had a great time at rough this weekend

Was at rogh from thursday until this morning and had one of the best trips this year. Thursday evening I caugh 14 bass nothin big but a few keepers. Friday, I caught 17 and my wife caught 11. Same thing nothing big execpt a few. Saturday went solo and caught 19 bass and 10 crappie, with four of those bass weighing 3 to 5 pounds. All fish came of dark color worms and watermelon red jigs. Crappie were caught on minnows around 9 ft. On wood and rock structure. This weekend was the best one I've had on rough since last september. We fished northfork, laurel branch, and around the state park which was a ZOO most of the weekend. But we really enjoyed ourselves and hope its good next weekend as well.

You weren't the only one having a great time on Rough this weekend. I took my boat out Sunday morning for about 6 hours and caught quite a few fishing 'traditionally' for bass. But the blast came when I tried my hand at fishing the jumps. I caught 3 nice hybrids and about 6 largemouths (that's right!) fishing various jumps I found around. I had never done this kind of fishing before so it took a bit to figure out what they wanted. Some locals helped me out too. I'm here to tell you - that might be the funnest kind of fishing I've ever done. Those hybrids pull hard. I'm hooked...........
Glad to hear you got on them too. Congrats!

WTG King sounds like a heck of a time.

Hey Spider... how'd you catch ém in the jumps? I've never caught them like that yet.

I am heading down to Rough on Thursday and am taking my kids and my nieces and nephews out ranfge form 6-11 years old. I'd love to get them ahold of a hybrid or two. Do you have any advice. My assumption would be head down by the dam and state dock area and look for the jumps and then throw some bucktail jigs at them. Any help is appreciated.

I am by no means any expert on catching them as it was my first time, but I did throw a lot of stuff at them. Some guys fishing around me were using topwater lures like Zara Jrs and they said pop r's work too. I caught one on a Storm wildeye swimbait (3") but I couldn't hook up on any more that way. Got bumped a lot though. I saw a guy throwing a jig like you suggested, so there must be something to that. One thing I figured out was that they were feeding on smaller baitfish than I first thought, so a 4" swimbait or 1/2 oz lipless wouldn't get touched. I put on a fluke finally and waited to cast until I had one boil up by the boat. Threw right into the boil and boom! I might be wrong but it seemed like they almost speer the baitfish and then would come back for the wounded ones. So the fluke worked well for me.
Try toward the dam from the State Ramp. Sunday was really cloudy and the jumps lasted quite a while but I don't know how it normally is on a hot sunny day. I too was thinking it would be fun to take my two youngest boys to do this. Open water (no snags) and fish that you can see = continued interest.

Does anyone know what months of the year at Rough that these jumps range? Is it a summer time only thing? What species are there in these jumps at Rough? Stripers? Whites? I know there are hybrids because of Kentucky Afield's show a couple of weeks ago.

[QUOTE=Jackster;374241]I am heading down to Rough on Thursday and am taking my kids and my nieces and nephews out ranfge form 6-11 years old. I'd love to get them ahold of a hybrid or two. Do you have any advice. My assumption would be head down by the dam and state dock area and look for the jumps and then throw some bucktail jigs at them. Any help is appreciated.[/QUOTE]

If you really want to crush the hybrids go to Wal-mart and buy you some of those little silver spoons.

Throw them about 4 feet past the jumps and let it sink for about 10 seconds or so, then rip the spoon up with your rod and let it fall again. Odds are after you rip the bait the first time you will find a fish on the other end of your line!

Keep working the spoon through the jumps in that same manner. It works like a charm!

The fish sees the falling action of the spoon as a wounded baitfish, and its falling at such a fast rate they really dont have time to look at it, they just eat it :)

Let us know how you do!

I'm a sponge. Thanks for the spoon tip.

Heading to Rough in a few hours.. I have some of those spoons and will try if i see any jumps...thanks for the info! Ill be primarily fishing for largemouth and will post my results this weekend on the thread below.

[URL]http://fishin.com/forums2/showthread.php?t=74679[/URL]