Dropping a Line

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Four-year-old Elisabeth Whiteside with her father, Eric, from Shell Knob, Mo., with some nice trout we caught Sunday trolling flicker shad from Beavertown to Houseman Access on the Table Rock side of Beaver Dam. We went out after they kicked on the generators and were pumping cold water into Table Rock as it moved towards Holiday Island.

The best way to know is to look online see when they’re generating and just tell Google. (Beaver Dam generation schedule), then you will know the best hours to find the bait and fish that are a bit more active moving into the cooler water the river brings. Or just go upriver until you see the schools of shad on top and feel the cool air that comes with the cool water.                                       

If you’re fishing the warmer water, which is running about 83° on Table Rock and Beaver Lakes now, then it is best to go deep in the cooler water below the thermocline. Fishing off the bluffs and below the docks where you and the fish both have some shade in the cooler part of the day. Fishing at night now can also pay off especially if you put a light in the water in the standing timber off the bluffs side in the main channel.                 

Since it looks like this heat wave will be on us for awhile, we are going to start doing night and morning trips on both lakes going out for stripers on Beaver Lake. Pickups are at the dam and Starkey’s Marina at 7 a.m. to noon and 7 p.m. to midnight.

Also doing the same hours here at Holiday Island for crappie, and upriver for trout and walleye with the water flow which is generating mostly now from late morning till about midnight.

Well, that’s about it for this week. Fish still have to eat, but like us they don’t like the heat. Just fish the cooler hours or go upriver to find the cooler water. If fishing in the heat, wear something cool and if you get hot, take a break and go for a swim. With that I will close and take a kid fishing because kids love to swim and summer is not over in my world.