Dale report 4-16 thru 4-23

First, a few of the better pics here:

[url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/7989809@N07/[/url]

We fished Dale for 8 straight days from 4-16 to 4-23. We caught a nice batch of good fish, lost a lot but had fun watching them jump and grin. We pretty much gave away the first four days. That nor'easter that came through beginning of last week with the cold northeast winds and chilly weather either blew us off the lake or locked up the jaws - and I was cold pretty much all of a couple of the first days. But after that blew through the fishing really picked up. Saturday the 21st was our best day - we were bit all afternoon and I have no idea how many we caught and hooked in the 3-5 lb range. It was awesome. After that, fishing slowed again until Monday but we worked all day every day managed to catch nice fish every day out. I need to get back to work to rest up :)

Water temps were 53-55 when we got there and 62-64 when we left. Grass wasn't as high and heavy as we're used to due to the cold spring. Water was a foot higher than normal and *way* up in the bushes. Most of the buckbrush is completely submerged. When the surface temps hit 62 on Saturday, the bass fishing got really great. I didn't check but I think they dropped the lake a few inches by the time we left.

All of our best fish were caught mid lake on main lake secondary points on the west sides of Sulphur, Pusley, and west of Hendricks in Natty and Poor branches. We caught a few way down toward Jolly in Five Fingers but not as many as we've had there before. Fish we marked early in the trip in the cold water were holding 18-25 ft and then later on when the surface temps warmed they were up around 9-15' and that's where they were when we left. We were grubbing the points primarily in 10-15' water, especially the points with brush and wood cover, and it seemed like they wanted smaller stuff this year. I caught some on 2-3" black and watermelon with 1/8th jig heads, but the best all week seemed to be something with red. Red metalflake, red curly tails, red.... Shiner fisherman were doing OK as well but those we talked to were doing no better than our grubs.

Crappie and catfish were really, really slow. There are some crappie to be caught if you can find and fish deep in the grass, but what we found were mostly spawned out and buried about 15-20 ft. It's tough to get big numbers of them now, but you can get one here and one or two there and several we found were 16" - which made some pretty nice filets. Limblines we put out for cats were pretty much a waste of time but we got a few. We also had some nice kentuckys scattered in throughout the week.

And now a plug for Tennessee and Dale Hollow, like I'm preaching to the choir. What's being done there to protect the fishery and establish the quality of the fish is just awesome. We continue to be less impressed with the numbers and more impressed with the girth and width of these brown fish. Being from VA, just come up here and try to catch an 18" fish that wouldn't be eaten by an 18" DH smallie. Tenn has done a great job there and I could only wish we could do the same thing here. Keep protecting the fishery, make limits tougher instead of lighter, and keep encouraging catch and release, and for God sakes appreciate the resource and keep it clean. We picked up trash this year just about everywhere we stopped for lunch and we stopped at a different place almost every day. Hope this report helps someone and I've got my 10 days already reserved for next April - which I haven't told the girlfriend about yet :)

Nice report and thanks for picking up trash that some idiot through in the lake.

Hartmacw;
Glad you were able to catch some of them "Dale Hollow Browns" , and we appreciate your efforts to help keep Dale clean. It is truly the "Garden spot of the World" for me.