Buck Creek Saturday 5/23

[Ealy]

We stayed Friday/Saturday night at Lakewoods Resort in Protem. Good people and a great place to take a family. Somehow I ended up randomly staying in a cabin right next door to an old friend that I've known for over twenty years, and was able to catch up on old times. We actually began fishing together as kids tromping through fields and sneaking into farm ponds. I ran trotlines and noodles with him Friday and Saturday night and he ended up with a nice mess of channels, a couple of blues and a flathead. They made for an excellent fish fry Saturday evening with many of his friends and family.

I dropped the boat in for a solo morning trip at daylight and fished in the rain till 12, coming in for lunch, and later out for a few more hours with the family in the afternoon. Most of my Bull Shoals fishing experience has been from Lead Hill to K-Dock, so aside from one specific spot, near Buck Creek, I had never fished the area before. It rained the majority of the time, ranging from a light sprinkle to brief downpours, with a pretty good wind blowing straight into Buck Creek. The lake was also about 14' high.

First off, I ran halfway back into a major creek and picked a few deeper points to toss the Ned rig before working my way back into the pocket. Short walleye right off the bat with the Ned, followed by a couple of short smallies. The conditions looked right for a spinnerbait, but only managed one smallmouth with it. I spent about half the morning fishing in creeks and the other half on main lake points. I graphed a ton of fish suspended high in the water column and was able to catch several smallmouth and later blacks on a smoke grub.There was some random surface activity, but nothing that stayed up, and only managed one short smallies on a zara spook, I did have one 14.5" brownie on a fluke, but for the most part I alternated between the grub and ned rig all day with several fish coming from mouths of creeks on the steeper points. One point yielded a dozen fish, and is also where a lost a nice KY and walleye come off at the boat.

I boated roughly 40 fish, mostly smallmouth, but never physically touched a keeper. The blacks I caught were back in a creek on a channel bank eating the grub as it cleared the outside brushline. I think those outside bushes probably are holding a lot of fish right now, but I couldn't figure out how to catch the bigger ones. Fishing out deeper actually produced some of the smallest fish for me with some coming from 22-24'. Right now, you can get bit on just about every type of point or creek channel bank, with the easy fish coming just out from the brush.

I planned on taking out the family Sunday, but with the full day of rain heading that way, we packed it up and headed back home. We did stop at Fat Daddy's BBQ in Forsyth for breakfast, and had an excellent breakfast (strongly recommend the smoked ham. All in al, l a great time for a shortened holiday weekend.

[Fish24/7]

awesome report, thank you

weather got gnarly

i watched a tornado roll through a part of Theodosia about an hour ago

hope nobody got hurt

[Diamond City Fisher]

Thanks for the report. Better weather next time.