Pond to the East

[Royal Blue]

I'd been fishing mostly the James river arm over the last month and decided to get back over to K-Dock to see if we could get bit for a short trip yesterday.  It'd been exactly a month since I'd been there.  We pulled into the empty lot at 6:00am and decided to wait for a bit more light and hoped that the heavy fog would at least attempt to lift.  After about 30 minutes we couldn't wait any longer and dropped the boat into the lake.  We just slowly picked our way along in the pre-dawn fog and decided to try a few spots.  Threw a plopper for about 15-20 minutes without a sniff and promptly put it away.  I seriously have a love/hate relationship with that thing.  Started targeting little spots of gravel along steep almost bluff banks.  First little gravel area yielded a solid 2 1/2lb small mouth.  After catching several on this pattern a slight breeze kicked up and I grabbed the spinnerbait.  First cast it got smashed by another really nice smallmouth that weighed in at 4.06lbs.  I was getting pretty excited with the way it was going and we thought we'd run down the lake a little ways toward Mincy.  After a little way we hit really heavy fog and just pulled up on the nearest channel swing bank and started looking for gravel slides again.  5 minutes in, my brother stuck his all time PB largemouth on a Chompers football jig!  She hit it like a freight train and we got her into the boat and onto the scale at 6.39lb!  I honestly think I was a lot more excited than he was.  It goes to show you that we really truly don't know what we're doing half of the time out there.  That fish was on a spot that I've literally passed by no fewer than a couple hundred times.  We only stopped because of the crazy fog which by the way after it lifted, the insane bite basically dropped to nothing.  Our best 5 were 18.45 all on a Nutech grass jig or Chompers football jig except for the biggest smallmouth on the Molix double slash blade in purple sensei color.  

[Quillback]

Man, that's living right, catching a 4lb. smallie on a spinner bait.  Congrats to you and your bro on having some great fishing!

[Royal Blue]

1 minute ago, Quillback said:

Man, that's living right, catching a 4lb. smallie on a spinner bait.  Congrats to you and your bro on having some great fishing!

For about 3 hours it was insane.  I wish I took a few more pics of the big largemouth.  She will be a giant in April.

[STLbassbuster]

Awesome report! This reminds me of a time when I was on Lake of the Ozarks in the fall throwing topwaters on the warmer day. I thought they would want to be in windy areas chasing the big gizzard shad when most of my bites that day came in slick water......You just never know what they might want that day!

[David Goddard]

Unfortunately I live like 3.5 hours away from Table Rock. Every time I go down I fish the Lower end because its what I know. Next time ill be in the James. That's an awesome brown bass.

[Royal Blue]

44 minutes ago, David Goddard said:

Unfortunately I live like 3.5 hours away from Table Rock. Every time I go down I fish the Lower end because its what I know. Next time ill be in the James. That's an awesome brown bass.

These were on Bull Shoals, but I've been having some decent days up the James in the month inbetween Bull Shoals trips.

[abkeenan]

That's s great day with two very nice fish representing their species well. Congrats and thanks for sharing the pics!

[Champ188]

10 hours ago, Quillback said:

Man, that's living right, catching a 4lb. smallie on a spinner bait. 

What exactly are you saying there, QB? Huh? Do you not think big fish bite the blade? You draggers are all alike.  😆

[HardHead]

Nice fish. The Broncos gear makes the pics look that much better!

[m&m]

RB, nice healthy looking fish. Thanks for the information. 

Mike