pilings.

Champ caught a keeper spot on a top water or blade (I forget which) and it spit up a big, intact crawdad green with subtle orange spots on the tail and very light blue markings elsewhere. We'll post a photo of it, too. Oh, and the gar. I was on the pliers. Glad he only had one hook in him. Forgot, caught my first ever trout. Rainbow on a drop shot at the bridge. He looked rough. Champ said water temp was too high for trout to thrive.

[Champ188]

Actually, there isn't a great deal to add. Saturday was rainy just about all day (we fished 7 a.m. to 5:15 p.m). Yeah, we are tough people. LOL. Water temp was 83-84 and clarity was around 5 feet or so. Launched at SK bridge and fished from there down to Big Creek.

Shad seem to be moving into the mouths of the major creeks, as they should in September-October. I think they may be slightly ahead of schedule this year. Nearly all of the spots seem to be staying offshore with the shad for now. Didn't find any on bluff ends or steeper banks. However, there are a fair amount of largemouths already up in the shallows and more to come as the water temp drops. Big rocks and just about any kind of wood (other than pole timber) are good places to get bit. With the cloud cover Saturday (and at times a decent breeze), we caught some fish on a 1/4-ounce War Eagle spinner bait and a 1/2-ounce Screaming Eagle (designed for burning). Everything was either on main-lake points or just inside the pockets, so don't get too antsy about getting way back. Not quite time yet.

The best fish of the day was a LM that should have weighed 4 pounds but was skinny as a rail, so we figured it around 3. Donna caught it on a War Eagle white buzz bait with a silver blade. It was on a rocky outcrop along a main-lake bluff bank. Just hammered that buzzer. Threw water 3 feet high.

Ended the day somewhere between 25-30 fish, counting the ones we had on and saw but lost. Donna said 2 keepers but we actually had 4. She's getting old and struggles to keep track even of single-digit counts these days.

Until next time, tood-a-loo and good fishin'.

[denjac]

Your lucky you got smokey Joe back. Sorry we couldn't hook up. Bill was afraid you would beat us to our junk. Lol. Our junk didn't play out well, but we tried.

[Quillback]

Thanks for the report, I may venture out tomorrow.

[Champ188]

Bill never has to worry about me beating him to his junk. If you ever see me sitting in 150 feet of water, please come to my aid. I'm either broke down or out of gas.

Although I must say, Mr. Bill has directed me to some very good stuff and I've managed to catch some from it. I just have a hard time getting my pea brain wrapped around that deep-water concept.

[fishingaddiction]

Good report Donna and Champ. About time you quit messing around with the golf and get to fishing. Sounds like fall fishing is right around the corner! Based on the size of that craw you could have dropped him in some boiling water.

[Mofloatjunkie]

Good report. I fished for about three hours up by the bluffs under the bridge and all I caught was some oversized perch. I'm a river guy so I'm still learning the whole lake thing. Saw some huge bass cruising the shallows in standing timber by the lake house. Now I just have to figure out how to catch them.

[Sac River Jim]

Are you and Donna back on the rock for awhile. The ABA series starts up this Sa5turday on Stockton then I have a Meeks on pomme but by the end of the month I'm hoping to spend more time down your way Looking forward to meeting up with you very soon.