Mia McDowell, daughter of Keone McDowell and my niece from Holiday Island, got to see that some of our freshwater fish have teeth like the saltwater fish she was raised fishing for. Too bad she didn’t get to taste since this one was released after a quick pic.
Walleye have to be 18 inches to keep and they love the cool water that the rain brought. Most all warm water species are moving up toward the top and into the creek arms. We dropped a good 10° on our water temp in the dam area and I got 68° in Leatherwood Creek at Holiday Island Monday afternoon. We were going for a pic for this report but best we did with only a hour before losing the sun was some small white bass and our little walleye.
The big females were with big balls of bait but they didn’t go, I do believe the morning with a bit more time we might of been having walleye and white bass fillets for dinner instead of soup.
We did have two trips on Beaver Lake last week but it was the two cold mornings that we started with temps below freezing and a north wind that turns people and fish off. A lot of boats were fishing for stripers in the dam area Saturday, but we heard no noise from no one.
Stripers are in the move south and should be starting to show up more in the Prairie Creek area near Rogers for a good shallow bite that goes on until our water temp drops below 48°, which is usually about January.
Look for stripers in that 30-foot water and take off some weight. Same goes for most our warm water bait now. Look in the shallows and on the surface more.
Best live baits for stripers are shad, brood shiners, black salties and perch. Best artificial baits are big top water baits. Here around the Island fish in the creeks and off the flats trolling crank baits that get down 6 – 12 feet, then throw a top water bait, a crank bait. Minnow or jig.
Well, I have to go now, we got some cool weather coming, so enjoy for the bite is on.