Bill Wilcox (Honey Hole Outdoors) on TR

[Quillback]

Fishing the Oakley Big Bass Tourney.  Bill does a good show, he's usually fishing in Texas, his show is on FSSW. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDpcHIZeZl0

[dtrs5kprs]

That's an interesting video. It absolutely shows what a lot of folks do when they come to TR and are not used to fishing highland lakes. The gentleman in the video can clearly fish, but just a quick look at the deck tells the tale. Not a single spinning rod on the deck. Then when you watch him fish, he just fishes way too fast, even when he is throwing the spook. 

[Champ188]

You can power fish on Table Rock, but you have to do it with finesse. I've kicked around the idea of writing an article on that for the forum and even started on it. May finish it soon.

[dtrs5kprs]

22 minutes ago, Champ188 said:

You can power fish on Table Rock, but you have to do it with finesse. I've kicked around the idea of writing an article on that for the forum and even started on it. May finish it soon.

Write on, so to speak.

Just about everything is "nuanced" on these lakes due to pressure and the specific challenges of the clear water and depth.

[Mitch f]

Float n Fly works good at Dale Hollow, but The biggest smallmouth taken every year is taken by trolling a 12" Musky lure. It's a highland lake

[dtrs5kprs]

9 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

Float n Fly works good at Dale Hollow, but The biggest smallmouth taken every year is taken by trolling a 12" Musky lure. It's a highland lake

That lake has a shocking amount of grass, and looks to have a lot more clay than our lakes, at least from the MLF coverage. Bill Richey uses to go down there and fish. Has been interesting watching it.

Those big plugs are almost like the swimbait bite. Some fish are just wired differently.

[merc1997 Bo]

4 hours ago, dtrs5kprs said:

That's an interesting video. It absolutely shows what a lot of folks do when they come to TR and are not used to fishing highland lakes. The gentleman in the video can clearly fish, but just a quick look at the deck tells the tale. Not a single spinning rod on the deck. Then when you watch him fish, he just fishes way too fast, even when he is throwing the spook. 

alex is what i would call a power basser, and it seems he catches his share of nice bass.  so, it somewhat depends on whether you are still after quantity or quality.  true there are times that a more "finesse" presentation will be the ticket to catch any bass at all, and that process at times will produce a quality bass.  when dealing with big bass and getting them into the boat on a consistent basis does not favor light line, and big bass are rarely not glued to prime cover, even if it is just big rocks.

if i am fishing for just one big bite, i will not have on light line.  i might be fishing a small profile lure, but will have one line stout enough to put the odds in my favor to get it in the boat.

nothing wrong with light line fishing at all, but sometimes it could compared to going to a gun fight with a knive..

 

bo

[dtrs5kprs]

Really, I'm on the same page with Champ. It's not so much just fishing big versus small, but more about the speed and the aggressive presentation. You can absolutely catch them on a blade or crankbait at TR, or on a big jig. But often those fish come by fishing those baits much slower and more precisely than you can get by with on other lakes. Winding a wart down and pulling it with the tip, for example. As Bo has pointed out, another is letting a spoon hang instead of snapping it violently.

A lot of the finesse stuff also produces quality bites. Swimming a 5" single tail, dragging a tube for big brown fish, etc. 

[Moswimb8slinger]

I saw those guys at the marina when I weighed in my 3.73 LM (5th place for the hour). 

Me and my buddy cashed 3 checks for the event throwing bigger swimbaits, only caught maybe 12 to 15 fish between the 2 days. We weighed in a 3.60, 3.73 and a 4.02, all Largemouth. I had caught a 3.80 smallie during practice on Friday before the event. And my buddy had a good dock pattern during the week (very sunny) but that disappeared as it was cloudy both Saturday and Sunday.

 

Another friend of mine and his boater caught an estimated 70 bass on squarebills, zero checks (they caught nothing over 2.25lbs)

[merc1997 Bo]

there you go richy.  you were fishing with something that i would put in the class of a lure that will consistently catch better quality bass, and your buddy fishing a square bill, which i put into the numbers catagory, did not catch anything of any size, but did catch numbers.

good job for you.  you were fishing for a quality bite, and little ones do you no good.

bo