Stable water and decent fishing weather

[Red Childress]

River levels have been stabilized for a few days and with this front moving through this weekend, the fishing should be on the upswing. Those cold nights and dropping water temps put my area in a temporary shutdown.

Chautauqua Lake is usually in the mid to upper 70's by now but is only 70-71 as of yesterday.


Good luck to everyone this weekend!

[Red Childress]

So much for the warming rain coming our way........feels like May out there!

[abc91686]

Was up at camp all week...No luck, unfortunately i was confined to either our bank or the kayak. I did get to bring out my flyrod for the first time in 4 years(college has that effect on my outdoor life). It was so bad that i only caught 2 bass and put nearly 4 days of fishing in!! I did however hear some huge fishing breaking the surface at night.

Even found a 15" sucker with a massive bite mark on its back from the night before. Oh well better luck next time, I HAVE TO CATCH ONE OF THESE FISH!!!

[Red Childress]

I have been getting tough reports on bass the past several days. One (very good bass) guy told me yesterday that he has not struggled like this lately for as long as he can remember.

We had to resort to dropping an anchor and drop shotting/Carolina rigging plastics just to get a dozen or so smaller bass yesterday. We have been moving muskies but nothing over 40 the past few days. Hopefully, this new weather system/new moon phase will help stir things up for us later today/tonite.

[ppalko]

This weather is crazy...the weather radar on my phone is coming in rather handy!

I floated around Friday with my kids and my son (the seven year old) caught his personal best smallmouth (fat 18 incher). I handed him my rod to land a smaller fish which immediately jumped and threw the lure which upon landing was attacked by the larger bass. Never saw that before....although I've hooked two bass on the same lure. I threw my homemade version of a Mepps Musky spinner much of the day and had "only" a twenty inch bass attack it. We did find a few small northerns. One of the days highlights had to be my son's attempts to cast a 1 oz swimbait with my musky outfit. He actually stuck with it a while until he noticed his arm was starting to hurt. He liked his rod with the 1/4 oz spinnerbait much better. And unlike in your boat Red, no one got impaled, something I found absolutely amazing considering I had a seven year old and an eleven year old casting in all directions from my boat. In weather like this, the old warm water discharge at the now dead power plant used to be a savior. We'd fish the warm water (actually it felt hot at the outflow!) and catch lots of fish no matter what the rest of the river was doing. I am curious to see what exactly the rest of the summer is going to bring!

ppalko