OH; what am I doing wrong?????
 

Skunked 2 days in a row! Yesterday Apr 30 Fishing for LMB on Drakes Creek rocky points, docks, some laydowns with craw-colored chatterbait/creature trailer, shaky head 7" motor oil/chartruese tipped trick worm, white/white splittail trailer spinnerbait . Fished all really slowly. Water temp 55-63 in 4 - 10 fow. Today in coves out of Avondale fished the same lures around same type structure. NOTHING! Left at noon. I'm bummed

What water temp did you see in the Avondale area? Fished from there to Cedar Creek and back Sunday & Monday and found water temps 57 in the main lake areas and very muddy and 61 back of Cedar Creek. The few bass I caught were very pale. Slim pickings. Meanwhile my neighbor texted me today and said he dropped in at Rockland and stayed in the Rockland cove in and around the marina throwing a shallow crank bait in red craw color and caught 40+ fish. I’d bet it was clearer water and warmer water.

Temp around Avondale was 58. I also caught a few around Rockland Marina last Friday. Looks like I should have gone back there today! Thanks Buccaneer

The fishing has been tough. I know I may have made it sound easy, it’s not. All the fish we caught Sunday were in a wind protected pocket in a cove. Wind would get in there but not near as hard as it did further out. And we fished an area that was maybe 50-75 yards long from 9:30am to 1pm. It was by luck we found them. Just started going down a bank and tripped over our feet and landed on them. The shakey Head and worm we used has also been key. Sorry, but there are some things I keep to myself and that’s gonna be one of them. 😉


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Skillet wins one tournament and now he has secret baits...lol 😱


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Thanks for the response, Skillet; just gotta keep after it. I also have a hard time fishing slowly, i.e. I love cranks, and the shaky head is something I'm working on. BTW, I'm sure ya'll had more going on than luck!

I haven't fished OH much lately but I did catch quite a few last Friday. I fished for several hours in twin coves and caught 2 fish. Water temp was 58. I went to the next pocket down the lake and caught quite a few in just an hour fishing in there. The water temp in there was 64. Every fish I caught in there was in 6 inches of water to 2 feet. The baits i caught them on were a texas rigged rage bug(Strike King) and a buzzbait with a black blade/head with a 4" swimbait. I took the skirt off the buzzbait.

BTW, this is a tip that will help you guys with a buzzbait. I use one a lot and catch a lot of bass on one. I used to miss a lot of fish on a buzzbait. Someone told me to take the skirt off and put something else on. Now I never use a skirt. And it's helped me catch more fish. For some reason the fish seem to commit to eating it better. The baits I use are zoom horny toads, swimbaits, and biffle bugs.

My son and I fished Cairo up Saturday. 2 keepers. Fished mid lake Sunday. 1. Son goes to lower end and fishes weed beds Tuesday. 5 keepers by 10 o'clock and that bite died. Said he threw the boat at them til 2 and nothing. I think I need to start golfing. Lol Never

Thanks for the tips and ya'lls own reports of current fishing conditions and results. But threatening taking up GOLF, no way. I'd rather be frustrated than embarrassed!

Its somewhat reassuring to hear I'm not the only one having trouble. My last 2 evening trips have each produced just one fish.

Coveman, sounds like we have the same disease . . . one speed: "High."

I struggle mightily with finesse patterns, and my attempts to change speed, depth, retrieve are fights against habits learned fishing up north (same as you: crank baits); and spoons, spinners, big profile stuff, and trolling).

I've done myself a favor by switching to more jerkbaits. I still "crank" but the twitch and stop technique triggers more bites, and I can better overcome my habit of just reeling. I'm also getting better with swim baits that don't need a lot of speed to get action on the "boot." Play a lot with weighted hooks or bare. Gonna also start tying on more tubes; killer for Lake Erie smallmouth, and time I got back on that effort.

I'm not lighting the world on fire with limits, but I'm starting to avoid the polecat more often than not.

😂😂 It has nothing to do with winning the tournament, if you look back at my post I have been saying the same thing. 3/16 shakey Head with a 4” worm. Y’all know there’s a lot of people that never post and just creep around, and I feel like I’ve put in the work and found something that works extremely well right now that is kind of out of the norm. Fishing tournaments, I don’t need that info out there.




