Norfork Cystic fibrosis

[Bishop]

14 or 15 lbs won with several other large bags. Water temps around mid-lake area between Henderson and Tracy area were 59 main lake and up to 65 in the backs of the smaller cove's. We didnt do so hot once again we were stuck on two keepers.

We fished the backs of these smaller pockets and could not catch a keeper even though the temps were 5 degrees warmer than main lake.

The two keepers we grabbed late in the tourny on a main lake bank that we knew had a ledge on it that was shallow. We caught them by throwing wacky rigged trick worms at the drop off of the ledge. This was after the third pass by the ledge. We continued fishing it trying to pull a limit out of our wazoo's but it just didnt happen.

The other people in the tourny we talked to said they went north from mid-lake which means going back in the river arms that feed the lake. Didn't manage to get a water temp out of em. But they did say the water was quite stained up there. And they managed to catch 10 lbs plus. Im guessing those big bags came from somewhere around that area of the lake.

I should have listened to the two fella's that replied to my post about my outing and just headed north looking for the shallowest stained water that would be the warmest possible in the lake. :-[ :-[

No one that we talked to that fished anything short of a full blown multiple mile long creek arm with stained water even had a limit.

Needless to say we were fighting high winds big rollers and gin clear water where we were at. Man i gotta learn to listen! lol

Edit edit ! The limit on all species was 15 inches for this particular tournament. We easily had a limit if we were able to keep the 12 inch smallies and spot's as in most other tournaments in the area. But Big Largmouths were the ticket for this one!

[TommyBass]

I love that lake... my family has boated there for years.  I have tried fishing it several times and only did marginal.  Im not used to a lake that size with water that clear.  Mid summer i fished a boat dock and caught a limit in probably 15 casts, for some reason they were schooled there.  Other than that I have fished a few deepr brush piles and did good, along with some main lake points... but like I said thats summer.   I have snorkeled around there quite often and found several giant bass swimming around the cliffs and ledges around the Jordan area.    

If I were fishing your tournament I would have been up there in the creek arms with those boys... stained water is much easier to fish in my eyes, plus probably warmer than the main lake clear water.

[jacker]

I have similar story!

I had my first tourney which was 2 weeks ago.  It was on lake wisconsin and the water was cold. On pre fish we started searching for the warmest water we could find and found that wayyyyy back in the backwaters the water was like 9 degrees warmer! and very stained.  We cought 16 lbs for 6 fish and let a few spit the hook.

That night the temp dropped from 65 to 30, the water droped 9 degrees where we were fishing the day before.  We fished the back bays for alitle bit but with no bites we quickly moved to adjacent deep water from where we were catching them yesterday.  we THOUGHT they would have moved deeper.

The funny part is that the winning team cought their limit in the same back bay as we were fishing the day before!!!!! if we just would have stayed there, we would have cought our limit!