Boy its gotten awful quiet about pool 8 for the past couple of weeks. Have the fish shut off or just moved? are the smallies still where they were during the 4th of July week? I can tell that the largemouths have moved at least some.
I would like to hear of anything that is happening here..
i went out today and dident have much going on in the slop, did catch a few smallies in 15ft of water
I was out on Sunday and found a few LM in the lilies. They weren’t stacked by any means.
CR
The fishing has been pretty good lately. I wouldn’t say great, but pretty good. Some good sized fish for us anyway, some real lull periods and areas, but then some hot action too. Typical summer I guess.
The water is LOW and the flow is SLOW.
I agree with everyone here so far, my last outing was monday night(very hot) found many small fish (LM & SM) on the wing dams, only one fish over 15in (17) many species on the dams now also, I caught a 20in sheephead, a bluegill and watched a walleye follow my jig to the boat.
The DNR was shocking the wing dams while I was out so I don’t know if they shocked the dams I was trying or not I also keep a eye on them to see if they were netting many fish and the 2 dams they shocked while I was there they were not to busy.
Lures used.
1/8 jig w/yum crawfish P&J color most active fish count
jointed shad rap perch no fish
1/8 hand tied hair jig shad color couple of fish and walleye follow.
three way rig w/ #5 jointed floater blue back, shephead and bluegill and many taps.
Found a mess of 2.5 – 3lb fish on Wednesday in the slop. 
we found the smallies to be where they were for the previous few weeks, However, the bait that they wanted was totally different.
the largemouth have definitely moved. but we found some yesterday. grass bass.
the bite is great right now, lots of things going. any good ones in lawrence lake? last I was in there I loaded the boat but all 2’s and 2-1/2 lbers. I was looking for 3’s and up on the particular outing, and just couldn’t find an abundance of them in there.
Yesterday I fished goose for about a half hour before the pull cord on my motor broke and shot into my motor. Without a screw driver or anything, I was forced to troll about 2 miles back to the landing. It took a few hours, especially with all the fishing I was doing 
but I ended up with 16 keepers and 20 something smaller fish, and my best 5 was right around 13 lbs. not too shabby for just fishing random grass..Today the fish were a little more tight lipped on the frogs, but I found 8 good keepers using frogs and swim jigs, my best 5 around 12-1/2 today. (pull cord fixed 
) Justin caught 4 keepers out of the back and had around 9 lbs for his fish as well. overall the fishing is goood right now. But the shad aren’t playing any role in where these fish are holding..no not at all
much tougher day today out on pool 8. we caught both largemouth and smallie’s today. but it was much much tougher today. The water color varied from area to area. some ultra clear, some straight mud. the smallies have remained on the same pattern but were much slower. the largemouth were scattered as best as we could tell with the exception of one little area. But the largemouth would not chase anything. and the heavy grass bite was not great. lots of misses. tons.
keep a tight line on that old rat.
were you in the monday night tourney??
the bite wasn’t too tramendous for me either. The sun played a major role in what the fish did for me. I was a dumb 
and held my good stuff while I fished my “ok” stuff. I caught a few 3 lbers in my “ok” stuff recently, so I fished it all and caught several keepers. well by the time I got to my good water the sun was gone and the fish quit biting in the slop and I was forced to hit eel grass/deer toungue flats with current and just didn’t get anything going. I’ll be honest, those flats were where it was at but I didn’t take advantage of the opportunities to put the good fish in the boat. They were there for sure though. The end result was 9 keepers and my best 2 were a lousy 4-6.
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well by the time I got to my good water the sun was gone and the fish quit biting in the slop
Cade, I’m just interested to hear if you tried anything other than slop baits to trigger the bite.
Maybe pulled out and fished the weed edges or switched colors. Something to catch the fish you knew were there.
Sunday we had a fantastic slop bite. The cloud cover and fog on Sunday blocked out the sun for us, so the sun wasn’t an issue.
Just wondering.
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Maybe pulled out and fished the weed edges or switched colors. Something to catch the fish you knew were there.
Blue,
I fished last night as well and the pattern you describe above is what worked for me. I could see fish moving in the slop and pads but only caught one fish and had a few blow-ups on top water. When I started pitching a t-rigged worm to the edge and slowly drug it away, I caught more fish. They didn’t slam it by any means as the bites were very tentative.
