6/1 Shell Knob - Beautiful Day and Good Fishing

[whiteley.matt]

Launched at Shell Knob bridge at 6:00 and headed up to Mill Creek.  First hour was slow.  Lots of activity chasing shad but was only had a couple of bites on top-water.  Worked our way around to the main lake point on the west side of the mouth of Mill Creek and fish were absolutely stacked there.  We started off catching them on a War Eagle spinner bait and a jerk bait.  That bite transitioned to a shaky head paired with a speed craw or baby brush hog and a Ned as the day went on.  These fish were located right on the drop off into the main channel and didn't stray to far from it.  If you got to far away from that in either direction you were not getting bit.   (Attached is a pic, between the two red lines was the hot spot.)  If you were in the right area you could catch fish from the shoreline in 2 foot of water all the way out to 30 foot of water.  At times the fish would be higher in the water column and at others they would be on the bottom (Didn't think to get a pic of this).  When they were higher you could get bit on spinner bait or small swim bait.  When they dropped to the bottom the Ned and shaky head were the bait of choice.  These fish were there all day, we left at 4:00pm and pulled off of that point still catching fish.  Would not be surprised if these fish are there for a while.  They seemed to be feeding on any and everything.  Had several that were spitting up shad, several that had craws in there throat and then several that spit up both.

One thing I noticed that I thought was interesting was that we never saw a school of shad show up on the graph.  Shad were everywhere, you could see them all over the surface and the fish were clearly feeding on them.  I assume they just were just scattered and weren't schooled up is why they didn't really show up on the graph.

We ended the day with 70+ fish between the three of us.  Biggest fish came on the Ned and was 3.75. (She had a rough go, had a tore up gill and several dings on her body) Ended the day with maybe 8 keepers and best 5 was around12 lbs. or so.  All of the fish we caught with the exception of maybe 10 or so came off of that point.  Not many fish with any size, but, fun catching.  Surprisingly, it was a pretty even mix of spots and largemouth.  Did have 1 smallie and 1 walleye that hit a spinner bait.

Water was 73 at launch and 77 when we left at 4.  There was quite a bit of debris in the main channel with a lot of it being very large logs in the morning.  When we left the wind had pushed a lot of it to the shoreline.

Hopefully I'm not giving away someone's spot.  Just trying to pass on some info that could help someone else have as much fun as we did.

[abkeenan]

As good a report and post as you will find. Perhaps TOO GOOD! Very generous to share your spot. I'm sure when you go back it will be COVERED from here to Timbuktu. Also thanks for the pics. I think I enjoy pics in reports more than the actually nitty gritty of the how they were captured. Thanks again.

[IL Fisherman]

Thanks Matt.  Great info for us part timers to the lake.  Coming down next Friday.  Nice pics too.

[196champ]

That spot looks familiar!  Had a very similar experience there over the weekend.  Swimbaits and dixie jets did the trick.  A bit deeper when i was there!

[Royal Blue]

That's been a good spot for a long time.  I have quite a few within a few minutes of there...

[196champ]

There are plenty close by to jump around on that's for sure

 

[m&m]

Thanks for the report. Very generous of you to provide the details. 

Mike

[Nitro 750]

Thanks for the detailed information.  Nice fish, thanks for the report.

[Champ188]

Incredibly nice of you to share such detail. Just bear in mind that some do not practice CPR and that you might be drawing a map for the meat hogs. Lots of drive-by traffic here. Again, great day and congrats.

[Patlock]

Nice report!