Another Perspective

[Champ188]

Reports have been scarce here and seems the ones there have been have focused on deep-water tactics. But alas, a relatively shallow bite of sorts remains.

Donna and I launched at Baxter around 7 a.m. Saturday. While our first stop produced a quick keeper largemouth on the varmint. Came off a Wiggle Wart-style bank ... 30-degree slope with mixed chunk, slab and ledge rock. About 200 yards later, we were still looking for No. 2.

Ran a short hop up the White to another spot, then another and another, all to no avail. Finally, when one of the best spots in the lower White failed to yield a bite, I suggested we go back to Baxter, load the boat and trailer around to the Kings. Figured it would save us some driving time on the trip home and give the wind --- or complete lack thereof --- time to read the darn forecast and figure out that according to every meteorologist in the Western Hemisphere that it was supposed to be blowing 10-15, gusting to 20. Yeah, right.

Actually, about an hour after we relaunched in the Kings, a bit of a breeze finally came to life. With that to work with, we flung our usual arsenal of winding baits (Wart, spinnerbait, jerk bait and soft swim bait) at 'em, along with dragging a jig and varmint. The jerkbait proved to be most popular with the fish, so we ended up spending the afternoon chunking a pair of those. We ended the day with 20 fish total and five keepers that would total about 13 pounds. Best fish was a 4-pound LM. In fact, nearly all of our fish were green, as the lack of wind kept the bait (and most of the spots) out in much deeper water. I did play with a spoon a little to no avail, but my heart wasn't in it. Frankly, when I get a stickbait bite every 15-20 minutes, I'd rather pursue that opportunity than to try to spoon feed 'em. Just not my thing, nor Donna's.

A-rig also might have produced around those suspenders, but as Babler likes to say about certain tactics, I just wasn't that mad at 'em.

All in all, a nice day to be out. Not often you get low 60s weather in December.

Have fun out there.

[trapshot25]

Nice report Champ looks like wind showed up today. Looked like nice chop out office window at shell knob

[merc1997 Bo]

good report! i know there are quite a few waiting for the jerk bait bite to kick in. i really believe that many of the deeper bass being caught are not there on the right type of day and are up shallower with the bait.

the wind was howling at my house all day. must have been one of those days where the real wind stays up at higher elevation and not down at water level.

was there any type of pattern on depth of water the bites were coming over?? and one other question - did it make a difference if you threw parallel or throw in and come out?? direction of retrieve can really make a difference with a jerk bait. kind of like looking up or looking down but different.

bo

[fishinwrench]

Almost every tournament win in history (regardless of season) has been won in less than 12fow.

Just something for the deep dark abyss probers to consider.

[Champ188]

Excellent questions, bo. We were fishing steep banks and very few of our bites came over less than 15 feet of water. Many of them came over 30-40 feet. Because there wasn't a defined strike zone, we were definitely fishing more perpendicular than parallel.

That said, I was not able to draw anything out of submerged trees. It's like the fish couldn't care less if wood is present or not. Totally a "bait bite" with the fish showing little regard for any kind of cover, rock included. We did fish a little bit of gravel with no bites at all, but I'm convinced that had more to do with the shallow slope of the bank than with the type of rock present. Gravel banks just generally aren't steep.

[Quillback]

Interesting to see you are getting them out over 30 feet to hit the jerker.

[merc1997 Bo]

Almost every tournament win in history (regardless of season) has been won in less than 12fow.

Just something for the deep dark abyss probers to consider.

that would depend on what lake, and on table rock, that is not the case unless you are strictly talking spring fishing.

bo

[jmes]

Great report, glad to here a shallow bite for a change

[merc1997 Bo]

champ, did you try fishing more parallel with the depth the strikes were coming from. sometimes doing that will work, but just as bass sometimes feed down or up, there are times bait retrieve direction is very important.

very interesting that all the bites came out over quite a bit of water. that lends a lot to what i was saying that on certain days the deep bass and the food chain also are coming up.

just seems that those darn green critters change everyday and you have to be flexible to keep up with them.

since you started out over at baxter and did not do much, sure makes me wonder what those bass are doing in that area.

bo

[Champ188]

Bo, having Donna in the back (she doesn't like doubling up on the front deck) kind of dictates boat position because I want her to catch more fish than me. But what I did do was turn the nose of the boat out to give her the "inside" casting lane while I took the outside (deeper) angle. Indeed she did catch more than me, and she had 4 of our 5 keepers. On a normal day, I would have caught more K's than I did, but those rascals just did not want to come up for that bait. Nor did they want a spoon because I dropped on them several times when I'd see them on the graph. I did think about swimming a grub through them and just didn't do it. Nor did I try the spin bait.

The casting angle Donna was working was almost parallel, but still had enough angle to let her work, on an average cast, from 5 to 25 feet of water. The fish I caught came from 15-30 feet, maybe a couple coming from 40 feet.