2nd week of November, my sonar said the thermocline at Dale was ~55 feet. Most fish I found were staged at ~60 feet and NOT ACTIVE.

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Fished Friday, Saturday and Sunday.......
3 fisherman. We boated 12 on Friday.......all slots. Mostly Mid Lake areas.
Saturday we stuck 5 with 4 being largemouth. NICE largemouth.
Sunday we stuck 4 with 3 being largemouth.
Fish were caught on tail spinners, and jigs. No fly, no swimbait action........
From what I/we found, the bait really has not stacked up in ANY of the creeks we fished. We did find some bait on secondary points about mid way back and in some creeks, we found bait all the way back, but NOTHING like you'd expect this time of year.
It will only get better as the bait transitions......unfortunately, the areas I like to key on have not had that transition.
Also, I didn't see any indication that the lake has begun to turn over. Like I said, we fished mostly mid lake, but when we did fish up the obey a little, we found no turnover, and when we fished near the wolf/ilwill split, we also found no turnover.
SOON, it should start, and when that happens, maybe we can start catching some fish![]()
Later,
Geo
2nd week of November, my sonar said the thermocline at Dale was ~55 feet. Most fish I found were staged at ~60 feet and NOT ACTIVE.
Was there Friday as well with livebait....We only managed 5, 3 smallies, a KY and a Largehead....Worst trip I've ever had with livebait that the water wasn't hard in spots....Water was 55 all day long which is a little warm for this time of year so I'm hoping that had something to do with it....Talked to several other boats and some had slightly better and some slightly worse luck than we did but nobody really seemed to have gotten on them...Didn't hear one person say they'd caught an over that day adn our biggest was 18".....I found one little channel ledge that had bait/fish stacked on it and had one come off but that was the only bite we took.....Hard to catch those inactive fish sitting out deep
Most reports from Dale Hollow this fall (since the smallmouth kill of the summer) have not been good at all.
I hope it picks up as I'm going to be down there in a couple of weeks for a few days, but right now I'm not very optimistic.
We fished out of Hendricks Creek this weekend. Fished 3 hours Friday, caught 1 on a jig, and 2 on creek chubs. Saturday we had 5, all on creek chubs. Sunday we only caught 3 fish all on creek chubs. We did manage one 21" fish and a few decent slot fish but overall the size of fish seemed down a little bit for us. Everyone we talked to, said it was the worst fishing they have seen there, with one group fishing all day without a bite. Hope it gets better soon.
I also fish out of Hendricks Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I blanked my buddy caught 1 LM and another guy that was down there caught few smallies. It was the toughest time I have ever had down there. I had several bites but hook ups.
I want to try to get back down there in a couple of weeks and try my bad luck again.
Geo sounds like you all killed em to me lol.
Always enjoy Dale, but also enjoy getting into a few fish.... Thinking I'll wait until the the lake turns over, water temps get below 50, and we get into a pattern of really crappy weather before I go back. Would love to get into a bit of FNF action. Ice in the rod guides and antifreeze lubricant on the trolling motor shaft!
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