Had a bit of free time Sunday evening so took out some of my family that just moved here from Hawaii last week. We just had a short window to go for a short boat ride from the Island upriver past Beavertown before losing the sun. Well, that all changed when we saw bait and fish on the top.
Leone McDowell from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, got a good taste of what we have here in the Ozarks with two walleye and a 16-inch rainbow in less than 30 minutes.
I had no time to show him where I’m catching crappie in the standing timber about 13 feet deep, or where the bass are lurking in the deeper water off the bluffs this time of year, but we had a great boat ride with a great river sunset and walleye for dinner Monday.
In that little window where the water cooled we had so much bait on top with all our warm water fish mixed in with the cold water fish that I decided to run a $160, 3-hour evening special going out from Holiday Island Marina from 5 to 8 p.m. for 2 adults from now until September. $30 each extra adult. Kids under 16 always free with an adult.
The trick is to go upriver when they’re generating till you get into cooler water. The best days seem to be the weekdays when they generate more because they seem to not move much water during the weekends.
As far as the stripers on Beaver Lake go, well you can’t catch them any closer to Eureka than now. Just drive across the dam in the morning and you will see more boats fishing for stripers than any other time of year due to the deeper cooler water we have near the dam.
The fish we caught on our last outing here we did without having to kick on the outboard until we put it in the trailer. So since not getting too many calls due to so many preparing for the kids going back to school, with these big fish at my backdoor we are now doing a 4-hour striped bass special for 2 for $260 for the rest of August, but if you desire to give it a try on your own just get out there and drop a few shad, brood shiners or perch down about 40 feet deep and cruise with your trolling motor about .05 mph and you should have a rod or two go down hard.
Till next week enjoy the water while you can, for fall will be here before you know it.