First time at a lake

[lenogris]

I have a tournament coming up, and I only have one day to pre-fish this new lake. We are going to Ft. Gibson lake in Oklahoma. Both myself and my boater have not been there. I was checking out navionics and google maps looking for good locations to hit during our pre-fish. I wanted to get a few opinions and ideas where we should start.

 

I'm looking first to the island north of the dam, then the docks and channel to the east of the dam, and finally there is a good looking point up to the north west.

 

I'm still new to bass fishing so im not quite sure of my selections.

 

Thank you all for the help. I have already learned quite a lot here, and went from no fish in our first tournament to 5th the following one. 

[Darren.]

Welcome aboard! Tons of tournament fisherfolk

here on the forums. I'm sure they'll start chiming

in soon to help ya.

[BrianinMD]

Do you know any kind of information on what stage they are in, water temps, etc......

[lenogris]

local wildlife department says its 62 and 24 feet up and murky. as to what stage im not really sure, my first season so im still trying to figure that stuff out.

[Bassin' Brad]

I fished a lake last week right in that area and they were in post-spawn. They were hitting on T-rigged senkos white and chartreuse spinnerbaits with Colorado blades, swim senkos and my buddy was throwing a craw or beaver style black and blue flake plastic with good success. We found a lot of our fish on grass and wood in 2'-4' of water. Anyways hopes that helps. Good luck to ya. 

[lenogris]

Thanks for the breakdown. That is very good info.

[RoLo]

 

A lake chart without contour lines is like a platter without food 

 

Problem is, canals, points, narrows, creeks, bottlenecks, etc. are all visible to everyone,

but the meat-&-potatoes of chart analysis is usually not revealed by the shoreline 

 

Roger

 

 

[MO_LMB]

Traditionally they say Ft. Gibson fishes shallow, and when the water is UP fish DOWN lake. If it's really 24 ft. above normal pool, you're going to have a ton of flooded bushes to flip if you want. If they are pulling water and the lake is dropping I'd be fishing a topwater. Ranger creek is a popular area, as well as Toppers. I'd probably have a buzzbait, spinnerbait, and a jig to flip bushes on. Maybe a shakeyhead/senko too. 

[lenogris]

Sorry about that. I wanted to put up some pics from the navionics webapp, but it is not working at the office. Best I could come up with was the google map and put in the areas I noticed on the sonar chart.

2 minutes ago, MO_LMB said:

Traditionally they say Ft. Gibson fishes shallow, and when the water is UP fish DOWN lake. If it's really 24 ft. above normal pool, you're going to have a ton of flooded bushes to flip if you want. If they are pulling water and the lake is dropping I'd be fishing a topwater. Ranger creek is a popular area, as well as Toppers. I'd probably have a buzzbait, spinnerbait, and a jig to flip bushes on. Maybe a shakeyhead/senko too. 

It may be lower than 24 feet now. last report was on the 9th. I had heard 15. What do you mean by fishing down lake?

[MO_LMB]

Up - Up the river to the north 

Down - Down lake by the dam 

Also, keep in mind most tourneys launch out of Taylor's Ferry, and fish are typically released there, so you can always probably find a few transplants there around the takeoff.

[lenogris]

Ok sweet thanks for the info. ill keep everyone posted Sunday night let you know how we do pre fishing.

[lenogris]

Turns out they were 27 feet up. We did no end up going as we were told they were closed. Heard a bunch of docks and marinas had flipped and quite a few boats were lost.

 

We will have to go into the tournament blind, but hopefully thanks to the help here we will do good.

[MO_LMB]

When's the tourney? 

You'll have tons of flooded cover to flip an pitch, but you'll run into the issue of what to throw at... it will be everywhere and it will all look good. I'd probably be flipping bushes that are on points or throwing a spinnerbait around the cover.

[lenogris]

June 4th. hopefully it will come down a bit before then.

[lenogris]

Lake is still closed. Tournament was move to Greenleaf. should be able to prefish Saturday.