Fishing Report by:     Wilderness Trail      

April 25, 2005

Spring is blooming – trees, wildflowers and there is green pollen all over everything, but Mother Nature hit us with another severe cold front over the weekend; high winds and temperature dipped in the 30’s. Lake temperature dropped from 63 degrees on the main lake to 59 degrees by Sunday morning. Pool level this week has remained stable and is at 655.15. White Bass are in their run throughout the lake, the best bite is in the afternoon from about 3 p.m. until sundown. Best baits are the old standby – roadrunner – and small spoons such as Little Cleo’s. Other baits worth trying are Swimming Minnows, Pointer 78’s, Cotton Cordell Tiny Spot Minnows and crappie spinnerbaits. Crappie were on the banks headed to their spawning areas in the back of the cuts and pockets. The cold front pulled them off the banks into 12 to 16 feet of water. Crappie minnows are your best bet until the shallows warm up again.

Largemouth are in full spawn and they are bedding in 6 to 8 feet of water this year. The post spawners are out away from the beds at the first drop off and around secondary points that are present in their spawning area. Carolina or Mojo rigs with lizards or finesse worms are working well along with tubes and Spider Jigs. Bandit and Wiggle Wart crankbaits are also triggering some nice largemouth on windy days. 

Smallmouth bass are in post spawn. Every day the bite gets better and better around points and transition areas along "do nothing" banks. A number of baits are starting to catch smallies, which is normal when they come off spawn. Lizards, brush hogs and centipedes are the best plastics. Wiggle Warts, Bandits and Bill Norman DLN’s are the best crankbaits. Spider Jigs and tubes are my choice this time of year. 

Kentucky bass are almost done spawning and most of them are in post spawn. They are starting to chase shad again and roaming the chunk rock banks and points looking for crawdads. Mojo rigs with Fish Doctors or centipedes are turning on. Tubes and Spider Jigs are fooling the crawdad feeders and Fluke’s or Sinko’s are working on the Kentuckys traveling with the shad. As the lake warms back up there should be some good top water action on Pop R’s, Spit’N Images and Spook Jrs.

Walleye are finally on the feed. They have not moved outside of 30 feet as yet, so trollers are having "so-so" success at this time. Shiners on a split-shot and bottom bouncers with crawler harnesses are the go to technique around points. The hot bite is at night from 9 to midnight casting X-Raps and Suspending Rogues around points in the creeks or on the main lake. Nice limits were caught almost every night last week. The PWT Walleye Tour will be held May 11 through 13. The walleye pros and co-anglers should find the walleye bite excellent. Weigh-ins will be held at Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock all three days.

Lake Rating: Walleye are finally coming around, Whites are in spawn, Crappie are close to spawn and bass can be found in and around almost every cut or pocket. This week, because of the water surface cool down, we will rate the lake Good.

Fishing for trout on the White River has been good this past week. Generation has been pretty steady so the Berkley Power Egg bite has not been used much but when able yellow and pink have done well. With generation the Buoyant spoons, Little Cleo’s, Blue Fox and Krocodiles are the bait of choice. The fly fisherman has done well on Olive Woolly Bugger, midges and scuds when they are able to fish. The Brown trout are being caught on Shad Raps, Suspending Rogues and nightcrawlers.

Remember to keep only what you can eat and release the rest for another day. Rick Culver of Wilderness Trail does the research for this report and the writing of this report.

fishing below Truman dam slow 

Fishing on Truman lake good alot 2-8lb blues being caught drifting flats on cut bait

Date: 4/28/05
Lake Level : 606.9
Normal Lake Level : 606
Water Condition: Dingy

Surface Water Temp: 55 - 60

This is an exciting time of year to enjoy the lake and surrounding lands. Several turkeys have already been taken this season, the crappie should be back on the banks before too long, and morel mushrooms are popping up. The wind last Saturday has been brutal, causing a couple of boats to swamp. It can't be stressed enough to choose your boat ramp wisely and areas to fish, under extreme windy conditions.

The Crappie fishing took a very good upswing last week, that is until a cold front hit and shut them down. Starting last Saturday the crappie developed a serious case of lockjaw and have been tough to come by since. That's not to say they can't be enticed to take a minnow or a jig. As of yesterday we started getting better reports, hopefully this will continue. The fishermen with the most success, have found them within the vicinity of spawning areas, about 5 - 10 feet deep. Find the combination of the warmest and clearest water. Minnows and white or pink jigs have been the most popular bait, along with white or pink crappie nibbles.

Bass fishing has been good. Rocky wind blown points have produced some good action, using white/chartreuse spinnerbaits, or crankbaits

Cat Fishing has been good, this is a slight downgrade from the previous week. Trotliners and jug fishermen have caught some flatheads and blues, but not in the number and weights previously caught. Channel cats continue to provide fun, biting on nightcrawlers and shad sides.

White Bass fishing has been slow.

CRAPPIE: Fair to Good: The fish moving toward the banks but have not arrived yet. They are headed back in the coves and scattered in different depths and locations. The males should be on the banks up in the river areas and staging in the main lake. Some very nice stringers are starting to come in. Minnows and jigs and something with chartreuse on the jigs.