Cade–I had about the same weight as you last night. Something broke in my motor control right after I put in so I couldn’t get my motor in gear. 
I spent the evening getting from place to place with my 9.9 and never went more than a mile from the landing.
Curt
Wow Curt, sorry about your motor 
Most of my fish came on the open water edge of the slop. There was one pocket where I had to cast across the slop/pads to get my bait there, and it appeared as though the bass had shad “corralled” up back there, and I caught several keepers out of this pocket that is the size of 2 of my boat. After the light changed I pulled off to my grass flats that are adjacent to these areas and like I said, had the opportunities but didn’t boat them all. I fished all of these flats and they had good fish on them on Saturday, in the cloudy/rainy/gloominess, so I thought the fish would still be going on them. Ther one had active feeders for about 1/2 hr and I just couldn’t boat them to save my life so to answer your question, yes i abandoned the slop bite, and fished grass with swim jigs, spooks, and wake baits…
Cade, tell me more of this ‘wake bait’ you speak of…I am intrigued…
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Cade, tell me more of this ‘wake bait’ you speak of…I am intrigued…
I think he is talking about baby 1-. I’m not %100 sure though.
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Cade, tell me more of this ‘wake bait’ you speak of…I am intrigued…
I think he is talking about baby 1-. I’m not %100 sure though.
That’s what I was thinking–a small crank that runs just below the surface of the water.
CR
thanks. wake baits mean something entirely different on the West Coast… like a Depps Buzzjet…
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Cade, tell me more of this ‘wake bait’ you speak of…I am intrigued…
I think he is talking about baby 1-. I’m not %100 sure though.
Nope
a 1- will work, but have a little tighter wobble than what I am looking for. a 1- is a great bait with a couple feet over the top of the weeds. The bait I am using is great with a couple inches over the weeds, and tony, I’m pretty sure you know which one I throw shhhhH!!
Yeah i do. my mouth is shut
I find myself strangely attracted to the double-jointed Marge diver! 
i think i know what cade is talking about espcially if the crankbaits actually name is wake bait then i for sure know what cade is talking about
well I was out two weeks ago and we caught about 20 bass in various sizes in 3 hours.. I am having a hard time finding someone to go with me on Saturday.. and I don’t fish alone.. or like to.
has anyone else been out? or is everyone “done” for the year.. 
boy it was a poor day on Saturday on Pool 8.. I could see a ton of boats in Laurence Lake, but I assumed that they were the tourny boats. I didn’t want to interfer and deny someone a tourny victory, if I went in and tore them up. so I checked out some other major sloughs. While I found some “cleaner” water, I couldn’t find any bass. and at the end of the day I checked out my previous area, that had been shutting done, and was almost blown out by the current. at least 55 thousand CFS if not more and it probably was more.. and my fish were not to be found.
I had a total rookie with me .. but he caught two small fish on a spinner bait..
I could not get a crankbait or a worm bite at all. I didn’t throw a rattle trap.. probably should have, all though the sloughs that I fished had limited amounts of shad..
Is any one trying a carolina rig at this time of the year, with all this current? It would be interesting to know..
thanks the old rat.
Don’t know about Carolina Rigs, but the guys leading the 2-day MSBC tourney on day one caught all their fish on crankbaits. 8 fish for 27lbs.
he won it too..Crankbaits and spooks over wingdams. he’s an old river rat and looks like he found the smallies good..There is a lot of LM activity in the backwaters right now, but size is hard to come by for me. Water visibility where i was this weekend is good. Flipping wood and vegetation can yield you a 40 fish day, but don’t be fooled. of the 80 or so fish put in my boat on saturday between Justin and I, not one of them hit the 14″ mark. I tried the black river today and found a few smallies and largmeouth going on gravel humps, but still no size. I tried everything from backwater weeds, to main river (black) humps, rock, docks etc. and it just wasn’t right. I hit one wing dam on the miss and it was terrible. The current and visibility in that particular area was not good. I got back to the flipping deal and caugth 5-10 more little guys. Ended the day with 2 keepers and around 20 dinks. Tough weekend, but things should be looking up soon..
water temp at 55-57 degrees.
Bring on 48
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he’s an old river rat and looks like he found the smallies good..
He’s my Uncle too.
Never sell those old Bass guys short. They always have a few tricks up their sleeves. 
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