05-22-2014, 05:08 PM
Wednesday forecast light winds so we launched from the low water ramp at Callville about 9:30 AM. Water temps up shallow at 71-71°. The dock is only 3 segments...kinda small for the launch traffic and the ramp water level itself is a bit shallow. I had the tail pipe in the water (4x4 Toyota Tacoma Xtracab) on the south side of the ramp. The north side of the dock is a bit steeper.
Going out past the tires there is an unmarked hump which showed 7 ft on the sonar. Tire line has not been moved.
Anyway, we went upstream and fished mostly walls and steeper chunk rock slides, a couple flats which gave up no bites. Using drop shot, senkos, weighted Texas rigged creature baits. Most bass came on the drop shot. I got a crank rod out but never rigged it.
Most bites were at 20 ft or more. Most fish were on the larger chunk rock (melon size) where the water was less colored. Quagga mussels made it easy to break off if you dragged your line over a reef or rock pile at all. We worked through a lot of small small-mouth bass. Got a lot of chasers who were too small to get the larger plastic in their mouths. Purple, red and green were our colors...not sure color mattered. The fish were not everywhere but when located we got bit right away. I got bit on the first cast of the day. During the day the fish seemed to alternate between wanting it "dead sticked " to wanting to chase.
Around 1:00 PM we began to look for and hang out in the shaded areas. Bite wasn't as good as in the sun but we were more comfortable. Boat traffic was light and nobody was doing anything stupid. We were on main lake points a lot. The bite seemed to slack off about half way into any cove or finger.
We finished the day throwing drop shots and weighted plastic right to the waters edge and fishing downhill to about 25 ft. For us, the larger bass came shallow after 5PM. What I noticed was spots which were productive during the last low water remain productive in this draw down. .
Julie got big fish...a largemouth bass about 3 1/2 lbs. off the last spot. She also managed to catch a keeper largemouth on her weighted senko laying on the bottom while her spinning reel was seized up with a line snarl and had to hand line the bass in....but that's Julie. Never happens to me... and she had one of her best days ever on Mead.
Course this is the day the camera did not get on-board.
Finally ended the day with just enough light to run in about 6 miles without mounting the running lights (main lake running surface temp at 67.5° only to meet drunk jet skiers with loud music clogging the ramp. Fortunately the ramp is wide enough I could beach on the keel guard and load without dealing with the water flea/wakeboard crews.
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Going out past the tires there is an unmarked hump which showed 7 ft on the sonar. Tire line has not been moved.
Anyway, we went upstream and fished mostly walls and steeper chunk rock slides, a couple flats which gave up no bites. Using drop shot, senkos, weighted Texas rigged creature baits. Most bass came on the drop shot. I got a crank rod out but never rigged it.
Most bites were at 20 ft or more. Most fish were on the larger chunk rock (melon size) where the water was less colored. Quagga mussels made it easy to break off if you dragged your line over a reef or rock pile at all. We worked through a lot of small small-mouth bass. Got a lot of chasers who were too small to get the larger plastic in their mouths. Purple, red and green were our colors...not sure color mattered. The fish were not everywhere but when located we got bit right away. I got bit on the first cast of the day. During the day the fish seemed to alternate between wanting it "dead sticked " to wanting to chase.
Around 1:00 PM we began to look for and hang out in the shaded areas. Bite wasn't as good as in the sun but we were more comfortable. Boat traffic was light and nobody was doing anything stupid. We were on main lake points a lot. The bite seemed to slack off about half way into any cove or finger.
We finished the day throwing drop shots and weighted plastic right to the waters edge and fishing downhill to about 25 ft. For us, the larger bass came shallow after 5PM. What I noticed was spots which were productive during the last low water remain productive in this draw down. .
Julie got big fish...a largemouth bass about 3 1/2 lbs. off the last spot. She also managed to catch a keeper largemouth on her weighted senko laying on the bottom while her spinning reel was seized up with a line snarl and had to hand line the bass in....but that's Julie. Never happens to me... and she had one of her best days ever on Mead.
Course this is the day the camera did not get on-board.
Finally ended the day with just enough light to run in about 6 miles without mounting the running lights (main lake running surface temp at 67.5° only to meet drunk jet skiers with loud music clogging the ramp. Fortunately the ramp is wide enough I could beach on the keel guard and load without dealing with the water flea/wakeboard crews.
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