Table Rock Lake

[pjwatson05]

I am heading down to Table Rock for a family reunion in the middle of July and will be there for about a week. We have a cabin on the lake with a boat slip. I was wondering if anybody has experience with the lake and could give me some pointers??
Thanks
Paul

[pjwatson05]

For anyone heading to Table Rock lake, I found a guide who sells maps. These maps have hot spots marked on them & they also come with several plastic layovers for how the fish act during certian periods that include prespawn, spawn, postspawn, spring, summer, fall and summer
You can check them out at these maps are for spotted & largemouth bass and crappies
http://www.strikebass.com/

[CrappieKeith]

Have fun PJ,your jigs go out in the mail tommorow.
I am almost done with them.10 more to go,after painting 600 heads over the last 2 days this set of 30 is kicking my hiney.

[Schoe]

PJ, if you are going to be in the area around the dam I will PM you the name and address of an old friend that has lived and fished that area all his life and I am suer he would steer you to some good fishing.

Schoe

[pjwatson05]

Sounds great Schoe,
I am staying just off of Indian Point which is right by the damn
I also got something else I'd like to run by ya

[Schoe]

PJ, I will PM you my phone # and you can give me a call. Schoe

[KanFish]

My grandparents lived in Kimberling City, right on the lake for 14 years. You need to rememeber one important thing........fish at night!!!! The water there is incredibly clear so the bass are very sensitive to line weight and boat movement during the day. We usually like to hit the James River Arm, concentrating on the steeper gravel banks. Spinnerbaits, jig-n-eel and jerk-baits seem to work best.

[gofish]

a high school friend of mine lived close by an fished bass tourneys there....swore by flourocarbon and used a lot of jerkbaits,drop shots and blade baits/tailspinners

[pjwatson05]

Well I got down there early Monday mourning at about 1am. My wife's cousins had been waiting outside the cabin for me since 10pm with a cooler full of beer, needless to say my everyone in the welcome party was well intoxicated, except for my wife, when I got there.
Monday mouring I got up around 9am and put the boat in the water went for a little ride and put it back in the slip. My wife and in-laws had plans for the day and I was fine with that, just don't make any for the rest of the week I thought LOL. So my fishing plans for Monday were traded for Branson shows and taking in some of the other things Branson had to offer. We had a great time with alot of laughs.
Tuesday mourning rolled around and at 5:15am I was on my way to my first point about a mile or so from the cabin. It turned out to be a great mourning, I ended up with 8 smallmouths in about 3 hours before the sun and pleasure boaters chased me off the lake. Water temps were hovering around 84 deg, so that pretty much scrapped my crappie fishin hopes.
1st fish of the trip
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/pjwatson05/134e7521.jpg
At around noon I got a phone call from my mom, telling me that my aunt had passed away. She had been battling cancer for almost the last 5 years. She told me that the services were probably going to be friday & saturday. A few minutes later I got a call from my uncle asking my to be a pabear for the funeral and I gladly accepted, she was my closest aunt and I was one of her favorites nephews. At that point I recieved several calls from cousins and other family members, talking about my aunt and asking me when I was going to be in Tennesee. I wasn't even sure what to say I was shocked by all of this. At about 6pm I got back out and hit some points again, with 2 crankbaits both were blue & crome 1 was a shallow diver 4 to 8 foot (skinny kind) and the other was a fat bomber styler blue & crome that dived 12 to 16 ft.
From what I could tell on my lowrance graph, the bass were comming into feed from early evening to mid mourning when the sun really starting beating down on the water. The rest of there day was spent in 20 to 40 foot of water. I caught several more smallmouths in the evening. I found a ledge on my graph that was in 15ft of water where the bass were stacking up. I couldn't believe the amount of bass this ledge was holding. I tried freezing my graph and counting them, I kept loosing track I would say at least 80 of them I thought there was something wrong with my lowrance until my deep diver kept pulling smallmouth after smallmouth out of the exact same spot. I ended up with well over a dozen out of that spot all but 1 were smallmouth.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/pjwatson05/66ba7320.jpg
I believe this guy is a striper (not sure). I was later informed that this is a spotted bass (that's a big spotted bass) It threw me off because it had a stripers mouth and largemouth markings. Strong little buggers he hit that crank like a 5lb largemouth, I thought I had a monster. I was under the impression that spotted bass are smaller, this guy was in between 2 1/2 n 3 pounds.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/pjwatson05/ea74a73f.jpg
While I was out on the boat my mom called me again and we talked for a while and I decided that Wednsday after I went fishing in the mourning Jessi and I would leave for Tennessee. At this point I was already broken hearted because my aunt had just passed away a few hours before and now I had to leave. To say that I was bummed would be the understatement of the year.
I got up in the mourning and woke my father in-law up and go out with me. I set him up with the exact same baits I was using. Not only did he not catch any fish while I was hammering them that mourning, he lost both of the crankbaits with no structure of trees to get caught on, how is that possible ?????
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/pjwatson05/fa7b11f3.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/pjwatson05/c2a47191.jpg
I had planned on taking my wife over to Lake Tanneycomo which is feed by Table Rock on Friday and Saturday, to try our luck for the trout and crappies on T.H.E. Jig over there. That lake temp was 47 deg, crappies probably would have been fairly active at that temp. Circumstances beyond my controll made us cancell the rest of the trip and leave Wednsday afternoon.
We just got home yeasterday afternoon and to say that I am beat is pretty accurate depection after driving a total of 31 hours, getting out on the boat for 3 trips and going to a funneral in the last week.
I am for sure going to make another trip down to Table Rock though we had a great time and the fishin was pretty decent for the amount of time I was on the water, the guides hotspots marked map was spot on and save me alot of time that I didn't have
The thing that really got me was I couldn't believe I drove 8 hours south to catch alot of small mouth.

