April Fools, Not…Big Girls Are Biting

19mm – 15mm of the Osage, last secondary points and creek channel banks leading to spawning pockets with docks. Working all baits slow but stick bait medium to fast.

Today I got on the water about 1:30 and the lighting and thunderstorms drove me off the water about 4. My plan today was to move out the Glaize and try to replicate the good bite I have had the past week in the upper-lower Glaize to the mid Osage area, along with checking other baits than the stick bait. As I have been fishing the Glaize, I was targeting the back 1/3 of coves all the way back the shallow creek beds leading into the coves. The bite started off slow in the first couple of creeks just outside of the mouth of the Glaize, catching only a few short fish on a jig and Carolina Rig Brush Hog. My strategy today to check this pattern was to try different baits and if no bites then throw the stick bait to verify if fish are present and biting or not in these areas. I found that I could get a few short bites on the Carolina Rig and Stick Bait in a few creeks. Then after a few adjustments, I caught 5 keepers, 3 small keepers, one fat girl and one giant. The fish are definitely getting into spawning areas, however, each creek was different. Some creeks the bite came well before the back of the cove on creek channel banks, mostly catching them on the sick bait and a few on the brush hog. While some of the other creeks in the area I was fishing the bite was stronger and bigger fish closer to the backs of the creeks, about 10′ of water or less. I caught 2 keepers on the Carolina Rig, 1 on the jig and 2 keepers on the stick bait, most of the keeper bites on the stick bait came working the bait medium to fast either on the side of a dock or over the top of brush piles well off the banks, but banks/cuts/gut of creeks very close to spawning areas.