Long Branch report from last few days

[Blazerman]

Greetings, though I don’t fish Table rock much I thought I would post a report from my visit over the past few days.

I just returned from spending 4 days at the Long branch area by the 86 bridge. My wife’s cousin just bought a really nice place there and they were nice enough to let us use it for a few days.

This was my fourth trip to Table rock and the second time I have brought my boat. The first two times I did not have my boat and didn’t really fish.

In July I was there for a family reunion when the water temps were close to 90 and had my boat but did not really do much serious fishing. I mostly took some of the younger kids out and we fished with worms and they had fun catching bluegill.  

I went out a couple mornings with my daughter and caught some fish on the deep points including some decent spots and a very good smallmouth on a HD craw. (Biggest smallmouth in the pics).  But did not really spend a lot of time fishing.

This time with the water temps in a decent range, (74 to 78) I thought I might find some shallow fish so the plan was to fish each morning and each evening shallow and then go deep in the middle of the day.

We got a late start on Thursday morning so I went to an island near the place we were staying and started throwing the HD craw again in about 20 -30 foot and once again caught a couple decent smallmouth. (Thanks Arron for the craws).

Tried a couple other spots and got nothing. When we came back to the dock for lunch everyone was saying how slow it was and how the lake was turning over and the only way to get them was deep, drop shotting night crawlers. So after lunch we bought some night crawlers and headed to some deep points. We caught some small spotted bass and some big bluegill (which we kept) but it was pretty slow.

Thursday evening I shifted to working the bank and caught some small spots on a spinnerbait and small smallmouth on a crankbait.  I caught the spots mostly close to shore and the smallmouth when I cast out towards schools of baitfish. I noticed there were schools of baitfish everywhere and kept watching for big fish to go after them but did not really see it happen.

Friday morning we headed out and fished some of the coves. Once again baitfish were everywhere and again I caught some bass working the spinnerbait and my wife picked up some smaller fish on a Ned rig. But it was not fast and furious by any stretch.

Wife was getting bored with it so we took a long ride over to Indian point and had breakfast at the floating cafe there. In July we stayed at Rock Lane resort so we went over there to fish their cove and saw baitfish breaking everywhere all over in the Rock lane cove and this time there were bigger fish busting them here and there. They were spread out all over so I said to the wife let’s try trolling.

I tied us up some shallow running jerk baits and started slowly trolling and did not get much and I was getting really frustrated and then a fish busted the surface right ahead of my line and when my bait got to the spot I connected with the fish. And was amazed to catch a 12” smallmouth. I say amazed because we were trolling in depths up to 100 foot and these fish were hitting top water and I did not expect a smallmouth. And that was the only one we got there.

Friday afternoon I decided the heck with drowning night crawlers and headed back to the bank with the spinnerbait. And I finally got into some good fish including the one big bass in the pic. Caught about 12 over all included 3 more chunky keeper spotted bass. All the bass were released.

Saturday and Sunday morning worked the same way except the wife was using the drop shot with the crawlers and picked up some catfish which we cleaned.

For me all the decent bass came on the spinnerbait close to laydowns. Also caught a few on top water right at sunrise.

We ended up with a nice bag of filets thanks to the catfish and perch.

Table rock is truly one beautiful place to fish. Can’t wait to go again.

 

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[dwiebenga]

Well Done!

 

[Quillback]

Very nice! I keep wanting to go after some gills myself.

[abkeenan]

GREAT report and pics. Those gills have some shoulders on them. Nice work.

[Nitro 750]

Thanks for the report and pics.

[big c]

Good info, thanks!

[m&m]

Blazerman, thanks for the details. Healthy looking fish. 

Mike

[Mitch f]

Glad to see your recovering from that flood. Great report!