It was another beautiful day on the lake. The weather called for storms, but the sun pushed through, the sky cleared, and the wind died down. The fishing picked up a bit, but still wasn’t the greatest. I finished the repair to my trim unit Sunday night. Took at bit to figure out how to fix it and where to get the parts on a Sunday. You gotta love the internet. 30 minutes of surfing and I found an article on trim repair.
On to the report…
That day I decided to start on the Camp Branch side of the lake. As I pulled up to the marina, the docks had a bunch of anglers. I didn’t know the docks were that busy during the week. It looked like the fishing was good. The guys looked busy hooking fish after fish. Not sure how many keepers they had, but they were catching’em.
I started fishing the brush next to the rip raps by the W Bridge. These piles are 13’ deep and the water was real clear on that side of the bridge. I spent about 15-20 minutes working the pile without luck. In a bit of frustration, I accidentally overthrew one of the piles and decided to draw my jig into the pile to see if the fish were toward the bottom. But, before I turned the reel twice I got a hit. I tried the same spot again and got another hit. The fish were in front of the piles in about 20’ of water. I ended up with a couple of nice blacks here.
I then decided try the timber in deep water to see if the fish were there. I’ve circled the areas in red that I fished (first picture). I didn’t get one hit. I had a couple of boats join me and they did as good as I did – nada. It didn’t take us long move to our next spots toward the main lake.
After the trees were a bust, I headed toward the deep main lake brush piles. I made my way under the W Bridge around 12:00 or so and saw a bunch of boat fishing the cove just north of the boat slips. I saw a post by Champ and he said they were trolling for crappie and was laying into them pretty good. Can’t think of a better way to spend a sick day.
I fished the two brush piles in the second picture and did pretty good. Ended the day with 8 keepers and most of them were caught in the deep brush piles. The bite was real light that day. I was dropping my jigs right over the piles and waiting for the hits. Colors used were black/chart and blue/chart. Black/chart was the color for the day. Water was real clear 3+ feet and around 55 degrees.
On my way out as I was packing the boat up I met a guy driving by for a fishing report. He said that he doesn’t fish the lake till winter time. He said he was waiting for colder weather because the dock fishing really picks up them. Those guys trolling the slips sparked my curiosity. Think I’ll give it a try next time. That’s about it for Monday. If anyone’s been out, post a report. Like to hear how everyone else is doing.
Smithville 11/9
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