Got to lake at noon on Tuesday and new it would be tough to get the whites so I just checked several areas looking for bait and depth that bait was in. This period is my best Slab Spoon fishing of the year. I will be hammering the whites on Saturday, Sunday and Monday as I am back guiding. My good old buddy Mo went with me and he loves to buffalo fish on the spoons. We had ten fish on but only landed five in just a couple of hours of fishing. Smallest was about ten pounds and biggest was twenty-five. I had on a huge fish for five minutes only to loose it. I estimated it at over forty as I caught two that big last summer and it looked about that size. Mo turned to me and said I don't care who you are if you are truly a fisherman and not just a meat fisherman this buffalo jigging is just about the most fun a person can have fully clothed. They fight so hard and we use a gaff and hook it through their mouth and man you get soaked as they are pissed. I will get some pictures to post from this weeknds trips.

Here is how I catch them. I use my electronics to roam up and down a sheer drop looking for a school of baitfish and under them are the buffalo. We stop and drop the Slab spoon to the bottom. Here is the kicker though. I tie on a treble hook dressed in white bucktail just a foot or so above the spoon. We then pop the spoon off bottom a couple of feet and let it fall back to the bottom. The fish either hit the treble or spoon on the way back down or you snag the fish when you pop it off bottom. The second way can be wild. If you get them snagged anywhere near the tail section they charge straight to the surface and jump two feet out of the water. In many ways it is better than striper fishing as they don't jump like that.

I use heavy action pole with baitcaster spooled with twenty pound big game. You can't use braid as I tie a loop knot on the treble and the thick mono keeps it off the main line. You guys should give it a try. During dog days you can catch them all day long. I have had days of thirty fish or more.

Steve I,m Sure That Is A Blast Catching Them, But I Don,t Think I Could I,m Game To Try More Than One--old Man Gets Tired

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It ain,t braggin if you can do it
Frank

I can attest to that Steve... My brother Joe and I were out with you last October on Columbus Day weekend and if I remember right we caught 28-30 in just a couple hours before you left for Paris Landing!

It is a BLAST!!

Sounds like a blast! I have bowfished 25 lbs buffalo on Rend. I may have to figure this pattern out.

I don't know for sure but I would bet that you could either tight line a drop shot rig or drag a Carolina rig baited with either cut bait or live bait, (goldfish, large shiner, or chub) and catch big channel or flathead catfish at the same places you are catching the buffalo. The cats often stay below the bait fish eating the ones the other predator species knock down to them. The channels would hit the cutbait, the flatties would hit the live bait. I would bet the biggest fish in the lake is a huge flathead.
I like the idea that if you can''t catch the fish you want, want the species of fish you can catch. Presonally, I have been hammering the cats. The buffalo sound like great fun!

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"To catch a big fish you need to use good bait"
Dave Haugh