11-22-14 Lower Bull Shoals Fishing Report

[Ham]

Mixermaekb had a great day yesterday and was kind enough to share details. He all but gift wrapped a nice day with warts and jerkbaits for me. I put the boat in the water a few minutes after 7AM looking to duplicate his day

I launched at Oakland looking for chunk rock and bluff points. I found plenty of both, but hours of cranking and jerking yielded zero bites. I was curious to know if there were fish where I was fishing. Tossed a Ned and caught a keeper spot on the first cast with it.

I moved to additional areas cranking. Nada.

Rained hit much earlier than I expected and never really quit. I have good raingear. I stayed dry and warm.

Water temp was 53-43 degrees. Wind was variable. At times it was over 10 mph, but never bad.

EVERYTIME I threw the Ned I caught fish. EVERYTIME I tried jerkbaits or crankbaits I went fishless.

I tried 4 different color warts. I tried multiple jerkbaits just in case it was a color thing.

At some point, I decided to catch fish instead of throwing a wart some more.

I ended up catching 65 fish. 63 of which were bass. I lost two BIG fish that I really couldn't control. I'm not sure what they were, but both fought the same. Big slow head shakes , stayed down, pulled a lot of drag, and then just GONE.

I put the boat back on the trailer at 5 pm. I wish the day could have lasted longer. I just ran out of daylight.

I have a few pics. I could take a picture of my 17 inch spot. It was raining too hard. I had two giant bluegill, but opted not to photograph them.

[Ham]

. My best LMB , a little over 17 inches

[Ham]

. I had a limit of Table Rock style spots

[Ham]

I had a pile of Smallies. I had a lot of pullers, but none would have been legal keepers.

[mixermarkb]

Good job on going to the Ned! I didn't catch anywhere near 65 fish. I had enough wind that the Ned wasn't an option. The fish seemed to be on the windiest parts of the banks, if I got even a few yards off the sweet spot I wasn't getting bites. The Smallies I was catching were in the 17-18" range as well as the LMB. I guess I had the next year class up on the smallmouth. Either way though, the bite is on right now!

Only question is where do they go when the front passes and the bluebird skies come out???

[Ham]

I think you can throw the Ned in more wind than you imagine and wind was not required for my fish.

I don't think the fish go anywhere. They just hunker down a little tighter to cover and are less willing to move. They'll still eat a little.

I lost a couple of jigs to zebra mussels. I saw lots and lots and lots of them in Music creek area. Not gonna be as easy to fish jigs anymore and any fish that wraps you on wood is GONE.

[Ham]

You had more keepers even though neither one of us kept any fish.

[mixermarkb]

I had a baby zebra come back on my line. Hung up at the knot on a custom painted pre-rap wart. Needless to say that one got retied after that cast.

I probably would have thrown the Ned a little when it slowed down if I had tied one on. As it was, if I didn't get bit on the wart or jerk, I just cranked the optimax up and moved on to the next spot.

[Fish24/7]

great day Ham! sweet

[Ham]

It is sort of a Sweet and Sour day. It really bummed me out that i couldn't make the Wart work, bum sweet that I had em going my way on the other deal.

Amazing numbers of smallies. Just stunning.