The Rock--4/27 and 4/28

[Mike jones]

4/27---Came down early Thursday morning to practice a couple days for the Tyson tourney.  Put in at Mill Creek and hit a couple main lake points a caught a handful of smallmouth on small swim baits.  Started up the James to try to put a largemouth pattern together...around 8:00 I pulled into a small pocket off of the main lake.  I caught 7 on a wacky rig fished in front of the bushes in no time.  Had 5 shorts and 2 solid 3lbers...and I was like a giddy little school girl because I love to catch'em this way!!  Next pocket down, first cast, caught a 2 1/2lber.  I took my hook off and fished the rest of the day for bites.  Some would POUND the Senko and start swimming out to deep water..they would get a GPS cord.  Others would hit it and swim up shallow or hit it and drop it over and over.  Those small fish didn't receive a GPS cord.  Also found a few good ones on beds.  Had one bed with a solid 4 and 2 1/2 on it.  Those bedding fish were very catchable..I could flip a bait in there and they would spin around and look at it..I would then pull my bait out of the bed quickly and drop a GPS cord.  Left the James around 2:30 and came down around the Kim city bridge to Indian point area to check the smallmouth.  I think almost every secondary point I stopped on, I could catch a smallmouth or 5...all on the Ned or small swimbait.  Caught 20-30 smallmouth with 3 or 4 keepers and a couple big, fat spots.  I would sit out in 20-25 feet of water and cast along the sides and also up on the secondary point.  Headed back to the boat ramp at 5:30.

 

4/28---Started in Indian creek and again started catching smallmouth on secondary.  Tried to find a top water, jig, anything else besides the Ned and swim bait.  Didn't happen...every time I would pick the swim bait back up, I would catch a brown fish.  At 9:00, I had 12 or so smallmouth with only 2 keepers so I loaded the boat and headed back to the stained water.  I knew the tournament couldn't be won on brown fish so I wanted to find some more productive pockets to catch largemouth in.  Put in at Mill Creek again around 10:00 and ran more pockets trying to find another solid pattern.  I had several jig bites flipping into the DEAD bushes..no bites in the ones with green leaves.  Also tried buzzbait, floating worm, fluke with limited success.  Marked a few more on beds and shook several off on the jig that felt like heavy fish.  Headed back to the cabin around 2:00 to respool rods and get the boat organized.  I was feeling very confident about the tournament and thought we could have some where in the mid teens pretty easy and if everything went perfect, upper teens.  Then, just my luck as I respooled the last rod, we found out that the Tyson tourney had been cancelled!!  

THANK YOU to all the guys in this forum who post reports almost every day and are open/honest about their day on the water.  Table Rock is a great lake and I feel for all the resort/home owners that will be dealing with the flood levels that are coming.  As I type this, my yard is flooding in Fayetteville!!

 

 

[Quillback]

Thanks for the report - I used to toss a wacky Senko quite a bit, but have gotten away from it the last couple of years.  Need to start doing it again.

[Ketchup]

Nice report Mike.  Good choice in leaving those brownies for the Largemouth.  Good luck next tourney.  

[vernon]

What a great report.  Too bad you didn't get a chance to put it in motion.

We experienced a lot of what you described except I just couldn't quit catching fish on the Ned long enough to give anything else a decent chance.  As I read some of the other reports from the week I can't help but wonder why I didn't do what y'all did - it wasn't like it never occurred to me.  

I just couldn't leave those freight train brown fish to look for something else that might have been bigger.  

In fact, the biggest waste of time for me all week was time spent taking non Ned rigged rods out of the box and then putting them back at the end of the day!

Of course, I wasn't trying to accomplish what you were either and I would have finished last in any tournament I would have entered anyway so there's that........

Again, sorry for what had to be a considerable disappointment.  Hope you get another chance soon.

[Nitro 750]

Good detailed report, to bad your tourney was canceled. Thanks for the report.

[Mike jones]

14 hours ago, Ketchup said:

Nice report Mike.  Good choice in leaving those brownies for the Largemouth.  Good luck next tourney.  

I knew if I fished for smallmouth all day...I would have a small limit and probably go through $50 in swim baits!!!!

[Ketchup]

I blew thru 3 bags of Zoom Swimmin Flukes last Sat. so i know what you mean. I was getting down on supply around noon, so started gluing the nose on to help catch more from each bait. Worked pretty slick.  

 Threw a Strike King KVD 4" Swim'n Caffeine Shad but they didnt want it as much  as the Zoom Swimmin Super Fluke in watermelon red   

 Now the next tourney, they will be on something totally different. Love the thrill of fishing, as much as catching.