Great Fishing

[Bill Babler]

I have had way to many honey-do's, wood gatherings and shopping to get out, but that appearently has not stopped my boys.

Lake Report.

Dam area to Kimberling: Fish in the 55 to 70 ft. range on the bottom, and also chasing shad in the backs of the major creeks and coves on the surface 51 degrees. Buster is on fire. 30 to 50 fish per day with half being keepers seem to be the rule rather than the exception. White tubes, grey grubs, and 1/2 oz white spoons.

Mid lake to Kimberling to Shell Knob Beck is also on FIRE: Same pattern, only no topwater fish. Most fish in the 52 to 60 ft. range on the bottom. Creek mouths and deep channels coming out of the creeks.

Shell Knob to Eagle Rock: The words unbeliveable seem to be in focus up in the sticks with 50 to 100 fish per day coming from Creek mouths, deep flats,and mouths of the large coves. Bottom fish are 50 and suspended fish same locations at 35 to feed the suspended fish.

Great thing about this is 70 percent of all fish in these locations are quality keeper K's up to 19 inch. And some real quality LM, up to 7 lbs.

Hope to go next week.

[Crappie5]

Bill, why are these fish holding so deep? Shouldn't they be a little shallower this time of year? I finally got a break at work and will be off until Jan 3 so I will probably go most every day. Sounds like spoons is the hot thing right now. I used to catch a lot of fish spooning but in the last couple years I have not done too well. I usualy vertical jig the spoon in the trees or cast out in into bass chasing shad. Has the presentation changed? What is the best way to fish the spoon this time of year?

[Fishin' Freak]

Well my dad and I got out Sat. from 7 till 12:30 with no luck what so ever. I had talked with Bill Friday night and his report could not be more correct but we could not get the fish to bite a dang thing. We fished 11 different locations--mainly creek/cove mouths and marked good concentrations of fish in 5 of them. Depths were exactly where Bill mentioned but the fish would stare right at our lures and then run. We fished spoons and grubs switching colors from smoke, to smoke purple, white, milky s & p, watermelon red, they would not hit a thing. We tried being real aggressive with our baits to just shaking them to not moving them at all but the fish would either swim right up to it and not take it or run from it?????

This brings me to my question for all of you. With the way the weather was Sat morning (overcast, pre-front conditions) do you think it put the fish in a passive mood? Is it better pre-front or post-front this time of year? It was frustrating because the fish were there but they wanted nothing to do with us?

[Larry Richards]

Well my dad ad I got out Sat. from 7 till 12:30 with no luck what so ever. I had talked with Bill Friday night and his report could not be more correct but we could not get the fish to bite a dang thing. We fished 11 different locations--mainly creek/cove mouths and marked good concentrations of fish in 5 of them. Depths were exactly where Bill mentioned but the fish would stare right at our lures and then run. We fished spoons and grubs switching colors from smoke, to smoke purple, white, milky s & p, watermelon red, they would not hit a thing. We tried being real aggressive with our baits to just shaking them to not moving them at all but the fish would either swim right up to it and not take it or run from it?????

This brings me to my question for all of you. With the way the weather was Sat morning (overcast, pre-front conditions) do you think it put the fish in a passive mood? Is it better pre-front or post-front this time of year? It was frustrating because the fish were there but they wanted nothing to do with us?

I did real well on Norfork Saturday.You may have been fishing for inactive fish in to deep a water.Yesterday I think the feeding, active fish moved shallower 10' to 20'to feed up on craws before inbound storm front.All the fish I caught Saturday hit a watermelon/red baby brush hog on a very slow retrieve with very aggressive shaking.On Friday the bass were chasing bait fish and hitting jerkbaits for some reason (must have been the storm coming)The active fish were now feeding on crawdads.

Merry Christmas

[Fishin' Freak]

Well I got out this morning for a couple hours. Fished right around K-City and had ok luck. I found fish between 53 and 67 feet of water in creek mouths. Fished seemed to get more active around mid to late morning (about the time I had to leave). I had one fish before 10 and then they turned on a bit. I had a lot of fish hit the spoon but had a little trouble hooking up. They would only hit it on the first fall or as it set STILL. If I jigged it at all they ran. They seemed to prefer the spoon over the grub this morning. Anyone else make it out?

[pstone]

Hit the water at 7:30 and fished until 11:30. Fished in 45-60 feet of water near point 9 area towards the back of a cove and caught 20+ Kentuckys-9 keepers, biggest about 16.5 inches, most 14-15 inch range. Used smoke colored 4 inch grubs. They were very active for me from 7:45-10:00 and slowed down after that. They were feeding pretty heavy on shad, a few of them were spitting up shad after I got them in the boat.

[Bassmandan]

I've heard a lot about grubs but I read Bill B's article on late winter/early spring fishing (2004) that mentioned the rogue as an option when it gets closer to the transition into spring. I understand that using spoons or C tailed grubs and a jig can target fish in 45-60 FOW range but how do you use a suspending jerkbait that only dives a maximum 10' (and thats the deep diving models)? Am I reading it wrong?

Dan

[focused fishing]

Dan,

The suspending jerkbait bite in early spring is usually done around trees over deep water. The fish targeted by this technique are gennerally suspended at 6' - 15' deep over water as deep as 100'. The key to the technique is figuring out how long to pause the bait. The deep the fish are suspended the longer the pause. I wish I could come up with a way to fish a jerkbait 40'-60' deep but so far no luck.......

EP