May 3, dam area

[Quillback]

Launched at 6 AM into the fog.  Fish were biting right away, pretty much an early bite, the fog cleared off around 9 AM, then there was a period of time where there were bluebird skies and no wind and that nice weather seemed to put them off.

Saw shad spawning on one 50 yard stretch of bank and had a couple of big gizzards chase one of the smallmouth I caught to the boat which they will do sometimes when spawning.

Caught most of my fish shallow, from the looks of the smallies I caught, they appear to be done spawning.  

Caught them on 2.8 Keitechs, and a bait called a "Dartspin" - kind of a fluke with a willow blade tail spin.  You can look them up on Tackle Warehouse if you want.  Both walleyes came on the Dartspin.

Total for the morning was 16 smallies (5 keepers), a couple of just over 18" keeper walleye, and a couple of chunky whites.

Water is stained green, maybe 5 feet or so of viz.  Quite a bit of floating debris, it was especially bad at the mouth of the Indian creek arm, took one look at it and decided not to go up there.

WT 64-65

[Mitch f]

Done spawning. I guess that lake has a huge variety of spawn times for smallmouth

[MarkG52]

Nice job!

[rzbker]

Good job QB!

I eased up Big Clifty on Friday after the lake came up to 1128. Some debris for sure and I am certain that these dang fish got a good feeding from the runoff. Water was pretty good around Point 5 and of course when you moved up river, it got stained with debris. 

Did more exploring than good fishing, but got the boat out for the first time this year. Had a bucket of minnows and a umbrella rig I just threw for grins. Caught one LM that was short. If it is going to be anything like last year, the COE kept the lake around 1125 this summer. I pity dock owners right now. Reel em' in boys!

Lake is looking good between Points 3 and 5. Only seen a couple of boat dock floats go by.

WPS! Omahawgs

[Johnsfolly]

@Quillback congrats on some nice fish. Sounded like a decent day.

[Quillback]

42 minutes ago, rzbker said:

Good job QB!

I eased up Big Clifty on Friday after the lake came up to 1128. Some debris for sure and I am certain that these dang fish got a good feeding from the runoff. Water was pretty good around Point 5 and of course when you moved up river, it got stained with debris. 

Did more exploring than good fishing, but got the boat out for the first time this year. Had a bucket of minnows and a umbrella rig I just threw for grins. Caught one LM that was short. If it is going to be anything like last year, the COE kept the lake around 1125 this summer. I pity dock owners right now. Reel em' in boys!

Lake is looking good between Points 3 and 5. Only seen a couple of boat dock floats go by.

WPS! Omahawgs

Good deal - did you see any striper activity?  Didn't see much at all around Indian Creek.

[rzbker]

None and I was looking.

[JMCat]

Was there a recent tornado in Big Clifty?  Has anyone seen the overturned dock and the carnage on the bank?   

[rzbker]

yes, last Wednesday during that storm, there was a tornado warning at 3 miles south of Garfield heading to the NE. When it got close to the lake it turned due East, so that should have put the rotation in that area. I have not heard of it touching down, but we had some pretty severe straight line winds.

 

[MarkG52]

We fished out of Rocky Branch Saturday. I got one good keeper and one short LM, and my buddy got one short LM. Both of mine came on a SPRO 130 wakebait. Missed a couple more. All were relating to wood of some sort, be it outside edge of buckbrush or a log. Buddy got his one on a red lizard. By the time I had decided we needed to be bouncing Ned's/jigs/etc. off the bottom the wind came up a little and he was gonna have to get home, so we cut our day short. WT around 64, pretty clear to nice green color. Lots of debris but manageable. I heard debris was terrible around Hickory.