3/16 Report

[UseUrHeadFred]

Lake 36: Fished 6-7:30.  Minnows under a bobber.  Three crappie, one big bluegill, one channel catfish.  Fish seem to be spread out and at various depths.  No bass activity... strange considering I've been cleaning up on them lately.  

I've noticed on some lakes some crappie are already within inches of the bank.  Lake 36 doesn't seem to be one of them, yet.  

I haven't tried 33 in the last few days, I wonder if they're turning on yet.  Despite their small size, it's always fun just ripping one after another out of the lake faster than you can bait up.

[mjk86]

Nice, thats what i hate about minnows the most....you spend more time baiting hooks and messing with them than actually fishing.  Some days its all that works though.

[Haris122]

I was at 35 Tuesday evening for a bit. It was really windy. Only made it out there for a short while after work, but fishing a little plastic minnow on a jig in the spirit of what mjk said got me a 11" LMB near shore. Eventually I switched to a roostertail and got another 2 fish, but real dinks at that. 1 tiny sunfish of some sort, and then a slightly bigger Black Crappie. Then yesterday I went again. Windy as well. Tried lake 38 first, hoping the wind was more manageable there. Got a few bites from something tiny and nothing else. Then went to 35 after, towards the end of the day and there wasn't much going on there either. Spinnerbait, the plastic minnow on jighead, a crappie tube under bobber by the christmas trees, they all were not getting any bites. Finally, got a very small bass on a white roostertail again, and had to leave it at that. From the past few days I think 35 at least, doesn't have the crappie real close to shore yet. It seemed like they were still further past the trees some, at least on the dam side where I fished both days. Maybe they would've turned on some more later on yesterday too, but I couldn't quite wait as late as the day before. I'm ready for the boats to come out.

[UseUrHeadFred]

Lake 38 is one of those lakes that just looks absolutely killer.  I have exactly zero experience using a boat; I only picked up fishing again about a year ago since going with my grandpa when I was a kid, and 38 has very little bank to fish from, so I haven't fished it much.  It looks like it could be really deep.  I did bank fish it last year looking for redear beds from the gravel boat ramp, had zero luck but saw a very, very large flathead patrolling the bank.  Was very creepy seeing such a big fish swimming right at my feet.  

35 is one of the most variable lakes I've ever seen as far as the lake level goes.  I think it's built on top of a cave system, loses water very very fast, but fills up just as fast out of Schote(?) creek.  The creek channel is very steep in the area to the right of the boat ramp, it becomes visible when the lake level is low.  

The whole eastern area of Busch is prone to sinkholes.  Back in the 50s, when they were building all those ponds, they actually did build a Lake 13.  It shared a bank with Lake 12's dam.  They apparently filled it over a few weeks, then one day they came back and it was gone.  Sinkhole had formed right in the middle.  If you look on Google Earth you can see where it used to be.  Lake 8 has a similar problem, that's why it's dogs only.  Completely drains out every three or four years, so the fish all die off.

[WHARFRAT]

20+ yrs ago, lake 38 used to be my go-to bass lake.  Caught quite a few nice fish out of there.  Mostly around the boats and up the bank towards the shallows.  Then when we got bored or the bite tailed off, we used to go to the timber and catch crappie.  I went back there a few years back, and most of the standing timber had rotted away.  But we used to fish there throughout the whole season the Busch was open.  Hardly anybody would fish it.  If people went that direction, they'd go to Lake 37, which wasn't a bad lake either for bass.  Seemed like when they introduced grass carp, that lake declined for me.  

If I go now, 35 is my lake of choice.  Haven't been in a while, wondering if it was still low like in previous years

[UseUrHeadFred]

I went last weekend to lake 35.  It was at an intermediate state.  The water was very high over the winter, which just so happened to be when they dropped christmas trees at the crappie bed signs.  Now there are hundreds of christmas trees piled up right on the bank.  I bet by this fall they're way up out of the water.  

It appears people fish those pretty heavily over the winter; several of the christmas trees are "decorated" with lost bobbers!  

If anyone's wondering how deep it is right off the dam, I was able to find some 22' water within casting range about 2/3 of the way to the spillway.  The spillway itself was actually a little bit shallower.  It gets deep quite fast off the dam, about 9' deep within easy reach of a dipping pole.  I didn't go past the dam around to the peninsula and cove, I hear it's VERY deep off that point.

[Haris122]

The thing about Lake 35 for me, is that even though it's such a big lake, half or so of it I feel I can't even fish because of all the milfoil.

[WHARFRAT]

by the way, are they putting out any boats yet.  The last few years seems like they put a limited amount on each lake around this time of the year.

[Haris122]

I didn't see any out when I was there.