Merry Christmas day Report Belated

[Bill Babler]

12-26-19 Table Rock Lake Long Creek

Would have posted this yesterday but again picture problem.  Had to wait for Becky to get home to get me squared away.  Started to a beautiful sunrise and clear slick water at 50 to 52 degree.

Lots of birds all over from old 86 to the Arkansas line and the best thing is just to follow the Loons.  There was one flock of over 30, could not get the best count as most were scuba divers and man can they travel under water.

Started out dragging a Pigsticker in green pumpkin craw and immediately started catching keepers.  I was fishing a channel swing with a long ridge.  Fish I caught were 28' to 35' along the ridge had 6 keepers.  Saw a small concentration and dropped the Wareagle down and caught one on it.  All 6 were keeps, with 1 lg. 1 Jaw and 4 K's.

Could not see anymore but went to a similar ridge and did the same deal and did not get bit.  At this point about 8 am I started looking for birds as I was not seeing any deep  fish either on the usual spots.  Could not find any bait or fish.  Traveled and graphed quite a bit before the birds put me on them.

Saw the aforementioned group of Loons and it was on like Donkey Kong.  I just pulled right into the middle of the flock and looked down and there they were.

Here I'm in 90 plus feet with a group of Shad up near the surface.  There were gulls and Loons diving on them.  Most of the trees here are topping out at about 50' and I did a couple of deals to catch these fish.  First I used the Ice jig. and second I started swimming a Keitech 2.8 on a 3/8 jig head.  I was counting it down to the depth of the fish.  Here only about the count of 15.

Most of these fish are suspending in the tree tops in that 50' or so range and then bolting up and thru.the bait.

In this picture I caught one at about 40ft. on the Ice jig and am bringing him up.  There is lots of movement in the water that is both shad and fish.  It's easy to pick out the fish, they are really bold.

Here I'm in about 90' and the bottom is very thick with cover and bait.  There is a small group of shad and the bass are moving over the cover and raking thru the shad.  On the extreme left of the screen you can see the trail of the fish I'm holding.

Again in another graph shot the bass are suspending in and around that 50' depth level and the shad are in the trees below them.  This is very thick but mostly uniform so it is easy to swim a keitech.  This allows you to cover lots of water.  I was counting it down here to about a count of 50 and just pulling it back.  I never got hung up a single time so I'm guessing I was in that 30 to 50 foot range with the bait.

Here  is a similar shot of the fish working above the trees.  Gosh it would be great if you could always see them like this.  I ended up catching more than I deserved and left with them still biting.

And  yes there were some other Heathens like me out there yesterday, I was not along.  Most of the boats however looked to be crappie fishing 

Good Luck out there.

 

[jdmidwest]

I like fishing with the loons.  They have a nice, eeerie call.  Pretty birds.  And they seem to like fish.

[Steve McBasser]

Me too JD.... up in Canada, where we fish on Lake of the Woods they are thick.... The sound is awesome...

[Quillback]

So that's where all the loons are.  I saw only one yesterday.  Seeing 30 of them in one spot is something you just don't see - must be a lot of shad (obviously) on that end of the lake.  

Congrats on a great day!

[Macsimus]

Very cool graph shots!

[kscullawl]

Such a great report Bill..especially with the graph shots. I have a question...seems you don't love the a-rig and really neither do I. However..have you compared throwing it versus just s single keitech? Just curious if the arig is better? Is the single better? Or does it really matter if you throw it right past their nose.

[Bassmeister]

What mapping chip do you use? I really need to get shading on my HDS9. I’m using the live pro 16 or something like that. It’s not that great.

[Bill Babler]

Chip is a Navionics.

Yes I will throw the A-rig at times. Now thru March if your in a derby and are not throwing it you are not getting a check. 

I could catch the deep ones on it but when there biting like this it’s more fun fishing a single hook

Oneof the Big Cedar guides told me he had 5 Jaws yesterday on the rig that would have weighed 20 pounds. Fishing it pretty deep. 30’ plus. 

[Bassmeister]

Sorry for the ignorance but which Navionics chip? I’ve been looking and only seem to find different shades of blue for contour shading not different colors. Really appreciate any help!

[Lvn2Fish]

45 minutes ago, Bassmeister said:

Sorry for the ignorance but which Navionics chip? I’ve been looking and only seem to find different shades of blue for contour shading not different colors. Really appreciate any help!

On my unit these different shades are in the chart setting > depth shading .