Bust for smallies at the Gorge - 7/15-16

[Leaky33]

Was advised that the smallie spawn and bite might start with the full moon up north so we went to the Confluence hoping it would be better than a month ago. Supposedly the cold weather and high cold water inflow had put the spawn off then. Wow, I thought the water was high a 3 weeks ago. When we got there, the water was almost up to our camping area and when I looked it up it had risen 10 more feet. [shocked] Fished from our tubes 2 half days and caught 1 bass. What few bass that were around were in the shallows but I couldn't do much with 2 golden retrievers splashing around and swimming around me. Sparky always stays with me so when my buddy brings his dog he stays with us because of Sparky. At least that gave my buddy a chance to fish without the dogs and he caught a total of 8 in the 2 days which is about 1/6 th what he and I individually do. The rising high water killed us and probably stopped the spawn before it even started. Doubt if there was a spawn at all with the changing water conditions and weather. [mad] Oh well, nice country to sit back, read a book and have a cool one. Next time I'm going to check out the water conditions before I go. That was the biggest change and the highest since 1986.
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[rippnlips]

Hey Leaky just FYI they almost always spawn in June at the George. I was there last year and we absolutely destroyed the smallies. If you look at the fishing lunar times the highest day is in June, so time that with a full moon and go whack em!

Best lures we used were actually two 5" Kalin Grubs on 1/4 heads in Texas Shad. I also used a Yamamoto color that immitated the chubs.

I fished two jigs on one line just like you fish for Walleye. they were in the bays with nice flats to spawn on. We had our 10 fish for the tournament inside of 1 hr of fishing []

Another good lure is the BPS tender tubes in Black,Silver with white bottom. It looks just like a minnow and they cant leave them alone.

Good luck fishing!!
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[FishinHippy]

I also did well down in sheep creek towards the middle of June (I think). We dropshotted gulp minnows and tossed grubs in watermelon and white maniac minnows. They weren't too big, but we only hit it for maybe four hours total. Sorry your trip wasn't better, I bet if you gave it another shot in September, you will have better luck.
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[happybob91]

I actually was there fishing for smallmouth two days ago. Me and some buddies were bored so fished kind of by the dam. It wasn't red hot but we were actually getting a fair amount of hits and caught several. This was at like 11-12. Anyways, it was fun because they were my first smallmouth bass that I had ever caught[cool]
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