Sunday In Kings River Arm

[Champ188]

Let's get a couple of things straight up front: (1) Donna and I were NOT the couple throwing 1-oz spinnerbaits and feuding with Bill in his recent report ; (2) this report clearly illustrates one of the greatest things about Table Rock Lake -- that there are so many ways to catch fish at a given time.

We started out of Viola marina about 7:30 a.m. Sunday and finished about 3 p.m. Fished from just above the marina all the way to Hwy 86 bridge. Surface temp was 77 when we started and reached 80 by mid-afternoon. Water was pleasantly stained -- about 2 feet of visibility.

We threw your regular variety of river baits -- a Bandit 200 series cranker, a 3/8-ounce War Eagle spinnerbait and 5/16-ounce finesse jigs. The Bandit was a custom paint but nothing fancy -- brown back, chartreuse sides and orange belly. Plenty of off-the-shelf colors should work. The spinnerbait was hot blue herring (basically shad color with chartreuse mixed in) and the jigs were your standard brown/green craw colors with a Zoom Lil Critter Craw trailer in green pumpkin (what else?).

Ended up with about 40 fish for the day but only four keepers. Most of the action was on 45-degree channel swing banks with big chunk rock. Laydowns were a bonus. Bites were closer to the bank than the boat. Fall river fishing 101. The fall dock bite does seem to be picking up ... we only fished a couple of docks and landed one solid keeper LM and got bit a couple more times. I believe that could be a good way to put together a nice derby sack if a guy worked at it all day.

Just a word of caution --- the upper KIngs can be treacherous when the lake level is at 911. Need to know where you're going and/or use your common sense.

Be careful out there and enjoy this nice weather. Fall colors coming soon.

[Quillback]

Thanks Champ, glad to see you and the better half got into them!

[denjac]

You old river rat you. Good job.

[Champ188]

You old river rat you. Good job.

LOL, Denny. I must admit it was fun getting to throw the crank plug right up on the bank and upsize my spinnerbait to a 3/8 ounce for a change. Dirty water lets you do things like that.

Oh, another thing about the upper Kings -- I've never seen that many shad congregated anywhere on Table Rock. From the big horseshoe curve at Hickory Hollow on up, you can darn near walk across the shad schools. Millions of em.

[fishingaddiction]

Way to get after those shallow fish Champ. Glad you and Donna had a great day.

[Bill Babler]

You would think for cripes sakes that we could have at least had a picture of Donna. By the way, I did poke fun at you on the other thread. River Rat.

Me bad.

[merc1997 Bo]

great day! also, glad to see there is a very good crop of smaller bass coming along.

bo

[balsabee]

Nice day! My kind of fishing, where deep water is 10 feet.

[Champ188]

great day! also, glad to see there is a very good crop of smaller bass coming along.

bo

Me too, Bo. And speaking of which, I bet we caught half a dozen 4-inch bass yesterday. Obviously this year's crop, and a strong one.

[Alex Heitman]

Nice trip champ. I fished the joe bass Saturday and it was really tough. We had some quality bites on topwater in the dam area but could not keep them buttoned up to the boat. I had one probably over six come right off at the boat when we were getting ready to net him. There is some nice quality LM shallow if you are in the right area. You have got to cover lots of water and make pinpoint casts. We caught a bunch of K's on drop shot, but could not get one over 14 1/2 inches. What I found out late in the day is just like you said. There is some nice bass around docks up in the slips. Caught them from 5-30 ft on jig. We went out Sunday and had a lot better day doing this.