It was a busy boat weekend as expected on Monday because of the Memorial Day celebration, but fishing wasn’t bad once you got into the less traveled areas. We got out on Pool 16 and explored some new areas in search of a new hotspot. The bass population on this pool is still recovering from the flood 12 years ago but there are areas that hold good numbers of both largemouth and smallies. Much of the backwater has filled with silt thus making a lot of these areas inaccessible. This makes exploring, what looked like a good area on the map, somewhat aggravating.
Once we quit with the research, and returned to more familiar areas, we found several nice bass where we expected them. We were simply pitching custom River FINatics from Strictly Bass Lures to visible cover and submerged stumps. Big fish for the day was 8.2lbs but, unfortunatly, it was not a bass but a mean bowfin. The bigger bass were in 3-4lbs range with a lot of dinks mixed in. These fish were holding out of the higher currents near points and mouths of sloughs positioned tight to wood.
Inside the shallow sloughs we found hundreds of spawning carp. If you are a bow fisherman please get out and “shoot em up.” These shallow areas are just liquid mud now from all the carp activity and the game fish do not seem interested in entering yet.
The water temp warmed all day. It began around 64 and hit as high as 75 in some shallow areas toward the end of the day. Main river temp, however, is closer to 68 degrees. Current is still relatively high while the level remains slightly low for this time of year.
Nice report Ken,
I was just curious if you fished down by Wyoming Slough or the Scisco Chute areas at all?
Thanks for the report Ken, I think your right on about the map, I went by my old duck blind I had twenty years ago and what used to be 6-8 ft of water is now land, the backwaters get smaller every year, Glad you caught a few fish and had a good weekend down here
Didn’t get that far down, but I asked a friend about it as I’ve never fished there and, while it sounded like it might be deeper in general, I think the current would be too strong.
Catch-22, Current helps keep it deep but often to swift for me to feel good about fishing. Probably check that area out in the late summer or fall.
I had my 8 year-old boy with me. He was a real tropper while we spent so much time in those dead areas, but he was getting bored so we stopped exploring and when to where he could see some fish.