Missouri Lakes Fishing Report

Lake - Table Rock 06/25/06:

Report #1

Kimberling City Area: For the most part little has changed over the past couple of weeks in the Kimberling City area. The majority of fish are still coming out of deep trees; look for trees on main lake points as well as in larger creek arms that top out at around 40’, most of the fish will be in the top third of these trees. A drop hot rig with your favorite color, size and style of finesse worm is you best bet to catch these fish; use your electronics to follow the bait down into the tree and shake the rig in front o the fish.

James River: The James continues to produce good fish on points, ledges and roll offs. A variety of baits have been producing fish but the most effective have been fat free shads, DD-22’s or DT-16’s or a either a ½ deep cover finesse or 5/8 oz. Jewel football jig. Both types of baits are working in the same locations and should be used together to maximize your catch. Look for the deep edge of roll offs, points and ledges and make long parallel casts with a deep crankbait, once you locate the fish with the crankbait work the area over a football jig as thoroughly as possible.

White River: The White and the Kings have become two distinctly different fisheries; from Baxter to Rock Creek on the White it is similar to the Kimberling City area of the lake (drop shot rigs, Carolina rigs etc..) and the Kings is fishing similar to the James river with football jigs and deep crankbaits are putting fish in the boat on points, ledges and roll offs.

Dam Area: The boat continues to make the dam area difficult to fish, head back into the bigger creek arms and you will get away from some of it but it is still pretty bad. Drop shot rigs in tree tops are your best bet if you can control the boat in all of the boat traffic. The upper portions of Long Creek has really good color and several fish have been caught on Eakins’ jigs in brown / black with a Chomper 4” jig trailer around laydowns and other wood cover.

Report #2

The bass fishing on Table Rock has been great the past couple of weeks. In the Dam area to Kimberling City, the bass have been stacking up on the main lake pea gravel points. Most of them have been Kentucky's and Smallmouth with a few Largemouth mixed in. The fish seem to be holding in 14-20ft. of water in the morning until about 10:00 in the morning, and as the sun gets out they tend to move out to 22-28ft. of water on the same points. Look for main lake pea gravel points, the ones with brush piles or submerged timber seem to be holding the better fish. The best baits to use are Eakins jigs in brown and purple tipped with Chompers twin tail grubs in cinnamon purple, or green pumpkin finesse worms on a shaky head. Just cover lots of water until you find the fish, this bite will get better as the summer progresses on.

The upper end of the lake in Cricket Creek and Long Creek still have some shallow fish. The best bite is in the early morning when the fish are up shallow. Try using a Zara Spook or spinnerbait around any shallow cover or laydowns. As the sun gets out, move out to the main lake points and humps and use a jig or DD22. I have been catching some nice Largemouth doing this in the past couple of weeks.