01 | November | 2016 | Fishing Report

This past Tuesday morning, November 1st, I fished with Tony Bagliore, and a couple from his church, Sonny and Vita Sharpe. The Bagliores and Sharps have known one another for over 17 years.

From left: Vita Sharpe, Sonny Sharpe, and Tony Bagliore, each with one of the larger 13 to 14+ inch class white bass we landed using primarily vertical tactics in 22-30 feet of water under grey, breezy conditions.

Tony has good reason to smile! This was the 3rd white bass exceeding 16 inches caught on my boat in the past 8 days. Up until October 25th last week, the lake record white bass length for the catch and release category stood at under 16 inches. Nice catch, Tony!
Given today’s very “fishy” weather, consisting of gray cloud cover and a southeasterly breeze, I suspected the fishing would be easy and productive. I came prepared to conduct a multi-species trip focused primarily on white bass caught on artificial lures.

As it turned out, Sonny was just along for the ride, and Tony and Vita did all of the fishing. As soon as the eastern sky began to lighten up a bit, I arrived at an area I intended to check out, noted ample bait beginning around the 25 foot mark and progressing up shower, and also noted heavily grouped but also widely dispersed schools of white bass near the bait.

Soon after seeing this on sonar, I noticed the first shallow top water action indicating white bass had pushed ahad well up into shallow water. Although the cooling water has kept the whites from feeding on top in a sustained way, there were still occasional eruptions on the surface sufficient to allow us to stay on top of the fish. We began casting soft plastics and blade baits into the shallow water bite, but, it didn’t last long. This bite died as the sun rose (albeit obscured by the cloud cover).

As the skies began to brighten through the gray cloud cover, the bite moved further away from shore. Most of our fishing through 10:45 took Place in 22 to 30 feet of water. As 10:45 rolled around, we had put a total of 81 fish in the boat, primarily using a vertical “easing” tactic with 3/8 ounce slabs.

In our last hour, and in order to introduce some variety, I offered that we could shoot for catching some blue catfish on slip floats using cut shad as bait.

At our second stop, and after the chum I was using had a chance to work, we began to catch blue cat, albeit small ones, with consistency. During our final 45 minutes on the water, we boated a grand total of 15 blue catfish and missed opportunities at about as many.

We called it a good day at around noon with a grand total of 96 fish boated. Of note was Tony’s largest white bass which measured 16.50 inches. This is the third white bass over 16 inches my clients have boated in the last eight days. This is remarkable given that for the last six years, the catch and release lake record stood below 16 inches.

TALLY = 96 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 7:15a

End Time: 12:10p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 68F

Water Surface Temp: 76.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE8

Sky Conditions: 100% grey cloud cover

Water Level: ~0.01 feet high with only evaporative losses

GT = 110

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 183 – bladebaits and soft plastics for low-light, pre-sunrise fish up shallow