09-10-2010, 09:00 AM
Well, I had kind of a frustrating day yestd. Wanted to fish mostly for bass with a little crappie fishing mixed in, Didn&#39;t want to keep any fish and didn&#39;t. Flow was about 25K cfs and surface temp about 80.<br /><br />Started out about 8am on a large 12-13 ft. flat off the main river with a drop to 25 ft. behind it. Didn&#39;t see much action on the graoh and only caught one slick on a jigging spoon. I expected some topwater action there with no wind and it being early am, but it didn&#39;t happn then. Tried a creek mouth near the main channel and didn&#39;t find any bait or bass. Got in with the catfish fleet at the Nuke and caught a few cats, crappie, drum and yellow bass but no LMs. Shot a few docks for crappie and caught a few. <br /><br />By then it was getting near noon and I hit another creek mouth about 25 ft. deep with a 12-13 ft. flat on either side. Found lots of signatures on the graph, thought I would really get some action, but couldn&#39;t get them to hit. If you read Labman&#39;s post, you&#39;ll see that he figured out that the bass were suspended. I wasn&#39;t smart enough to do that, even though the evidence was right there on the graph. Cloudy day - aha! Went to another creek mouth with large flats surrounding the creek channel. Bass were chasing bait on top every so often, but mostly out of casting range. I got a couple of hits on my spoon, but the single hook didn&#39;t connect.<br /><br />After trying another creek mouth w/o success, my last stop was where I started out in the am. This time the fish were there, but wouldn&#39;t hit my jigging spoon. I finally used the dropshot rig with the Gulp minnow and caught a 19 in. LM right away about 18 ft.deep. Then I lost one at the boat about that size which was on the flat about 13 ft. deep. I got more strikes on the Gulp, but failed to connect. That was it. 3 LMs, one spot and the usual cats, drum, yellow bass, crappie and bluegills for the day.<br /><br />Some lessons learned: I am in love with the jigging spoon, but if they don&#39;t hit it, try something else like the dropshot rig with the Gulp bait (not my favorite rig, but very effective). On a cloudy day, the bass might be suspended and even on shallow flats, adjust accordingly. Be sure to rig the dropshot rig correctly with the hook up and not down! I didn&#39;t do that and missed strikes! Small margin between success and failure!<br /><br />Labman came by and showed me a spot he had success at. Thanks, Norman!