White River Area Report 6-18-18

[Bill Babler]

We are very fortunate here to have both Gizzard and Threadfin shad.  All our bass species will ingest both. 

And, to answer your question, yes I have seen a lot of consumption of the Gizzards.

[dtrs5kprs]

Fish farther down the White definitely moved around yesterday. Same today. And traffic was a bear either direction of Mill Creek.

If the bait moves, they move. Becomes pretty obvious, pretty quickly.

Our best deal was still the swing head, but we did catch some vertical fish. Much shallower though.

Wind didn't help us line things up.

[Quillback]

8 hours ago, dtrs5kprs said:

Fish farther down the White definitely moved around yesterday. Same today. And traffic was a bear either direction of Mill Creek.

If the bait moves, they move. Becomes pretty obvious, pretty quickly.

Our best deal was still the swing head, but we did catch some vertical fish. Much shallower though.

Wind didn't help us line things up.

You don't have one of those electronic fish noise maker things that brings the bait to you?  

[dtrs5kprs]

On 6/20/2018 at 5:44 AM, Quillback said:

You don't have one of those electronic fish noise maker things that brings the bait to you?  

I just stick the boy's head under the water and have him make fish noises.

It's imperfect, but cheap.

[Bill Babler]

Love it.  Can I rent him for the rest of the week?

[Smithvillesteve]

Great report Mr. Babler. I have a question. I have never used a drop shot as a suspending bait. I have always let the weight settle to the bottom. You are using it in 60 fow and measuring out 25 ft of line i assume. And fishing it vertically? I have a cheap graph and no line counter or anything like that. So find em in the deep trees, pull out a ft of line to get to the right depth? Thanks for the info you are willing to give us Bill. 

[rps]

4 hours ago, Smithvillesteve said:

Great report Mr. Babler. I have a question. I have never used a drop shot as a suspending bait. I have always let the weight settle to the bottom. You are using it in 60 fow and measuring out 25 ft of line i assume. And fishing it vertically? I have a cheap graph and no line counter or anything like that. So find em in the deep trees, pull out a ft of line to get to the right depth? Thanks for the info you are willing to give us Bill. 

Use a black magic marker and mark your line at the reel when the bait is at the tip. Let line out until the mark is at the tip and mark again at the reel. And so on and so on until you have 10 marks. Then as you let the bait down to the fish, count the marks. Assuming you know the length of your rod and can multiply small numbers in your head (which I am sure you can) you have a system to know how deep your rig is even when your sonar won't tell you.

[Bill Babler]

I pretty much watch my line, bait and weight go down on the Lowrance, to the fish I am looking at before dropping. You really need good electronics to fish deep trees.  You can get away with bottom fishing at depth on gravel without underwater eyes, but you need to see what your doing when you put trees and suspended fish into the equation.

First off you need to be able to tell if there are fish where your fishing.  Bobby had a great post the other day from the dam area saying how may places he looked before he saw them and could drop.  On deep suspended fish if you can't see them, they are not there.  On gravel or on the bottom even with Chirp a lot of times if they are tucked down tight they are really hard to see but you can drop without worrying about losing your rig and having to retie constantly.  Trees love to gobble a drop shot.

A really good way to measure line is usually after placing your DS in the water is to open your bail and do 2 quick rod lifts pointing your tip to 12 o'clock  With a 6'6" or 7' rod, that will be 20' to 25' of depth.

There are thousands of trees and hundreds of bluff ends on the Rock.  I will tell you, they don't all hold fish, not by a long shot.  You could literally fish a hundred locations without a bite.  Good electronics prevent this type of time wasting.  You can also catch them on a certain end or out of a certain set of trees and they may never be there again.

They are transient.  That is why Elite Anglers will tell you Table Rock is a Nightmare to try and pattern of a derby.  Here today. Gone Tomorrow.

Most times they either suspend over or between the trees regardless of bottom depth, and at times they will be in the limbs.  This is not as often,  they are usually sitting on top, it really does not matter the depth, if they are going to eat they will start rising to the drop shot as soon as it starts sinking.  They may be 35' deep but you can see them start shooting up

It can and does very often work the other way.  You can drop it and as soon as it starts down they will flee into the middle of the tree and that is that.  They will run from it.  Jigs up, deals over, time to move on.

The last couple of days we had some suspended at 25' to 35' and some also shooting off the bottom at 60' so they are pretty much all over the water column when you find them.  We were also watching them as we released them and most of the time they would swim right to the bottom in  anywhere from 45' to 70' after being released.  They very, very seldom go back into the school or go into the tree, they head for the bottom.

There are still shallow fish but not as many. 22' to 26' range seems really popular weather it be  suspended or on the bottom.  If your going to fish the Rock or any of the White River Impoundments where fish use depth for cover and climate control and try and be consistent you need to have someway to peek at them.

Good Luck

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Smithvillesteve said:

Great report Mr. Babler. I have a question. I have never used a drop shot as a suspending bait. I have always let the weight settle to the bottom. You are using it in 60 fow and measuring out 25 ft of line i assume. And fishing it vertically? I have a cheap graph and no line counter or anything like that. So find em in the deep trees, pull out a ft of line to get to the right depth? Thanks for the info you are willing to give us Bill. 

a 5500 gracia is a built in line counter.  with a normal spool of 14 lb. test, when the level wind goes from one side to the other, it is 7 ft. of line, right on the money.  with smaller line, it it makes one trip more line, but you can let out one trip and measure it.  you always know just exactly how deep you are for vertical fishing.

bo

[Smithvillesteve]

Some very interesting and valuable information. Thanks RPS, Bill and Bo! I will start a Go Fund Me on here and you boys can buy me a nice graph!!!