results from trip....

[carolina-rig-01]

well to say it was a tough day would be an understatment. we put in at cowskin at 7:00 and started out by running up under the bridge. first we threw jigs and jerkbaits along steep banks, and chunk rock banks in around 20-25 feet of water, thinking these would be a good place to locate pre-spawners, not so much as a bite after an hour and a half. so in a desperate attempt to find some kind of a pattern we found and fished a stretch of a bank that had bluffs, chunk rock, and pea gravle, and baited docks. my way of thinking was if we could pick up a few we could form a pattern on what kind of bank or structure they came off of and eliminate a lot of unproductive water. well we did form a pattern but not what we were looking for as we still were yet to get bit. so it came down to a crappie rod and minnows, that is when it got interesting. dad hooked up with a 18lb. blue cat on 4lb p-line. the fight took close to 30 minutes when the smoke cleared the fish and dad were both spent, we weighed her and released her making our day not a complete loss. there we several tourney guys we talked to who had the same story as ours, the lake was full of boats running and not many fishing which told us everybody was struggling. to a lot of people this type of day is a complete wash but a day on the lake with dad and a few brews is never a bad day. i wish we would have went to twin bridges and had whites on our minds though. well that is my report in a nut shell but anyone else that went i would like to hear about your days. oh and by the way we seen a guy fall in the lake,so all things considered we did have a better day than some.

[wily]

I went Saturday afternoon to the shangri-la area. I considered going after some whites at twin bridges but i wanted to avoid the crowd. It was a great day for being out on the water, but the fishing was tough.

The water temp on the west side of the lake was 52 and on the east it was only 48. The water was muddy.

There were lots of bass boats out...just about every rock bank with the sun hitting it had a 20 footer on it. Most people were fishing the jerk bait, but the water was muddy so i think that took away from the jerk bait fishing.

i caught my only bass slow rolling a 1/2 oz spinnerbait along a drop-off.

I caught a handful of crappie in tera miranda by the tires. i marked some fish on the graph and threw a jerkbait at them but no takers, so i switched to a slider w/ a grub and swam it thru there and picked up a couple crappie but they were pretty slow too.

All in all, i guess it was a good day for a boat ride.

We've got a club tournament this weekend at grand. based on what i saw, and what you said, i think i'll probably go down lake and try to find some clearer water.

[PowersiteProwler]

Well, you guys didn't miss a lot up Spring River. There were 3 of us in my boat, hit the water about 8:00 left about 5:00. Around 12 Whites between the 3 of us. We tried everything, caught most of them trolling with shad wraps..

We talked to a few who said they were just slaying them further up the creek, under the 10C Bridge. We proceeded to head that direction, but I got to the first riffle past the bridge and it was 1-2 ft deep and I decided I didn't need to tear my boat up that bad. We talked to some guys we knew at the boat launch there on 10, they claim they caught 100 up there on Friday and then another 100 on Saturday. Reliable? I don't know, I find it funny how when people are catching a bunch of fish it's always, "100" never 93 or never 106, but always "100!"

And yes, it was as if there was a bass tournament going on down there Saturday, boats, boats and more boats. There were so many people you would have thought it was opening day at roaring river!

[wildminnow]

tearing your boat up going up those riffles sounds about right, I saw a boat try and go up, started hitting gravel with the old prop, he shut her down and let his buddy try the trolling moter, it wouldnt hold so they headed back down the riffle, sounded like they hit those underwater logs, probably put a little dent in the side of their boat. Guess you better have a jet to be tryin that stuff, oh by the way we probably caught 100 whites up above the riffle.