Big Clifty 5/3 and 5/4

[bferg]

Spent the weekend at a friend's house back in Big Clifty.  I am not very familiar with this part of the lake as far as fishing goes but I have to say we had a great weekend fishing and the kids got in on the action as well.  Such a beautiful area back there!  Beaver is a fund place to fish in May- we caught Walleye, LM, Spots, Smallies, and Whites.  

Water is SUPER CLEAR- probably up to 20 feet of visibility.  WT was 64ish...  we had a few different bites:
1.  Way in the back of the creeks and coves lots of fish on/around beds or up shallow.  Had our best luck in these areas making long casts into the skinny water in back or flipping into flooded timber (had to be stuff that looked like it was there for a while- nothing "new" from the last few day of rain was holding fish yet.  I caught most of my fish in these areas throwing a 5/16 oz Jewel Spider jig with a speed crawl or a rage tail menace.  

2.  Long tapering points with a swim bait- usual suspects:  keitech 3.3 fat in anything shad like.  (Side note- tested out the Jewel Gem head- REALLY like that swimbait head- locks those things on!).  Caught one very nice Walter this way which sadly I didn't get a picture of.  We were bank fishing in front of my buddy's house and my net was in my boat!  I got one hand under his belly and he flopped and came unbuttoned.  Was def 22+ inches though.  Very nice fish.  

3.  Topwater- We didn't have a lot of topwater action- at least not much luck getting fish to BITE to top even though we did see some activity.  But I chalk that up more to me not knowing this area very well and where to go.  But- I did have one of my favorite fish catches ever on top water.  My daughter and I were on the back of the boat throwing topwater early Sunday AM.  1/2 way through a retrieve with a spook my daughter almost took my eye out with a pop-r so I decided to take out the back seat so we had a little more room to move around.  I put my rod down (spook still in the water) and reached down to remove the pedestal seat... suddenly my rod was heading for the lake!  Grabbed it just in time- rod in on hand and seat in the other.  The samllie you see below just crushed it!  Actually thought it was a striper...  handed the rod to my daughter who had a blast reeling it in!  

4.  Found a school of whites in the back of a cove in 20 feet of water.  It took some work to get them to bite but we did get a few- keitech 3.3.  

 

Beaver is at its best this month- fun mixed bags... with the insane rain we got last night I am sure the water will come up some more and if it stabilizes at all flipping a jig is going to be a great time...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Quillback]

Way to go, some very nice fish.  Every once in a while I make the run to Clifty, nice area to fish.  Ought to be some stripers showing up there soon.

[Sore Thumbs]

That’s great! Glad you had fun. I was there  last Friday afternoon. Didn’t get a lot of fishing in due to storms popping up.

[sfiser]

Nice! Man it was some kind of foggy out there sunday morning wasn't it!!