Shell Knob 2-29-16 Current Report

[Bill Babler]

Good friend and client Jack Swank and I headed out for a day on the pond out of the Knob this morn.  From what we had heard the bite was really on yesterday.  Beck guided two trips in the Kimberling Area, and had over 20# on both trips.  Early morning trip he had them on a wart.  In the afternoon they moved out a scouch but he was still able to catch them on a Molted Craw RK Crawler.  James and Donna did well up the Kings, so I knew with the wind yesterday and the flat calm today it might be a little testy.  It was.

We totaled 14 fish with 3 keeps.  Two of them were solid, and the third was a swimmer.  I just could not put a pattern together.  We had two on a jerk bait 5 swimming a grub and 7 on an A-rig.  Word out today from Kimberling to Long Creek was no crank bait fish, everything on the A-rig.  They just got stubborn with the flat water and cloudless sky.  Surface temps ranged from 45.6 to an even 49 at Campbell Point.  Water is nice and clear down to Big Creek, there it is just gruesome.  I don't think I have ever seen this color of lime green to a tan brown.   It is just basically nasty.  Lots, and lots of boats on the water with the Viola and Shell Knob lots being mostly full.  As Champ said yesterday, no one was on any of the junk we wanted to fish.  Probably smart of them as my junk, stunk.

Jack reminded me last year a week later the surface temps were 41 and  the water was clear as a bell.  Jack was with me when we caught all those big K's on a Ice Jig.  He said we had 38 fish with 25 keeps.  Not this time.  Only decent reports today are A-rig fish from my clan.  Hope someone gets on them and best of luck out there.

[m&m]

Bill, thank you for the report.  I'm sitting at work and caught no fish so I would say your day was way better than mine.

Mike

[dtrs5kprs]

Well, if you are going to be given an extra day, you might as well fish on it.

That flat water and high sky kind of gets me fired up to throw the nameless one at them.

[Bill Babler]

Threw it for about 45 minutes on two separate locations that should have held bottom fish and they never touched it.  Most everything we found today was way off the bottom, suspended.  Yesterday in that wind there were lots of reports of shallow fish, but most of those spots were revisited today and nothing was hungry.

[dtrs5kprs]

It still gets me fired up. Shoot, at my speed it takes 45 minutes to get out of a slip, lol.

How far down lake does that color run?

[Jim Elam]

That makes me feel a little better.  Decided to work drop offs and bluff ends near channel swings looking for a few really solid fish.   Completely neglected the NED today and committed to jerk bait and wart.  I couldn't buy a bite from 730 to 5.  Even slung the rig a bit.  Nada.  

Will be be taking the finesse gear next trip...

[Ketchup]

Great report Bill, as always.  Were you fishing the A-Rig down deeper, or in the upper water column?

[BassBlind]

Thanks again Bill! - Can't believe that water is still so nasty in Big Creek / Big Bay ... It has to clear up soon. 

[OldMillRoad]

I went out with Beck Sunday afternoon to get an education setting up my Gen3's on the new boat.  After we played with the computer, we did some chunking and winding.  In my 40 some odd years on this pond I have never seen the water stay this dirty for this length of time,  I've fished cleaner water on the Deepwater arm of Truman.  We did manage to catch a couple good ones.  I sure hope they dump Beaver soon to flush this garbage out of here.

[Bill Babler]

Jeff, that fish is white as snow.  Kind of funny to see shallow crankbait  fish in the point 7 to point 5 area so off color.

You know me, I worked the A-rig deep.  I have had lots of reports however that the fish are 8' and under.  It is a very funny bite.  They want it moving and they simply will not bite without wind.  Lots of guys have been trying to catch them shallow on the bait with no name, but not doing much.   I really don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but the majority of fish being caught are LM.  James pointed out to me his bite on the sticker was a quick twitch bite.  I also know there was some very big weight caught shallow both Saturday and Sunday on A-rigs fished right on the bank.  All LM and to boot, in the KC to Dam area,  No Jaws.

There is a very big shad kill going on up the White River from Big Creek to Eagle Rock.  Hundreds if not thousands of gulls are working dying threadfin shad.  You don't see them rafted on the surface, but you will see flashes and very slow swimmers all over the upper end of the lake.  This may be contributing to the slow bite.  When the shad are dying like that it gets hard.  All the fish we caught yesterday were just complete toads and packed full of both eggs and bait.