My brother and I had reserved Beaver Lake for the 9^th but were switched to Homeplace after a scheduling mixup.   We were told the lake was fishing the best at that time with fish up shallow so we started from the ramp and went around clockwise hitting the bank and various structure.  The pads are mostly dead from the freeze of a few weeks ago, but there are some new pads already popping back up and plenty of hydrilla.  Hitting the banks early produced several fish in the 3+ pound range with the biggest coming in at 4.25 lbs.  By mid-morning the wind had picked up significantly making it difficult to stay near the bank.  We took a short break and changed tactics allowing the wind to drift us back through the timber near the center of the lake.  Using underspin swimbait hooks and Keitech Swing Impacts or Zoom Super Flukes in white and bluegill produced the most fish.  The key was a really slow retrieve on bottom near any piece of isolated timber or other structure.  The fish are feeding up and were incredibly strong.  At one point I set the hook and thought I had snagged some timber until the fished jumped out of the water.  The bite remained steady until we headed off the water around 4:30PM.   Total count was 23 with 7 culls under size.  Big fish was a hair over 5 1/2lbs. and came on a Keitech Swing Impact 3.8inch swimbait in either Bluegill Flash or Shad.  We also ended up with 2 over 4lbs. and many in the 2.5 – 3.5 range.  Two fish were caught on a red eye shad in sexy shad and ZERO fish were caught on Senkos (incredible, I know).  The lake is not easy to figure out but has some quality fish in it. 

Also, while fighting the wind and the trolling motor on the boat I knocked one of my rod and reel combos off the deck and into the lake.  Homeplace is now the home place of a Curdado 200IHG and a green and black Cabelas bass rod.  If anyone hooks into it by the far corner of the dam let me know.  It has a Junebug Googan Mondo Worm tied on that also did not catch any fish.  We searched for it for 20 minutes or more but were unable to recover it.  

Nick