Lynnville Lake Today

[elnutsmalljaws]

I put in Saturday morning at 5am and yes I was the only boat on the lake. Could not belive the water temp was 66 degrees. 66 is unbelievable since it was 71-72 just over a week ago. Friday night was not blistering cold and when I left at 10am it was still 66. Started with a small jitterbug and small buzzbait with 2 "SMALL" blowups but no hookups. Switched to a spinnerbait even before the sun came up and caught 2 immediately. After the sun came up had about 6-7 hits but no hookups. AFter all of these, I decided to put a red stinger hook on the back and the first cast another, then a couple cast later another. All of these are about 10-12 inches, not to mention I caught about 10 rockbass during the same time on the same spinnerbait. (These rockbass need to be weeded out severely and I know of 10 today that were weeded). Never saw any morning bust and never saw any good pockets of shad anywhere. Moved to deeper water and fished some deep points, dropoffs, and other cover and structure with a jig and caught nothing UNTIL I flipped my jig out in the very end of a tree that was in deeper water. Jigged it a couple of times and then it felt funny, dropped my rodtip and the bait moved so I laid the hammer. Rod bent DOUBLE and my first thought was "Lake Record (Whatever that is) Coming In". Then after 3 cranks of the reel, CATFISH. AFter the struggle of getting this thing to the top, I put her on the scale, 9.5 pounder. Back in the water she goes and I am left to clean up the slime. Went back shallow shortly thereafter and caught a few more of the usual, then the thunder came in so I took out. Backed the trailer down the ramp just as the first few raindrops hit the Explorer.

It is a shame that with all the cover and structure on this lake that it has been let go and not managed by fish and wildlife. Yes, I know the facilities could not hold any amount of boat traffic so if the lake ever did become a good fishery then a new ramp and parking area would be next but it would be nice to weed out the rockbass and some of these smaller Largemouths to give the fish a fighting chance to get big. I have been told there are some giants in this lake and I can see why. I have caught probably 300 bass out of Lynnville since last year with 1 - 5 pounder, 2 - 3 pounders, and a few more over 2 but all the rest have been under the 14 inch lake size limit. Not a pro by all means, but I think I know what I am doing and to see a lake with the potential to produce some really good fish become a glorified pond is sad. Just wish there was somewhere close to home other than the river to wet a line.

[Moose1am]

Good report. I enjoy reading your fishing reports.

I stayed home Saturday. I stayed up all night Friday and until about6 am Saturday before I finally fell asleep. I was going to go up to Patoka Saturday but without sleep I didn't want to drive up there and back 9 hours later when I would have been a zombie. So I stayed home and didn't take a nap so that I could get to sleep early Saturday night. I went to Patoka Lake Today Sunday. Fishing from about 10 am to 6:30 pm. Caught one small crappie, one 5 or 6lb cat fish and one 12" long large mouth Bass. Fished with my friend that say this spot was hot a week ago. Guess the rains we got last week cooled the water down. His temperature gauges on his trolling motor's transducer was reading 69 deg F. I had readings from 69 Deg F up to 72 deg F depending on what part of the bay I was fishing. The back ends of the bay was warmer today. I guess all the sunshine warmed the surface waters up again in the shallower areas. The deeper waters remained around 70 to 69 deg F at the Surface. I was again too lazy to get the deep thermometer out and use it. Maybe next trip. Water still needs to cool down into the 50's before the crappie start to turn on.

I did have another experience while fishing the shallow waters. I was using an ultra light outfit with 2lb test line and a charlie brewer crappie slider 1/8Oz head and 1.5" long slider in purple color. Added a drop of two of Dr. Juice. I was fishing in about 3 ft of water when I saw a big fish sitting along the bottom near the bank. He was right in the weeds but easy to see. He was as big as the one catfish I caught in 30ft of water right on the bottom earlier that afternoon. This fish was shallow and it was after 3:30 pm. Schools of 3" long or smaller Gizzard Shad were everyone in the back of this bay. The back 1/3 of the bay had shad everywhere from 25 ft deep water to 2ft deep water. All shad were schooling at the surface from what I could tell. Didn't see many bass or crappie busting these shad though. But this one catfish was pretty big so I threw a slider at him and tried to get him to bite. No luck. Then later I was fishing the same bank and went further out toward the mouth of the bay and had one big catfish follow my slider to the boat. He turned away at the last minute when he saw the boat. He was about 15 to 18" long. I was sort of glad that he didn't grab my bait as I know he would have broken my line and got away with my slider head and grub. LOL The other catfish I caught on another heavy duty crappie rod that has a lot of backbone. And it was loaded with 6lb test stren line and a nice new spinning reel with a good drag system. I had to loosen the drag several times and then re tighten it back up while fighting this big cat. It took me about 10 minutes to get him to the surface from 30 ft depths so that I could see what I had hooked into. Boy did he put of a strong fight. I ended up having to net that catfish to bring it into the boat. I really should have let it go as I don't eat catfish that big. It took up all the room in my live well . LOL

Wish the fish had been biting better. It was 80 Deg F this afternoon and bright blue skies with little wind until late in the afternoon. We fished this bay the entire day. My buddy caught about 15 crappie off two brush piles. He was using a spider rig system and slow trolling for suspended crappie that were caught about 10ft below the surface over brush in 22 ft of water.
Regards,

Moose1am