Late Weekend Report. Table Rock 1, me 0.

[abkeenan]

Report from my Saturday and 1/2 Sunday trip: not much to report. Not that any trip to TR is terrible but the fishing was TERRIBLE. Fished all day Saturday for 3 fish and half Sunday where we had one big 14+" crappie and 0 bass. Tried a bunch of baits, bunch of locations from the dam to just past the MO/AR border in Long Creek. Tried different depths. Tried main lake stuff, bluff walls, secondary points, back of creeks, flats, 45 degree banks, gravel runouts......I exhausted what knowledge I had about fishing The Rock, which continues to prove to be limited. Tried a buzzbait, plopper, spook, jig, 10" worm, spoon, swim jig, rock crawler, wiggle wart, mag wart, spinnerbait and jerkbait. Didn't matter. The jerkbait caught all the fish other than one which came on the mag wart. Had a 2 short strikes on the spinnerbait and that sums up the trip. I really tried to force the shallow bite figuring I'd at least run into a few......NOPE. Probably should have stayed out deeper and given the spoon more or a chance but like I mentioned I was hellbent on beating the water to a froth in the 1-15 FOW range. Even fish I did mark on the graph out deeper and would drop a spoon on them wanted no part of it. Most action I got from that was a slight tug for an instant and came up with a scale on one of the trebles. Could have gone to the Ned but really didn't want to do that and the wind was howler at most times on Saturday and pretty much all day Sunday. Would have been impossible to keep the little guy down. Even fished Saturday night from 8-11pm and had all of ZERO bites on the jig, big worm and single blade Colorado spinnerbait. Hopefully someone had some better luck than we did.

Water temps ranged from 64-67 on main lake to 69 in some of the creeks. Visibility around the dam I'd estimate are around 10 feet. Was more color in Long Creek where I would say visibility is around 3 feet.

Only 2 other rigs, besides myself, at the 86 ramp on Saturday morning when launching and 0 when pulling out on Sunday around 2pm.. Not many guys out fishing around the dam. Long creek they were pretty stacked up in Brushy and most guys were out in around 30 feet drop shotting or spooning. Had the lake to myself on Saturday night as I did not see a single boat in the dam area. 

Good luck out there, hopefully this weather cools and gets these fish on their regularly scheduled program. Almost 70 degree water temps in November?? Pffffft.

I did catch one smallie that Champ "Jimmy Houston'd" earlier this year, apparently.

When you only catch 3 bass and a crappie in about 1,000 casts......you're dadgum right I am showing them off!

 

 

[cheesemaster]

Ya, that sounds like a ruff weekend for sure., but it sure beats the heck out of my weekend of NOT FISHING. 

Thanks for the report, and I hope it gets better out there soon for all of us!

[Alex Heitman]

I went this past weekend and could not get a shallow bite going besides on Saturday evening when the wind pick up heavily in a pocket and got lucky when they started feeding. All of my fish came out deep on a jig 20-30 ft on points and in some timber spots with ledges. We didn’t load the boat but caught enough to keep it interesting. All of our fish were mostly keepers but no studs. Big fish was a 19 inch SM. Most fish were small mouth and K’s. Only a couple LM

[m&m]

Abk & Alex, thanks for the reports. I haven’t seen many boats around the dam area for the past week or so. 

Mike

[Guest]

12 hours ago, abkeenan said:

Report from my Saturday and 1/2 Sunday trip: not much to report. Not that any trip to TR is terrible but the fishing was TERRIBLE. Fished all day Saturday for 3 fish and half Sunday where we had one big 14+" crappie and 0 bass. Tried a bunch of baits, bunch of locations from the dam to just past the MO/AR border in Long Creek. Tried different depths. Tried main lake stuff, bluff walls, secondary points, back of creeks, flats, 45 degree banks, gravel runouts......I exhausted what knowledge I had about fishing The Rock, which continues to prove to be limited. Tried a buzzbait, plopper, spook, jig, 10" worm, spoon, swim jig, rock crawler, wiggle wart, mag wart, spinnerbait and jerkbait. Didn't matter. The jerkbait caught all the fish other than one which came on the mag wart. Had a 2 short strikes on the spinnerbait and that sums up the trip. I really tried to force the shallow bite figuring I'd at least run into a few......NOPE. Probably should have stayed out deeper and given the spoon more or a chance but like I mentioned I was hellbent on beating the water to a froth in the 1-15 FOW range. Even fish I did mark on the graph out deeper and would drop a spoon on them wanted no part of it. Most action I got from that was a slight tug for an instant and came up with a scale on one of the trebles. Could have gone to the Ned but really didn't want to do that and the wind was howler at most times on Saturday and pretty much all day Sunday. Would have been impossible to keep the little guy down. Even fished Saturday night from 8-11pm and had all of ZERO bites on the jig, big worm and single blade Colorado spinnerbait. Hopefully someone had some better luck than we did.