BASS: The bass fishing is much improved over last year. Our first three tournaments have produce good numbers of fish being caught. Jigs, spinner baits and rogues are still the lures of choice for most fisherman. The fish are shallow especially up the river arms and up the Branch. See Thurs. 2005 or Weekend 2005 tournament results for the weigh-in. The river is fairly muddy and so are Roberts and Linn Creeks. The campbranch side is much cleaner.

CATFISH: The Catfish in the Little Platte river arm of the lake are biting. Some nice channels and a few blues are being caught on shad sides. A young man brought in a 32 lb 12 oz flathead in on 4-15. Trot line on a goldfish somewhere in the lake.

White Bass: Fair: The whites are up the river and are being caught. Fish from the old iron bridge to the bridge on 116 hwy.

WALLEYE: Fair: The spawn is for the most part over. The fish will soon be moving to the main lake points to feed up. This is you best chance to catch numbers of fish. Most of the fisherman have been fishing the face of the dam at night but a few are being caught around the rocks on the bridges. I weighed a 10 lb 9.5 oz monster on 4-4.

GRAND OPENING Celebration for our new location! Come join us! We will have reps from Orvis, Sage/Redington and others on hand to answer questions - fly tying demos from area tiers - hot dogs - casting help - drawings and door prizes - but most of all FUN! APRIL 30, 2005 - activities run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. WHERE? Our new location - 2626 State Hwy. 165

GENERAL COMMENTS

Off, or one or low two generators for the most part the past 3-4 days. Based on information I received from one of the hydraulic engineers at SWPA, they are ATTEMPTING to maintaining the water level at the Branson Landing construction site at an elevation of 701 feet or less until the work near the water is completed.

Water Conditions: Sunday we actually had off water conditions from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday was around 705. until last that night and they turned it up for a short period of time then off Tuesday morning early and left it off until 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, when they turned on one generator until 7:00 p.m. Generation has been averaging 705 today.

FLY FISHING TROPHY AREA (dam to Fall Creek)-SHALLOW WATER-WADING-

Trips this past Friday and over the weekend with one of two generators has been very good. Three boats out Friday with the water in the high 70's range and it fished very well. Two of the boats had brand new fly fishers. Everyone caught fish 15-30 each. Most on the black or olive zebra midge. Saturday fished well and Sunday was one of those days we dream of. Water was off for more than 8 hours. We were catching fish on almost every cast. Everything was working, scuds, midges, soft hackles, green holographic crackle backs to name a few. Monday we had water all day but fishing was still very good. Tuesday the water was off until 11:30 a.m. Had three boats out and one of our guides commet was "the fish are jumping into the boats"! Again, almost every thing worked. Had a good fly fishing gal out Tuesday for her birthday. If she didn't get a hit on the third drift, we checked the fly to make certain something was not wrong as they were hitting that good. Half day probably boated 30 plus fish and missed twice that many. plus. We fished the olive and rusty brown zebra midges. Also threw an olive flash and soft hackle. Theother boats never changed from the red tungsten beadhead midge. Hope we see more of these off water or low water days. Don't know which is more excited about it, the fly fishers or the fish.

Fishing Report from Sterett Creek Marina 4/27/05

I guess the old adage if you don't like the weather in MO. hang around it will change, and boy did it change. From having fish spawning in 3' to 4' of water one day to pushing them back to 15' to 20' the next day is a pretty drastic change. The only good report I had was there was some white bass being caught in the Berry Bend area. Lets hope the weather will get back to normal and get back to some good fishing.

LAKE LEVEL: 707.40
WATER TEMP: 60 deg.
WATER CLARITY: Stained.

BASS: Even with the cold front and the strong winds the bass fishing remains good on Truman. This weeks HAWG FIGHTS took 9.55 lbs. to win. Jamie Ulbrich and his daughter Rachel took the honors.They also had big bass weighing 3.09 lbs. 2nd. went to Doug and Ozzie Wallace. Jig and frog and baby brush hogs seem to be working the best. Steeper banks in 4' to 6' of water using black and blue or watermelon red seems to be the right combination. Nitches in the coves with deep water close by is the place to look.

CRAPPIE: The weather has really effected these fish. Last week we had bedding fish all over, now they are back to 15' to 20' of water with a case of lock jaw. We need about 3 days of good warm weather to bring them back up shallow. Fish the steeper banks and back out to the timber. Now I would switch from jigs to minnows until they start to move up again. We still have a lot of fish waiting to spawn.

WHITES & HYBRIDS: There were some whites caught in the Berry Bend area last week. Most of these fish were caught trolling. If the weather will straighten out we should see these fish moving to the KK Island area real soon.

CATFISH: Jugs are still the best. 10' in the flats with leeches. Haven't heard anything on rod and reel fish yet.

I will do an updated report as soon as the crappie start moving back up or the white bass get going. So that's it for this week from Sterett Creek Marina

Crappie fishing has slowed down since the cold weather. We are still catching fish on the banks but there scattered out. Fish the spawning pockets 1 to 5 ft casting at the bank.Cover lots of water keep the boat moving. Best bait is black and char tube jigs 1/16th oz.

Bass fishing is tough the water cooled off and the lake has dropped some. The best way to catch them is a jig or a tube jig black and blue in color. Stay in the creeks and fish 2 to 5 ft of water.Most fish are being caught around laydowns.

Catfish are coming in even with the water cooling off. Several flatheads and whitecats are being caught. Best bait is perch.