Weekend Report.

Low water conditions….

Well, this weekend was an eventful one to say the least.
We have been monitoring the water levels closely and knowing that pool 10 has dropped 2 feet in 2 weeks we knew our job would be interesting. I specifically targeted the mouths of bays and main river points and humps. The classic pattern of fish pulling out of the backwaters and staging in deeper water areas adjacent to previous living quarters had not fully played out when I arrived. We did find some fish in the middle of the sloughs but the banks seemed to be bare. The smallies and smaller largemouth were using riprap on the main river but the real big fish were not present. I headed to all the local places trying to find out where they were in the transition. Pool 10 does not have as many good areas for low water and I never made it to some of my favorite spots. Saturday we were off the water by 5:00 pm which is way earlier than typical. The heat was taking its toll and the lack of bites was mentally challenging. We called it a day and figured we would check our fish and head to new water if need be. Well the slop bite was nonexistent for much of the river but in one area we found a pile. This is one of those staging areas I was referring to. Large backwater area with a 4 foot run through the middle with plenty of cover and forage within about 50 yards from the main channel. Anyway, if you still need me to mark that spot on a map then you haven’t been on pool 10 much. –big grin-
So, we were all ready to go just biding time until around 11:00 at which time I felt like we would be able to get those fish to bite and with any luck and patience we would have caught some good fish.
We check the few morning spots we had and as luck would have it we had some mechanical failure. The motor for some reason just stopped. It seems to be wiring related as it would be an on and off again problem. We though it had something to do with the fuses but the more I think about it, it seems that when the motor would get warmed up the electrical system would just shut down. Not even the tilt or trim would work.
Needless to say I don’t have any more info on how we would have faired… I hope you all had more luck than I this past weekend.
Jc

Fished Pool 10 last week with the water high(er) and had plenty of big fish. This week with the water low(er) still caught plenty of big fish. By big fish meaning the 3-4 pound range. Both SM and LM. Was doing the pre-fishing thing for BFL next week.. My question is will the water keep falling or will they hold the water? Haven’t had time yet to see what the corp was up to. Also cuaght alot of slop fish…Lot of toothy critters also…..So what will it take to win the BFL…..I hope under 15????

If you are indeed on 3-4 lb fish you will have no problems.
Lansing is putting out some quality 3lb ave bags but even then you should get more bites not having to spend time locking through.
jc

I was able to get out on pool 8 yesterday from 1:00 to 8:00pm on what my buddy and I call our once-a-year outing. Which is strange because we live within 3 miles of each other. But, due to both of us being competitive bass fisherman with different partners, we rarely get to share the boat together.

One thing I can tell, is we found all of our fish very shallow. In fact every one of our fish were caught in depths of 3 ft or less. The presentation varied from spot to spot, but most were caught on top water. Our first stop yielded an education on how spooky shallow fish are and how difficult it is to catch them when they are moving up and down a sand flat chasing minnows. You only have about two options. 1) throw out the anchor and and wait for them to pass by the boat or 2) burn up the trolling motor batteries chasing them and hope you don’t spook the fish back to deeper water. We used option 3. Knowing what they were, smallies, we left knowing they wouldn’t migrate far from this spot and it should only get better. Our second spot produced some nice 2 lb LM on slop with current. Those Snag-Proof Pro Frogs are incredible. After bumping around from area to area we headed back out to the main channel for some carolina rig action only to find the fish up on the shallow flats feasting on shad. It was hard not to get bit. We caught fish on spinner baits, jigs, tubes, topwater, and carolina rigs. The photo I posted in the ‘Oxymoron’ thread was one of the nicest we caught all day. http://www.in-depthangling.com/forums/river/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=bass&Number=53505&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=2 It was a great day to be out and the cooperative fish made it even better. Overall we estimated that our biggest 8 fish weighed in around 20 lbs or so. Not too bad for a topwater bite on a hot afternoon.

JC, check your main wiring harness connection on the drivers side of the block near the starter- pull apart and check the pin connections(corrosion, misalignment) and put back together with dielectric grease. had the same problem with mine a couple years ago- or could be a wire failure in the 90 degree bend right below that connection. hope this helps.

Thanks for the heads up. The other odd thing is that the motor has been loading up real bad when ideling and it was taking me pumping the heck out of the gas to get it to clean out.. I hope this is the problem. I was thinking it was going to be big $$. I sure hope not. My bank account needs winter to get here for some restocking.
jc

We fished Pool 10 on Sunday and also expierienced a shallow water bite much like Blue Fleck talked about. We started the day fishing a shallow cut with weeds on both sides. Water depth couldn’t have been much more than two feet. We threw buzz baits with some success but Pop Rs and Baby Minus One cranks are what really put the fish in the boat. A couple of hours after sun-up the bite slowed.

Mid morning and early afternoon we caught fish almost every place we went. Fished slop, flipped eel grass, and caught some fishing current and wood. Although we caught alot of legal fish I don’t think we boated a 3 pounder all day.

One of the areas we fished was a lily pad field just busting with fish activity. We managed to catch a few fish in the pad field but not anywhere near what we should have considering how “alive” the pad field was. We threw Pop Rs, Mice, Jerk Baits, Buzz Baits, spinnerbaits, worms, and an assortment of top water plastics with very limited success. Anyone have any suggestions on a different tactic I should have tried? It sure is frustrating when the bass roll, the minnows scatter, and you can’t get them to bite.

