Beaver Lake July 26-Aug 2 Report

[fishman783]

Hello,

I made a post a week and a half ago asking about fishing Beaver Lake this time of year and several people responded to my post which I greatly appreciate.  Just thought I’d recap my trip (down from Iowa visiting my dad for the week).

Basically was able to get out on the lake from around 6am-10am for most every day while I was visiting.  My dad lives around point 5 so we basically stayed down on the lower end of the lake and I primarily targeted deeper offshore fish since it was easier for the other people who I took out each morning to have a chance at catching fish equally.  I also wanted a chance to work on dropshotting fish I could see on my electronics that were suspended in tree tops as it is a technique that I don’t get to practice fishing the Mississippi River.

My most productive pattern was finding timbered points at the end of bluffs right off the main river channel.  These areas seemed to have the largest concentrations of bait and also spotted and smallmouth bass.  We were able to catch them suspended in tree tops from 25-45 ft with 3.3 Keitechs counting them down and also dropshotting 3” Berkeley Power Minnows and Strike King Baby Z-Toos.  We did not have too much luck on topwaters unless we were able to cast immediately on fish that came up busting bait which we did not encounter too often.  When we were able to capitalize on these opportunities a Pop R style bait, small buzzbait, and the small size 90 Whopper Plopper would get bit.

When I did sneak up a bit shallower I was able to catch a few largemouth on a swing jig with a zoom UV speed craw.  I did not devote a lot of time to try to figure out what exactly the largemouth were doing do to limited time on the water, but I suspect they were a bit shallower than the spots and smallies.

I will say that I saw the most bait at Beaver than I have seen in the last 4 years of coming down to visit this time of year....tons of 1.5-2 inch Shad pretty much everywhere we went.  I suspect that if I tried to Dropshot even smaller 2” baits (which I did not have with me) that I may have been able to coax a few more bites than I did on the suspended fish.  Seemed like I’d be able to catch 3-4 fish out of a school and then they’d quit biting even though I could still see them on my graph.  I’m attaching I picture of some of the baits I had success on as well as a few pics of fish.  I will say my brother did catch the largest fish of the week, 3.08 lb Largemouth on a buzzbait.

Thanks again,

Matt

[Quillback]

Thanks for the report!

[McguirePat]

Great report! Thanks