Kim City Area 4/9

[Steve Donald Nebel]

Fished in the FLW college tournament last Saturday.
After a miserable few days of practice, me and my partner found some nice fish up shallow the night before the tournament.
While my partner was reeling in a warmouth, I noticed a big spot followed it up to the boat trying to eat it. After we saw this, we searched some banks and found many good sized bass up shallow. During the tournament, we caught a 4.50 female largeie in less than a foot of water on a wacky rigged senko. We saw a few males on/making beds and a large 4+ pound female that was holding tight to a branch in the water for all 8 hours of the tournament. Never could get her to bite. Water temps were only 55, so we were surprised to see the bass up shallow. Talked to a few other guys at the tournament and they said they has been seeing bass on beds since last Tuesday. We also caught a few nice smallies in 8' of water under some floating docks near spawning coves. Also caught some nice spots on floating dock near spawning coves. Both on a green pumpkin ned rig. We ended up in 21st out of 110 with 11-1 with 4 fish. Winning weight was 16-5 i think. Would have been nice to put that big female on that branch in the box. 

 

[Bill Babler]

Thanks for the wonderful report.  Sounds like you all had a great time.  Kind of funny with the bedding fish, it really has not started lake wide.  There are some isolated pockets of beds but you can go into 20 coves before you find them.  Also there is a big swing in water temps right now ranging from as low as 54 to as high as 63.  Really does not seem to matter as there are beds in the cold water and nothing in the warmer water.  More depends on lake section.

[Champ188]

Should be a big wave of spawners come up in about a week. Full moon is the 22nd and looks like the nighttime temps are finally gonna start warming up, if you can believe the extended forecast.

[Nitro 750]

Thanks for the great report, glad to see you guys had some good bites.  I hope the extended forecast is right, they are also saying not so much wind.  That would be nice!!!!

[BearFisher10]

I fished that tournament as well and ended a couple spots behind Steve. I primarily fished the KC area as well and saw lots of beds. I told Champ this but there were quite a few beds that the fish had pulled off of, algae was starting to grow on them again. There were about the same amount of beds that were more fresh and on Saturday I saw lots of males up on them or cruising, and one had a female that I didn't see til too late and spooked her. We found beds in several creeks around the area on anything from pea gravel to ledge rock on the shelves, usually under some brush or behind a dock. 

My partner and I fished secondaries and the backs of pockets with an A-rig and a Rock Crawler. Had lots of shorts and three keepers for 10-8 to show come game time on Saturday. If you like to cover water and fish fast right now, I'd have those two baits plus a Wiggle Wart, spinnerbait, and wobblehead rigged up. You will run into a few larger fish right now.