Weekend Dam Report or Lack Thereof

[abkeenan]

Not much to say other than it was brutal. Cold front rolled in, bluebird skies, lack of wind.....Table Rock's version of a kick to the groin. Caught very few fish and ZERO keepers in 2 days of fishing. Absolutely no pattern to anything and could not locate ANYTHING on the graph in anything less than 35 feet of water. Best bite (if you can even say that) was on shakeyhead worms but had to have timber targets. If it was a bare bank it was barren of fish. Also swam a swimjig with paddle tail trailer and had one on that and some short strikes but again had to be near wood. Most consistent bite was on steep 45 degree or shelf/ledge banks that had to be on the shade side of the lake. Just flat out awful but that's fishin'. Tried various cranks from 5-20 feet in craw and shad patterns both, ploppers, double ploppers, buzzbaits, football jigs, shakeyheads, spoons, lipless, jerkbaits, swimjigs and spinnerbaits. We covered it all and royally stunk it up. I'm sure someone caught'em but it wasn't us. For those of you that went into the woods this past weekend instead of into the water......

or......................

 

[Champ188]

Looks like more of the same this coming weekend. Just colder.

[merc1997 Bo]

the lake is fishing very small right now, and even fishing the right areas, you have to really work for what you get.

bo

[Quillback]

Supposed to have a few days this week in the 70's.  I don't see that as helping.  Usually mid-November is when I start throwing a jerk bait around, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

[Champ188]

We haven't even gotten to the spinnerbait bite yet. Not much of one anyway.

[abkeenan]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

Supposed to have a few days this week in the 70's.  I don't see that as helping.  Usually mid-November is when I start throwing a jerk bait around, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

Last couple of years I've had success on jerkers as well starting in early to mid November. Didn't get a sniff on it. There was just nothing suspended anywhere that I could see. Granted I didn't look any further out that 35 feet because I'm not much of a tree top drop shotter or spooner. Not gonna find me in 90 feet of water dropping a spoon down 40 feet into the tree tops. But typically I will run across something suspended in that 15-35 foot range SOMEWHERE. Nada. Based on this last weekend they are out deep or just glued to the bottom waiting for this stupid weather to make up it's mind.

I did see some areas further back in pockets and creeks that had whatever those small minnows are that flip themselves all over on the surface. Also saw quite a bit of big gizzards on main lake gravel points and pockets busting surface. Tried throwing into them with various baits from top to bottom and every water column in between.....again...NADA. The fish that I did catch over the weekend were really healthy. None of them spit up any meals so not sure what they were feeding on.

[abkeenan]

9 minutes ago, Champ188 said:

We haven't even gotten to the spinnerbait bite yet. Not much of one anyway.

I think it's fairly close. The shad and minnows SEEM to want to be pushing back into creeks.

[96 CHAMP]

Last year at this time I was throwing a spinner bait & square bill & having a blast. We need some weather fronts, anything besides these bluebird days. The way it's looking it's going to be December before the water temp goes down. Finally got the boat out last Monday for a short trip to LOZ, everything ran well and managed a limit on some nice whites, couldn't take it any more and a buddy and I are at LOZ to see if we can't get a few more, bluebird skies and light wind . See what happens, good fishing to you all.

[96 CHAMP]

53 minutes ago, abkeenan said:

I think it's fairly close. The shad and minnows SEEM to want to be pushing back into creeks.

Last well at LOZ the whites I caught were back in the creek right up next to bank so I'm sure the shad are there. Water temps are about the same up here