July 7th 2018 Report Table Rock Lake

[Bill Babler]

Surface temps 84 to 88 degree lake wide with clarity from 10 to 16 feet depending on location and light penetration. 

Really this report is very similar to last weeks marathon post so I'm not going there again for a while. 

They are biting.  Most fish are in the 22' to 45' range on the bottom, on structure or just over depth.  Again, have not seen this continued bite for quite some time.

Thermocline is staying at the 26 to 28 ft. range and they are liking it down there when the sun gets on the water.

 Bite is by far best early and for me not much topwater and would really rather have the sun on the water early as it positions the fish faster.  On cloudy days it takes them a while to group and suspend in the strike zone and its just easier if I'm fishing to a wad of them.

Walleye bite has gotten better week by week, and they are durn near the point where a guy can say he or she is going to catch a couple everyday if you try and target them.

Swimbait bite has cooled somewhat but the drop shot bite is maybe better as they are tighter to depth and tighter together.  When they were spread out at depth and distance apart the grub or swimbait bite was ideal as it covered larger portions of the water column and also larger surface areas of water.

Buster Loving was fishing Shell Knob yesterday and related to me a story about catching and not catching.  Of course his clients were just hammering them, fishing up and down with a Chomper's worm.  There were some guys in a power pole boat watching and they kept switching and switching trying to figure out how to catch them.  Here is the deal, they had their poles down and were fishing a hump with the top of the hump visible. Buster was setting in 70ft. to 90ft. over nothing but deep clear water.  Buster's clients were laughing and hooping and hollering so much these guys finely left.

Couple of things here, guide boats are easy to determine, look at where they are fishing and what they are doing if you come across one.  Go try a similar place.  These fish are on lots of similar places right now, and most of them are over 10' deep.  On any of the White River lakes, if you think you need the bottom or structure to catch bass, I have failed miserably in my 20 yrs. here telling you, you don't

Good Luck

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[Guest]

you are sure right on the money bill.  daytime bass do suspend a lot in clear water lakes.  you have to put in the time to use your electronics to find them.  yes, you can catch them video fishing, which is great when dealing with anyone that does not fish often.  i can take someone that knows nothing about fishing and have them catching bass on a spoon in very little time.

one hint about catching these suspended bass, and this just comes from observation over many years.  i know that many get a real kick out of video fishing, and vertical is much easier for those that do not fish often, but bigger bass will be caught more often by sitting away from them and casting to them.  and these same bass until they get below 35 ft. will many times not bite a vertical offering.  i think it is just because of electronics noise, trolling motor noise and the boat sitting right on top of them, the bigger ones are just more skittish.

even last winter and we were catching our bass 50 ft. deep, we caught all of the bigger bass by casting and not sitting on top of them.

great info bill.  hope it will soak in.  speaking of soaking in, sure wish we would get some rain.

bo

[Sprint21fter]

Diddo for the bite lasting for such a long time. Been since Memorial weekend that I figured my pattern out.  Fished til 11:30 today. They were chewing early then a long lull before they bit again. Easily had 17lbs boated and had another big one jump off. 1 big walleye. Depth 30-42ft. If no bait present no fish period!  Was nice to have cooler temps today.

[Sprint21fter]

Here's another Walleye for the dinner table. Be safe the pleasure crowd was busy today.

[Hunter91]

Caught these two today during a tourney. 30-40 ft on three casts. 5.75 and 6.02.

[Champ188]

7 hours ago, Bill Babler said:

Here is the deal, they had their poles down and were fishing a hump with the top of the hump visible. 

Dadgummit, Bill … those contraptions cost in the neighborhood of $4,000 a set. The boys have got to get some use out of 'em sometime! What kind of jerseys were they sporting? 😂

[mixermarkb]

2 hours ago, Hunter91 said:

Caught these two today during a tourney. 30-40 ft on three casts. 5.75 and 6.02.

Well done, nice vintage Champ too!

[Sprint21fter]

Hunter 91, were you planning on culling the 5.75??Great catch!!😁

[gitnby]

14 hours ago, Sprint21fter said:

Hunter 91, were you planning on culling the 5.75??Great catch!!😁

Only Dean Rojas would do that!

[Sprint21fter]

I have dreams of days like that!