Time: 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Air Temperature: 60's
Water Temperature: 59 Degrees
Lake Level: 576.82 - A little lower than desired
Weather Conditions:
Fished with Doug Ainsworth today. We fished the north coast from the center of the boat landing back to the large bay towards the dam. We fished brush, tree tops, beds, docks, and gravel banks. We only picked up one crappie in the bay where we launched the boat on the west bank. We fished many bays and pockets as a guy at the gas station had described. We started off slow.
We moved to the big bay westward and continued to fish pockets and brush. We began catching shoal's bass by throwing a minnow up on the ledge and letting it slowly fall over. We finally picked up a couple crappie in the bay by the west road. We fished along the north shore of that bay with the gravel bank around the drop off and some dead snags. We picked up several fish in this area.
We ended up keeping 8 crappie and threw 2-4 back that were shorts. Minnows under a bobber 2' to 6' deep in 3' to 8' of water seemed to be the successful trend. We ended up throwing back about 10 fish total which were a mix between bass and crappie. Bushes did not produce well. I believe the water is still just a bit shallow for bushes, but it appears we are in a pre-spawn pattern.
A man walked in from the road and quickly caught 18 along the gravel bank we were fishing and kept 9. He said he had did the same earlier in the week, too. He knew his stuff and threw a small jig on a spinning reel.
Fishing did not pick up until mid-day. Much better fishing as the day went on and warmed. We started using a "Quick Fish" technique. After 10 minutes with no fish, move on!
Very good day and we learned a lot about the area that will help in the upcoming spawn weeks.
