Big M 5/17 and 5/18

[bferg]

Not sure how helpful this report is since it looks like @Bill Babler and @196champ did a little better than us.  Friday and Saturday we fished from Big M to Eagle Rock

What we couldn't do that Mr Babler and 196Champ seemed to have good luck with:  topwater and swimbait baits.  We tried main lake points for topwater early and late but saw almost no activity at all.  Caught a few on the small swimbaits on main lake points but not many- the few we did catch there were beat up and looked like they had been in a war.  After the sun got up we kinda abandoned the main lake points but we shouldn't have given up on it.  We also caught a few- but very few- flipping in bushes.   Weather seemed right (lots of wind) for a spinner bait around the bushes but we didn't get bit on that either.  Again, maybe we didn't throw it enough or in the right spots.  

But:  We caught fish constantly for 2 days throwing a Neko rig in front of the bushes.  Our best banks seemed to be in pockets and secondary points up to halfway back in coves.  If there was chunk rock even better.  Consistent stream of 1-1.5 lb fish but never got into anything much bigger than that.  Fun couple of days with steady catching.  If you saw an isolated bush, rock, pocket in the bushes, or laydown you could call your shot.  There WAS a fish on it.  Most the fish we caught were in 2-10 feet of water but that is probably because once we got on that pattern we never really got off it.  Mostly K's, a few LM and some bronze ninjas all mixed in.  That was my first time really fishing the neko rig and we had a lot of fun with it.  

Either way- plenty of fish to catch and lots of ways to catch them.  

[Royal Blue]

When you guys all talk about catching them in front of bushes, are you talking about right in front or further like 10-15 feet out in front?  We tried to duplicate the jig bite in front of bushes all day yesterday way up the James and had zero luck.  I went to grab a spinning rod to try a wacky rig or neko rig and realized that all of my spinning rods were in Ozark in my garage.  It's funny that all of our fish but one came on a spinnerbait or a chatterbait. 

[bferg]

We were tossing the Neko right in front of the bushes then bringing it out to about 10-15 feet.  I would say most of our hook-ups came out about 10 feet from the bushes but not sure where the fish were actually positioned vs. where they would finally commit to the bite.  

[5bites]

The cool thing is you got to gain confidence in a new technique