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No problem. We’ve had a rough year of fishing, and got our teeth kicked out in these tournaments all year, starting in January!!! Couple weeks ago we came in 4th in the tournament. This last tournament, most everyone we talked too had a rough day. Sunday we started fishing a little cove across from drakes looking for possible bedding bass, none to be seen, and deezlteck caught a couple 10” bass. Came out of that cove and fished the main lake bank on that side and caught a few more 10 inchers. Went into drakes, and hit a steep Bank with nothing. We were going to head back out to those main lake/river stuff and I stopped the boat in that pocket and caught a few more small fish then got a keeper. We decided to stay there for another 20-30 minutes and deezlteck caught our biggest bass. At that point we decided to stay in that pocket. Most of the fish were in 2-6 fow. With all that being said, it was more luck than being good!! Lol. But as the saying goes, I’d rather be lucky than good any day!


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Just messing with you, you always share what your doing.


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It's not luck Skillet. I know it might seem like it because your fishing a lot of water with little success and then bam your on them. That's what you do when it's tough; COVER LOTS OF WATER. The trick is to then assess the situation and figure out every little detail about that spot and recreate it in another area until you narrow it down to which detail/s is making those fish hang out. Once you figure that out you have a pattern.

Sunday was luck. We had nothing and was on our way back to fish nothing. Lol I had caught a few fish in the fall in that pocket and didn’t see anyone in it so I just pulled us up in there. Didn’t have anything to lose at that time.


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We will have to disagree. Lol. Eliminating water is a huge part of finding fish and most of the time it's how you find them. Maybe a little luck that you decided on that exact spot but don't sell yourself short. That spot was just the next item on the list.

My friends know I catch a lot of bass and a lot of them struggle. They think I just go out and catch fish all day everyday. That's just not the case. I spend A LOT of time eliminating water. Once I can figure out a pattern then yes it's pretty easy. If I'm really lucky that pattern may hold for a week or a few days. But when that pattern goes away it's back to the drawing board.

Just don't sell yourself short because confidence plays a big part in being successful at catching bass. That tournament win is a perfect opportunity to build confidence going forward. You guys made a good decision and it paid off better than any decision that anyone else made that day.

Congratulations again! You can't win 2 in a row without that first one. Now go get that 2nd win!

Confidence is something really hard to come by for me on old hickory. Just never seem to find time to drive on over to priest or the hill. But by dangit if I ever figure the hick out I will call in sick to work and sore mouth every fish in that lake. Lol
Skillet would be good to hear you win 2 in a row. Kick butt this weekend.

Skillet, even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then.
In this case a hog found a fish. Big whoop.
Be like Kevin VanDam and win 24 more.

You need to go go to church or just drop to your knees right now, keep your mouth closed though, and pray for forgiveness. Jealousy won’t get you anywhere.


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i have not been out but from what a certain couple friends are saying they are not using the same tactics as they were last year ,and yes they are not landing the same quality fish.all i can say is dont get frustrated use what you are confident with and always switch up spots with 5-10 cast's then of to next one good luck and good fishing

When he caught the Bigger ones his Alabama hat was at the house.

The Flow dictates where OHL bass are and it has been balls to the wall.
Now the flow has just dropped to two gens running rather than the 3 all month. Things will get better and better.

Was participating in a tournament this morning on OHL, out of twenty boats only eight had fish to weigh in. The bass that were caught were in 3 to 5 feet of water, holding tight to cover. Jigs, and soft creature baits seemed to be the trick. We caught 14 bass, out of them only two made weigh in, just under 5 lbs. The winning team had a total 5 fish under 12 lbs.

Best of luck to you all out there on OHL.

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Tell me about it. I've been practicing for a tournament all week on OH. It's tough. I can't wait til tomorrow is over with and I can get on a different lake.

Throwing a cast net for bait today, caught four largemouth over four lbs up shallow near grass.

They're gonna taste good on the grill.

I fished that tournament today too. We weighed a BIG GOOSE EGG. We won it in 2015. I had the big fish in 2014 and 2015. Not squat today.