Dale Hollow Thursday report

Fished thurs with a good friend - ray munsey. we fished during the day for bluegill and shellcrackers and harvested 15 nice panfish. all caught on live bait. relaxed in the campground then went out from 7p to 1a. boated 2 smallies and had one more on. very slow night. bait starting to congregate at dark in the channels only. no topwater activity. fish caught on home made jigs we tied that afternoon. water temps in the 78-79 range - clear on main lake and stained in the creeks. water low and dropping still it seems. state dock with only one lane open. good luck! see pic board for the one nice smallie we caught.

[QUOTE=UYKY;304499]Fished thurs with a good friend - ray munsey. we fished during the day for bluegill and shellcrackers and harvested 15 nice panfish. all caught on live bait. relaxed in the campground then went out from 7p to 1a. boated 2 smallies and had one more on. very slow night. bait starting to congregate at dark in the channels only. no topwater activity. fish caught on home made jigs we tied that afternoon. water temps in the 78-79 range - clear on main lake and stained in the creeks. water low and dropping still it seems. state dock with only one lane open. good luck! see pic board for the one nice smallie we caught.[/QUOTE]

Did you find the shellcrackers shallow ? Way back in the creeks ?
Went a few hours on saturday....in very shallow water caught all small gills
and only 1 small shellcracker ? What am I doing wrong ? Help ?

UYKY --- nice looking smallie...fish would probably have been bigger if your partner had been wearing a Big Orange shirt :-) .... thanks for the post.....

Appreciate the post..

for YEARS, i have been able to catch some nice bluegills but had only 1 shellcracker for every 20-30 bluegill. biggest change i made was to go with nightcrawlers ONLY. the crackers have been very shallow lately - read less than 10ft and around gravel flats. i fished with a partner and we would drop crawlers on one line and wax/meal worms on the other - result was crawlers are definitely preferred. good luck and harvest only what you plan to eat.

measured right at 21in but was pretty "thin" by dale hollow standards. all reports i have been getting have been very slow both day and night. the temps and the dropping water have the fish in a funk. it is not much better at c land now either.

Have they started the renovations at the State Park marina yet?

[QUOTE=UYKY;304499]Fished thurs with a good friend - ray munsey. we fished during the day for bluegill and shellcrackers and harvested 15 nice panfish. all caught on live bait. relaxed in the campground then went out from 7p to 1a. boated 2 smallies and had one more on. very slow night. bait starting to congregate at dark in the channels only. no topwater activity. fish caught on home made jigs we tied that afternoon. water temps in the 78-79 range - clear on main lake and stained in the creeks. water low and dropping still it seems. state dock with only one lane open. good luck! see pic board for the one nice smallie we caught.[/QUOTE]

oh yes. it is going to be a mess if they fill all of those slips. dale will be intolerable in the summer with that many runabouts going howwild. the lodge has a picture of what the cove will look like when done. basically every inch is going to have a dock and slip piled onto it. nothing stays the same......

I guess I will have to stick to the spring and fall down there then!