My brother and I went out on 9 this weekend. Caught a few everywhere. Slop, grass, wood. I think 15 keepers saturday, 3 big ones, one over 4. Lots of pike…damn things… Sunday pool 10 caught a few keepers nothing like pool 9. Same structure. Should have some good spots for BFL this weekend.

Keith

I was out on pool 10 over the weekend with good success. sat am I caught a limit by 715 in very shallow water far from any deep water. I caught 6 keepers and 8 shorts without moving the trolling motor. No pigs, but a nice 10 lb limit to get started with in a tourney (I was not in one though). The big bite never really materialized, caught 2 that would have weighed about 3 lbs each and a total of 12 over 14 inches for the day (I went family fishing with my 3 yo at 10 am). Lots of pike, and one about 35 inches took my lucky bait . I had some mechanical troubles as i grounded my boat coming out and filled my water pump with nice mississippi mud. The rest of the weekend i pretty much fished around at idle speed, but caught a limit sunday by 930 am including a nice 18 inch lm and a 17 inch sm on rocks with current. More pike, tons of shorts and a large dog fish completed my sunday. Overall, a good “fun” fishing trip which would have netted me a fairly small limit both days but the small fish kept me busy.

I caught fish on spinner baits, crankbaits and senkos, and my biggest fish came on tubes. Hopefully the water will stabilize for those fishing the BFL. Good luck.

Good Job you guys out on pool 10..
I will honestly say that I had my mind dead set that those fish should be moving off the bank with the dramatic drop in water level over the course of 2 weeks. I have seen this play out in the fall however I have never been privy to this in July. My best educated guess is that I never made it shallow enough. The few areas I checked were lifeless and nothing indicated otherwise. I am curious on all the success in shallow water. Are you guys fishing dead water or does most of your shallow water have minor current in it or near by? I suspect the southern end of the pool was going gangbusters in places like Methodist, Norwegian, Glen, and Garnet lakes not to forget State Line. I do know that the current cuts up top were full of small fish. I hate when I completely close my mind to possible opportunities. Thanks for the heads up. Every time one of these river oddities creep up I learn something new.
The biggest thing that has me intrigued is that on pool 9 when the water seems to get shallow much of the main river gets really good. The current cuts with eel grass and minor flow get really good. Any vegetation with current always holds good fish.. Then I try to apply this to pool 10 and in the upper end with limited available vegetation in minor current I switched to wood. I guess this is where things started to fall apart.
I should just stick to my guns on what I am looking for and keep looking until I find it..
Anyone care to share some experiences in these types of water conditions for us.. I know that the shallow bite is good in low water while not falling but when that are sucking the pool dry I find I am out of my comfort zone.
Jc

Up on 5a on Sunday, my dad and I found alot of fish in areas with some, but not too much, current. Weeds and wood both held bass, with weed edges with current the best bet. Tried a couple of shallow backwater areas with no flow, and VERY clear water in spots. Found only 1 bass, but doggies and pike back in there. Had one pike attatck my salad spoon like a torpedo from about 30 feet away, fought him for about 30 seconds before he bit me off, I would say he was a 20 pound class fish. The biggest pike I have ever had on. Anyway, I couldn’t find fish out of the current on Sunday, but they were stacked in some areas where there was flow. Backchannels though, but I can’t say I really tried too close to the main channel.

Last night on 7, we tried the same kind of areas, and it was poor.

JC- I kinda thought they would be off the bank as well- my first spot sat am was adjacent to the main river- but I saw no bait there and no sign of life, so I just checked in my favorite spot on the north end of pool 10 and there were baitfish all over. That was my first indication that bass might be there so I just kept going shallower and shallower and still bait.
I am still confused by this- my instincts tell me what yours told you, I just got lucky and went to my usual spots which are limited in number and there the fish were.

I have to believe that some of the fish stay in shallower water all summer regardless of water levels, but have no data to back that statement up. One observation that i did note is that all of the fish i caught shallow were 12-15″. though the numbers were good and they were well fed, no sign of pigs up shallow. Of the 5-6 fish over 15″ i caught this weekend, all were near current and deeper water.

Things like this are what makes fishing so great, there are no hard and fast rules- except of course- where there is bait, there are bass!

This is where those little Pool quircks come into play. For some unknown reason on pool 10 when the water drops the fish hate to move so they can be extremely shallow and right on the bank. This has been my experience over the years. I think they hate to move on that pool ever, seems when the water is rising we catch them deeper. Could just be the areas I fish.

Most of the fish I caught this last weekend were in little or no current. The areas I fished were full of small baitfish, unfortunately most of the bass ran from 12 to around 16 inches. Perhaps the size of the baitfish also determined the size of the bass. I also ran into alot of northerns and bowfin. After a few of them mauled my Pop R I learned that if you saw a swirl around your lure get it out of there fast if you didn’t want to catch a doggie!

Considering the number and size of some of the northerns we have been catching in the backwaters I wonder if the river temp has something to do with the bite being decent yet in the backwaters for bass. Normally I target cold water areas in the summer for northerns and it seems they’re not there in numbers yet. If their still in a comfort zone in backwaters then the bass definitely can’t be hurting yet.

As far as falling water and its effect on bass I’ve always felt they won’t move right away as long as their is deeper water nearby. I think they’re reluctant to leave their “home range”. I do believe though that eventually they do seek out better conditions if the low water continues. Just my two cents worth.

Birdman, I didnt drink this weekend but reading your post I swear you were in my boat- did I miss something? We may have targeted some of the same spots and caught the same fish from the sounds of things.