Bull Shoals Bass Report Oct 17-20

[David Goddard]

Fished the OMTT championship down on bull this past weekend. I haven't posted a report on here in a long time but I genuinely miss all the helpful info and great reports this forum used to provide so I will try to start posting again. @Bill Babler you are missed greatly on here.

 

1st day of practice found the going pretty tough. Never really found much of anything. A few fish in brush piles. 1 keeper. A few fish on a small swimbait, all small. Lost a 3+ lbs smallmouth on a jig. This is my first time on bull this time of year so Justin and I chalked it up to lack of experience. Decided to go to the river in the dark and throw some jerkbaits for trout. Boy was that fun! Caught a bunch of browns and I got my first ever tiger trout.

 

Day 2 of practice found big schools of bait with a few fish bothering them caught 1 keeper off of it. A 3 lbs smallmouth. Caught a 3.5 smallmouth, 20 incher. On small swimbait on bottom. Looked for bait all day almost and never found what we were looking for. We fished from the dam to almost diamond city in practice. Not sure if we missed it or we were just in the wrong area but just never really got it going. Really felt like we were missing the bite but thought it would be won deep off of bait so tried to force it. 

 

Day 1 of the tournament was a poor showing for us. 1 small 13 inch spotted bass that ended up dying on us on a drop shot out of a tree about 55 ft deep on bottom 2 small mouth both about 3 lbs one on bait, one on a jig on a point. Had a little over 6.5 lbs after the half pound dead fish penalty. Really still no idea what to do. Ran all over between music creeks and dam. 

 

Day 2 of the tournament we went looking for bait and deep fish again. Never found it. About 8:30 i coaxed one about 35 ft deep into biting a small swimbait and it was a solid largemouth around 2.75 lbs. Decided to go drag a jig in that area and caught 3 more keepers. Ran that pattern all over the lake fishing steeper banks with a jig out to 50 ft deep. Neither of of had ever fished that deep before for fish on bottom. Ended up catching 10+keepers and missing a few others. No real big ones but the potential was there. They are the right class of fish just never got a big bite. Ended up with 11.97 and got 22nd in the event which paid absolute nothing. However, feel like we learned a ton just about fish behavior in the fall on white river lakes and hope to run it on table rock here in a couple weeks at the AIA championship there. Only 2 bass Pics. The big one I caught in practice and a neat looking meanmouth, but enjoy the trout pics too lol thanks all. Always loved this forum and hope to see more reports soon

[Flysmallie]

Nice report and thank you for sharing. I don't tournament fish anymoe but I've know Sutton for a long time and always pay attention to their tournaments. 

 

 

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks for a great report.  Yes, not a lot of reports anymore.  Only fish and grin fish pics on FB.