Water temps ranged from 64-67 on main lake to 69 in some of the creeks. Visibility around the dam I'd estimate are around 10 feet. Was more color in Long Creek where I would say visibility is around 3 feet.

Only 2 other rigs, besides myself, at the 86 ramp on Saturday morning when launching and 0 when pulling out on Sunday around 2pm.. Not many guys out fishing around the dam. Long creek they were pretty stacked up in Brushy and most guys were out in around 30 feet drop shotting or spooning. Had the lake to myself on Saturday night as I did not see a single boat in the dam area. 

Good luck out there, hopefully this weather cools and gets these fish on their regularly scheduled program. Almost 70 degree water temps in November?? Pffffft.

I did catch one smallie that Champ "Jimmy Houston'd" earlier this year, apparently.

When you only catch 3 bass and a crappie in about 1,000 casts......you're dadgum right I am showing them off!

 

 

so, how was night fishing saturday night?  friday night was not too good because it was just too foggy.  thought saturday night would have been better with the moon showing.  if the bass that you were dropping a spoon to were 30' or less, those bass most often will not bite sitting on top of them.  vertical does not work well until the bass get 36' or deeper.  i know most bassers seem to have a problem with casting to deeper bass.  everyone is obsessed with watching the video.  everyone casts to what i call bass on the bank, right?  30' bass need to be treated the same, most of the time, even when suspended.  you have to sit off of them, and cast to them.  if everyone believes that vertical fishing will work for these bass that are 30', then why is it that when they are on the bank, a vertical presentation in not implemented???  

i really do not have scientific data to back up what i am saying, but i believe that our electronics is why these shallower bass will not bite, most of the time, fishing vertical.  36' seems to be the magic number, and 36' is one atmosphere.  try sitting off of those "30' 'ers" and cast to them.  shallow bass in colored water or buried in heavy cover can be had at close quarters with a stealthy approach.  much of the time, when fishing what i term as skinny water, i shut off all electronics.

bass fishing is most definitely a mental chess game.  time on the water, paying attention to detail, and experimentation are so beneficial in the learning process.  you also had weather systems that were not in your favor this past weekend.  and with that said, it was just going to be hard to find anything that worked well at catching them.

bo

[johnm]

I have drop shotted them shallower than 30 ft using live bait and they don't seem to mind as much. (winter) But I agree with u Bo they don't want the  boat over their head, and u can tell once they swim away on your graph that they did not want to eat your bait 

[Guest]

right, you can get an occasionally get one, that are 30' or less, to bite sitting on top of them, but that would be the exception and not the norm.  as i said, this is just from my experience over the years of trying to catch these darn green and brown critters.  there will always be exceptions and different times of the year that can change things.

bo

[abkeenan]

Great info Bo. I am ALWAYS open to learning or critic. Especially when that comes from someone like yourself that has more minutes logged on TR waters than I've been alive. Thanks much and I will store this info in my bass bank in the brain. Thanks again for your input.

[abkeenan]

Oh, and as far as the night bite on Saturday night....awful.  Thought with the full moon it would have been good....WRONG. Went to the usual places and got all of 0 bites. Fished from 1-30 feet with jigs, big worm and single blade spinnerbait....NADA. Some "perch" nibbles on the shallow casts but that's it.  If I don't get a bite around point 2 then they have lockjaw and you might as well go home. I did notice that there are still plenty of blue gill/perch up shallow in <5 FOW. Another reason why I figured that I could find some of those "Gill Eaters" on shallow cranks, spinnerbaits and what have you. But again that proved to be wrong and that's fishing, not always catching. Puzzle pieces don't always go in the correct spot!

[crazy4fishin]

At least you caught some fish....that is always a good thing and wearing a T-shirt in Nov aint all that bad....here in the cornhusker state the wind blew and so did our football team!!

C4F