Get ready here I come

[IL Fisherman]

Howdie folks.  Headed your way Friday.  I have the following tied on and ready to fish.  Ned rig, drop shot, split shot, shakey head, spook, pop r, and a Keitech fat impact 3.8.  I think I'm ready to go.  Anything I'm missing.  Can't wait, long day at work tomorrow. 

[moguy1973]

Spoon, fluke, spinner bait

[dtrs5kprs]

What area of the lake?

Not much going in terms of topwater around Kimberling. Think the color just has that jacked up.

Add a big rod and some type of creature to flip. 15#-20#, 5/16 bullet weight. Zman Palmetto Bugz is really working on that bite. Not a lot of bites, but you don't need to measure them. And only so many times you get the chance to flip brownies out of bushes.

[Ketchup]

Fished Aunts area last evening. Started with a 12' depth crank throwing into the bushes. Caught a few fish right away. Nothing on the spinnerbait.  Switched over to a TR worm and started catching fish on the first cast.  Fished a bank close to the ramp and caught 10 or so within 45 minutes. Most 12" fish but a few keepers.  So if those baits you listed dont produce, try the worm. 

[eyedabassman]

You have to have a football jig in pbj. Mio. Craw, brown/ blue!

[vernon]

As was being discussed in another thread, it doesn't really matter what lures you have rigged up but rather the number of rods you keep on the deck.

Seven on each side of the boat is a good jumping off point and adjust fire from there.

[magicwormman]

White spoon 1/2 or 3/4 oz. vertical fishing in 15 to 25 fow. Dixie Jet flutter spoon and a kastmaster spoon and you will have most bases covered.

[IL Fisherman]

Thanks guys.   I have all that stashed in the boat.  Sounds like I'm ready.  24 hours til take off. 

[top_dollar]

Holy cow thats a lot of options.   I often feel most confident with sticking to just a few techniques all day.  Maybe cuz im not a particularly versatile fisherman, but its hard for me to see if somethings working if i don't fish with it for very long.  Could be laziness too, but i try different presentations of the same bait before switching techniques.  I think a crawdad bait, a shad bait  and a worm will always work, table rock bass will undoubtedly be feeding on those.  For me it's a spoon, a keitech, a dropshot and a jig.  Ill often times try to force a topwater bite that isnt there, but thats my own stubbornness cuz i know the spoon would work better.

[top_dollar]

Also....if your just looking to have fun and catch fish...its the time of year where if you look for gravel runnouts you will find all kinds of fish hanging out there.  Heres an easy way to catch em. 

              Get you a few boxes of night crawlers.  Rig up a med light power fast action rod with 6# mono (ned rig rod).  Slide a bobber stop, then a bead then a 1/16 to 1/8 oz weight, another bead and another bobber stop.  I prefer the lighter weight, but you may feel more comfortable with a 3/16 or 1/4 oz.  Space each of the components out about 1/4 of an inch above a #4 or #6 baitholder hook.  Run the whole crawler up the shank of the hook as straight as you can get it.  Thats the rig I use...a normal split shot rig will also work well, but you will eventually have twist and kinks in the line between the hook and weight and you need to retie often.  The setup i mentioned above, spaced properly will alleviate that issue. 

               Drift that rig a few feet off the bottom of any long gravel point or gravel rolloff into the main lake.  If you dont have any electronics just drift around the point starting shallow and getting deeper trying to keep the deal near the bottom.  You'll catch plenty.  If you have some electonics on board you can look for certain things:

1.) Large humps on/near the bottom are usually catfish, walleye, and bass. 

2.)  A continuous squiggly line just above the bottom are bluegills, cut that crawler in half if they are biting the tails.

3)  Clouds in the water column...shad...there will be predators near.

4)   Fish humps in the middle of the water column are usually spotted bass and or white bass.  Both will eat the crawler happily, but if you can find some spots stacked up, you can catch lots with a crawler.

               I generally start in about 12-15 feet and work out to 30-40.  If your not seeing/catching anything you can move out over the channel, quite often you can find em at the same depths as the flat but suspended out over 100 or more FOW.  I know live bait is generally looked down upon from bass fisherman, but a couple boxes of night crawlers can find bass about as easy as 2000$ worth of electronics.