Baxter To Campbell Pt. September 7Th. 2014

[Bill Babler]

Got on the pond really early with Jerry and Jerry from Indiana yesterday. Very strange weather with very strong wind on some lake sections and completely calm just around the bends.

Started off in horrible fashion, and we went the first 3 hrs. with 2 bass a gill and a 12 pound channel.

Surface temp at launch was 83 degree even and the water was somewhat of a turquoise color.

Continually graphed fish and would even have a few follow, but nothing seemed to want either a dropshot worm, a crawler or a spoon.

Spoke to Beck and although he started slow, his client had one over 8 lbs. on a flutter spoon. He commented that he was really in the bait.

About 10 o'clock I saw a feed near a flat gravel pocket below CP and we stopped and eased in. My graph just lit up and I could see shad flickering in about a 20 acre area. They were a combination of Gizzard and treadfin of all sizes.

Put a 3/4 oz. Dixy Jet for both my Jerry's and it was on. In the next 3 hrs. I just followed that monster school of shad around and we caught them about as good as it gets. Nothing big, but we caught catfish, perch, and all 3 Black Bass verities on the spoons. I also dragged out the spinbait and they just hammered it.

Nothing big and really surprised we did not have a single white. Best 5 maybe at 12 pounds, but we had at least 4 triples and lots of times there would be 10 or so trailers behind a hooked fish. The entire area around us was covered with shad that our fish had tossed up after being hooked.

This school could have been the same one that was fished in the mouth of Big Creek last week, as they were pretty close to BC.

After the first surface fish, we never saw another surface feed the rest of the day. just a shad flick here and there. Shad were in the entire water column from top to 45 ft. Most of the bites were in the 20' to 30' range as we counted the casted baits down to about 30 before we engaged the reel handle. Lots of times they were on the spoon when the boys started to reel it in.

For cripes sakes I had a double on a Duo Realis. 2 fish on the little bait. Both were short and one came off as I was picking them up, but I guess there is hope for that deal. We hooked lots of shad on both the spinbait and the spoons, as the baits fell thru the shad schools.

I turned from a ZERO to a hero by just watching and getting lucky.

Good Luck

[Champ188]

Nice report. We may have a classic fall bite brewing. Sure hope so.

[5bites]

Wow I wish I was in the clients shoes on that deal!

[whiteley.matt]

That definitely sounds like the same scenario that we fished last week. Pretty much all of the baitfish we saw were small threadfin shad and they were all on or within 10' of the surface. The surface bite was also on when we were on them. We are going to head back out this Friday and see if we cant track them down again. Hopefully we can find them and get a good one to latch on.

[merc1997 Bo]

great trip bill, and it goes to show you use all of your senses. that will be a trip those two will remember a long time!

bo

[Quillback]

Much better than my experience today - caught 4 bass total, 3 early dragging plastics and one on the Duo. Saw lots of shad, but never ganged up in one spot like Bill described. Caught a 3 lb. flathead, made the mistake of letting him flop around on the front deck, that sucker left more slime than you'd get from a 100 bass.

I saw lots of 6" bass today, once when I was bringing the Duo in, I had about a dozen of them follow it in, kind of funny, a few of them slashed at the bait, but none of them grabbed it, they just swam behind it up to the boat. Hopefully a good sign for the future.

[Sac River Jim]

thnx for a good report Bill I throwed the 80's over the weekend and did a little better with them. I think Champs right i think we will have a good fall bite I'm seeing the same pattern developing on Stockton but the best I can tell the big fish are still off the brush piles. I met and old friend of yours today down at papi rays custom bait shop. Lyndell just got home from Canada and had some pretty nice pics of some big small jaws and one giant muskey that just about ate him and Rick up plus it clamped down on one of his seats. It reminded me of the story you told awhile back about your clients throwing fish on your seats to get the hooks out lol!!!!

[Bill Babler]

The interior of my boat is a fish free zone. Hardly ever had a triple hooked fish in the boat that either someone or something got hurt from it. Hard lesion to learn, but not easy to forget.

I will tell you I have very seldom had the success on huge schools of bait that I had yesterday. Usually it is not like that. It was just one of those magic deals. This school of shad liked the 30' to 50' depth range, but would also stream to the top. Most of our bites happended in that 20' plus range. The Fish were easy to see feeding thru the shad schools.

I'm not stopping till I'm on bait tomorrow and see how that works. I know however that there are suspended LM over depth off the bluffends and the Dixy Jet is the way to catch them.

[Duck]

Ditto Quillback, we fished, I think the same area above Eagle Rock and may have seen you. We ended with 13 blacks but only one keeper size others were small, one 2 inch bream and 1 small crappie. All on drop shot, no top water action nor spinnerbait. It will get better. Good fishin, Duck.

[mic]

12 pound channel on bass gear... bet that put a smile on someone's face.