[pjwatson05]

a high school friend of mine lived close by an fished bass tourneys there....swore by flourocarbon and used a lot of jerkbaits,drop shots and blade baits/tailspinners

I swear by P-Line fluroclear gofish, it works well, after I caught a 40lb King Salmon on 12lb test I was sold on it.

They loved them Crome/Blue cranks & jerkbaits, the flash they give must resemble those shad pretty well.

[gofish]

same idea with the tailspinners/bladebaits,flash is everything in cear water..sorry bout yer aunt,condolences to yourfamily

[pjwatson05]

As if that wasn't enough after we got in the door and I tore my Grandt out of the Fedex box, I noticed a smell that resembled something that had died a few days ago. As I walked into my kitchen I seen what looked like slime all over the floor. Our uprite freezer had taken a crap a couple of days before we got home. Yea that was fun to clean out and take out to the trash 1st thing after a 10 hour drive.
Ya know what they say: When it rains it poors

[KanFish]

Those Kentucky Spotted Bass are a HOOT!!!! They hit like a White Bass, Fight like a Stripped Bass and are shapped like a Largemouth Bass. The best of three worlds!!!
They're alot like smallmouth in that they're more active in cooler water. We used to slay them in December and January off of the deep bluffs.

[pjwatson05]

Thats what I have heard, I want to make another trip this spring that way I can chase those big slab white crappies Table Rocks has to offer to. The surface water temp was 84 deg would love to see how active they are in cooler water, when he hit it I though I had a 5lb large mouth.

[gofish]

kentuckys/spots are lots a fun.theyll git in huge schoolls at times an jus wear ya out lol...ya go back make sure an take some blade baits

[pjwatson05]

kentuckys/spots are lots a fun.theyll git in huge schoolls at times an jus wear ya out lol...ya go back make sure an take some blade baits

I just stocked up on several the other day. My local Gander Mountian store has them clearanced out at $1.50 and I picked up 40 packages of sassy shads at .95 cents a peice, 18 of them are going to someone I know in Iowa. Got another guy who asked me to pick him up about a dozen of them Sunday when I go into town. I cleaned them out of sassy shads this mourning (31 packages) at 10am an the sales person told me they had a bunch more in the back and that they will be back out on the shelf this weekend. Tough to beat deals like that, i won't need any sassy shads for a looooong time :happy0030:

[gofish]

what kinda bladebaits are they?

[pjwatson05]

Berkley powerbait Blade Dancers
I also picked up a few of those storm WildEye spin shads (looks like a spinner bait and the hook takes a sassy shad body)
I'm kinda new to blade baits have only used them a few times with limited sucess, any suggestions would be helpful