.....but when I do, it's usually at Yates Place. Then again, I don't always catch them there, either. I didn't yesterday. I was fishing for the big ones, so caught only 4 small fish that were right at 14" long. Other than those, I boated two 4-00s, a 5-01, and a 6-09. Still, I call that a pretty good day. The lake, according to Mr. Yates, was about 1.5 to 2 feet over the outlet pipe yesterday (it's probably even higher today). Fishing from 7:00 until 4:30, I started out in a hard rain that lasted a little over an hour. Caught one 14-incher at 7:15 and a 4 at 8:05. The small one hit a shad pattern, shallow-diving squarebill off the north end of the dam. The bigger fish hit a weightless, black/blue fleck, wacky-rigged Senko in the far back of the south creek arm. I finally was able to shuck my rain suit, and after 2.5 hours without another fish, I boated the 6-09 on a 6" white pearl swim bait rigged on a jig head with a trailer hook. I was very slowly dragging the bait across the smooth bottom. A couple of casts later, the second 4-pounder hit that same shad-pattern squarebill on which I had caught my first fish. I finished up with the other three 14-inchers - one on the black/blue fleck Senko and one on a double-bladed buzz bait rigged with a swim bait instead of a skirt. By that time, the surface looked like a mirror. Just before I left, I did lose a very large fish that grabbed a green pumpkin/chartreuse tail weightless Senko. I didn't get a good hook set, and the hook pulled out while the fish was screaming my drag while moving into deeper water.  I sure wish I could have at least seen that fish - although I might feel even worse if I had. I'm pretty confident that it was a DD.

The visibility everywhere I fished was 12" - 15" at best, and the water temp varied from 70.2^° to 70.8^°. With 70^° water over the banks, I thought I'd catch them on frogs and lizards, but found absolutely no activity in those shallows. No luck on chatterbait, topwaters, creature bait, spoons, or 12" Huddleston swim bait, either. All of the fish I caught were either holding on shallow, sunken timber or in deeper water, far from the bank. The "skinny" bass I've been catching at Yates Place during the past 6 weeks weren't that way due to lack of forage, for my Humminbird showed bait balls all over the deeper parts of the lake. Some of the bait balls were small, and some were huge. There are a LOT of shad left in there. Today's bass all looked fat. Here's the 6-09:

Posted By: Tom Dillon