1St Time On Table Rock Need Advice

[Polarkraft05]

In mid may ill be going to table rock for the first time.

will be in the long creek area.

what advice and tips would you guys give me, since i have never fished the lake before.

[Quillback]

This is a great forum, but for info specific to Table Rock, check out Ozark Anglers.com/forums. There's a TR thread in it and you can ask the same question you asked here, or you can scroll back to last May and read some of the reports.

[Polarkraft05]

ok thanks for the tip.

[Bluebasser86]

What are you hoping/planning on catching fish on down there? I will be down there the 3rd week of May myself and it's one of my favorite times of year to be down there. Topwater like spooks and sammys can be really good early. Spinnerbaits can be really good. Pretty much any finesse tactic can catch fish, I prefer dropshotting and shakeyheads. Splitshotting is pretty popular too it seems. The A-rig has caught some amazing bags of fish recently. I really like a jig that time of year also. For the most part you'll want to stick to natural colors in your baits.

[eyedabassman]

I will be down there May 19-26. I will be in the Kimberling City area. I will be talking to some builders. If this warm weather keeps up, I would say they will be in there summer patterns. The spawn is over by late April or early May on a normal spring. As the other post said about trying drop shot ect.

[Hooligan]

  On 3/14/2012 at 3:39 AM, eyedabassman said:

I will be down there May 19-26. I will be in the Kimberling City area. I will be talking to some builders. If this warm weather keeps up, I would say they will be in there summer patterns. The spawn is over by late April or early May on a normal spring. As the other post said about trying drop shot ect.

Nah, they won't be on summer patterns. They'll be on a normal pattern late post-spawn just like they always are. They're so influenced by photo-period on the Rock that the spawn rarely varies by date much more than a few days. You'll have fish spawn in waves all the way through May, but most will be April. I haven't really seen any changes in patterns for the most part. Some things are slightly advanced, but not drastically. I'm still catching lots and lots of jerkbait fish, and that's my indicator on some of those Highland reservoirs. It's not as advanced as some would make it out to be.

Like Quill said, that other place is an excellent read on the Rock.

[mocrawlin]

i like green pumpkin or mustard colored tubes, and peanut butter and jelly colored jigs. my biggest small mouth came on dropshot rig also. split shot works great also.

[srv1990]

Ditto what Quillback said, Ozark Anglers is the best I have found when it comes to information on Table Rock. In fact, a number of guides post on there and are very generous in helping out the rest of us. I only get there once a year, this year our trip is 5/16-5/20, we're staying at a place in Aunts Creek.

Interesting take by Hooligan, I would have thought this unseasonably warm weather would have triggered the spawn much earlier this year, creating a lot more fish on a post-spawn pattern by mid-May.

My preference leans toward split shotting a centipede or fish doctor (green pumpkin, watermelon green), swimming 5" single-tail grubs (green pumpkin, watermelon seed, smoke/black flake or clear/silver & black flake) and spinner baits. Have also had luck with dragging or hopping a shakey head jig with a 5" or 6" finesse worm.