May Day

[freefallin]

Blown off the water Monday. Soaked to the bone Tuesday. Today was just right.

Bite is still steady, mixed bounty of basses. Today caught 4 different brands of bass. Smallies are definitely the most aggressive. 

Fish are not yet shallow at least for me. I saw most of my fish on my electronics before I caught them. Tried to make the spinnerbait the juice as I caught my largest black of the day on a spinnerbait early AM. Stayed with it too long. 

Tried to make a vibrating jig the juice as well. No banana.

NED and under spin counting to five in between cranks were keeping me entertained. 

Fished main lake as too much junk up the creeks. 63.7 water warmest I found. 

Tight lines and safe boating. 

[Dutch]

That is basically what I found last week.  I am heading down there on Sunday for a 10 day trip.  I'm glad to see the water warming up.  The brown fish should be spawning. 

I sure hope something besides the ned works out for me.

[sixstring531]

What kind of numbers are currently being caught? 

[freefallin]

Just saw this...

Numbers. To put it to a reasonable response is not really reasonable. My numbers went up and down all week. Maybe about 20 bass on the best day and as few as 5-6 on slowest day. No wind slow bass catch, too much wind velocity slow bass catch but nice lake chop pretty good action on bass. Throw an A-rig on any day and you will wack the white bass. To get out of the wind yesterday I fished the head of a couple of creeks just before the water was trashed and murky and literally wrecked the whites. (A-rig worked slow, rod tip low to the water on a 5:3:1 retrieve)

FWIW I caught one black bass all week in the murky water and probably 40 on the main lake in the clear water. Main lake is actually awesome color water with 3-5' visibility. 

Water has cooled down from 63 to 61 at least where I was fishing on main lake points. Probably caught 2 to 1 smallies and Kentucky's to blacks. From my perspective this year is a couple of weeks behind the last few in the terms of catch rates and water temps. Normal spring "high" water with fish on the old normal lake level and not "yet" on the new lake level and bushes.

Interesting bait choice is that I am throwing a lot of my post spawn baits (under spin, flukes etc) to locate fish  because they are not hitting spinner baits or beavers in very shallow (at least for me).

If my advice was worth anything I would suggest to fish about 5-7' deeper than your instincts tell you. All but one of my bass were caught in 15' of water with the exception of the largest fish this week which busted a big white spinnerbait in 5' or less. 

So close to spring feeding frenzy...... FYI I got caught a long way from the State Park more than once this week in some large very uncomfortable wet water and was glad to pull in behind that sea wall....

Fish safe

[freefallin]

Oh Man. Pretty exciting times. Up at 4 AM for the drive over and hope to be on the water at 6.

And the best part about it I have all over again Monday through Friday to hunt some basses. 😎

 

[fshndoug]

what kinda areas are the whites in.I don't keep them but they are fun to catch.

 

[freefallin]

9 hours ago, fshndoug said:

what kinda areas are the whites in.I don't keep them but they are fun to catch.

 

Price

Hawker

Quarry

RB

Maze

Adams

Cedar

[freefallin]

 The south wind and sun warm the water up in the afternoon and the rain cools it down overnight. A few consecutive warm nights and bam!  Fish can be caught right now but for me not catching any big females.  I hit the back of a few shallow coves and main lake shallow brush with limited success and went back to my points and ledges.

Had quite a few fish follow my bait back to the boat and shy away without taking. 

*** quick thought before bed the water right on the banks is being heavily filtered by flooded vegetation and is gin clear for the first 15-20 feet. Perhaps a line size consideration might be in order.***

Jigs, shakey head, Neko and drop shot

 

 

[freefallin]

Been an "almost work" bite the last couple weeks and if a guy hits it pretty hard might catch 3 fish and hour or about 25 a day. FWIW my keeper rate not the best as I am mostly catching brown fish and some embarrassingly small..

Today found some good keeper green fish in Turkey creek with a couple notable catches maybe one LM might have gone 5 lbs.. 

To be perfectly honest I am not sure who is spawned out. Maybe everybody as I am relying on post spawn patterns. Burned some gas and probably drove 100+ miles in the last few weeks.

Best bets NED, any craw, and vibrating jigs.

Fish safe and tight lines.

Big crappie hitting anything you offer.

Spinner bait bite kinda weak.