Kentucky slug fest Saturday 3/30

[Steve McBasser]

With the forecast for Saturday deteriorating by the minute on Friday, my buddy Gary and I hemmed and hawed all day long as to whether we should try to fish or not. But after fishing Table Rock for all these years, I know "snotty" weather usually generates a pretty good bite this time of year. We decided we would rather go and get froze out than to stay at home and wish we had gone. So.....we put in at Big Bay at about 9:15am. Air temp was upper 40's, water was 53.5. Headed up into Big Creek and stopped a half mile past the last dock on the right hand side. Started picking up a few on a ned rig. They were pretty decent fish but few and far between so we decided to make a run up White River toward the steel bridge at Shell Knob. We stopped at one of our favorite creeks hoping we could find a little quicker bite and picked up a few more on the Ned. Again, decent quality fish, but not a very fast bite. We ended at one of our best early spring spots and it paid off big. The fat kentuckies were chewing hard and fast. They weren't huge but they were fat and ready to play.... I caught several in the last hour bouncing a grub along the bottom in about 16-18' of water. No push bite here, they clobbered it. 

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[Steve McBasser]

These little FAT kentuckies are an absolute blast to catch.....they are ferocious....

[jbooth24]

I launched at Cape fair today. We can up the James. Water temp was about the Same. Only difference was that we caught 2 small Kentuckys on a slim swim on the same bank after that nothing else but a few bites

[Bill Babler]

Great job Steve, but you all look way to bundled up for me.70's the next couple of weeks here so I'm guessing they are going to continue to get on the munch.

Thanks for the report.

[Smithvillesteve]

Let me ask you boys a question. Why are people so down on the spots? I too love catching those 13-15 inch spots that fight their fannies off. People at Stockton claim, "we dont want this lake to turn into another Table Rock"! I see they even reduced the keeper size to 12 inches there. Will the spots overtake a lake? Do they compete with the largemouth for food and keep the largemouth size down? Same with smallmouth? 

[Quillback]

People fishing tourneys don't like them, not the size you want to win.  I'm not knocking tourneys by the way with that statement, it's just the way it is.

Personally I think they are a great light tackle fish, don't mind catching them at all on my spinning gear.  

[STLbassbuster]

Stockton & Table Rock have plenty of shad/craws/gills/etc so I don't think competition is an issue. I agree that a limit of spots typically won't win you a tournament though. You have to adjust your tactics and location to target the LM on Table Rock. This I am still learning.........

[Lvn2Fish]

At Stockton the fisheries biologists claimed it takes 7-10 years for a Stockton spotted bass to reach 15 inches . That’s the whole reason for the 12 inch limit . Think about all the forage they consume in that 10 years to reach minimum keeper length 

[Larry Eby]

Steve. If there was a rock turned over in big creek, I think you’d know about it. Always appreciate your reports and pics.

[Steve McBasser]

Hey Larry.....good to hear from you. You're probably right about the rock thing, I keep a pretty close watch on what's going on down in that area for sure. Hope you're getting to fish too....