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Fishing Reports

Fishing Report For Week Ending July 5, 2013

Friday, July 5, 2013

This holiday week marked a week of bass transition to summer hideouts.


This week was a tale of two halves.   The first half of the week, continued the great big fish bite due to heavy dam generation, on points, bluffs, bluff end and deep banks near the main lake channels and the second half, seaching for those quality bass that have began to move to their summer hideout locations as Ameren started to slow down the generation of water through the dam.   The lake this week has been generally close to full pool with steady to slightly rising water levels.   With the light generation later in the week, the water level is steady to slightly falling.   What does all of this mean, well the fish are changing their location as the lighter generation will no longer bring the food tray directly to the bass along the main lake channels.  Early in the week, quality fish 3, 4 and 5 pounders were being caught with relative consistency with heavy jigs, big worms and deep diving crankbaits in 15′-30′ of water.  Later in the week, fish began to scatter.  Later in the week some quality fish were being caught shallow close to these same deep water points, bluff ends and bluff ledges.   A good indication of the change in the fish are night time tournaments, where in the past weeks, it was taking 20 pounds plus for a fish limit to win, this week, 17 pounds of fish were paying tournament checks.   Next week should be an interesting week as the quality bigger fish will be a bit harder to find and catch.  In the words of Bassing Bob expert, Wayne Fitzpatrick of Fitz Fishing Bait and Tackle, “you will have to hunt them down”.

 

So, what to do??   According to Bassing Bob experts James Dill of Crock-o-Gator Baits and James Dill Guide Service, he will be checking for fish on bluff ledges where fish will hide out next to big rocks or brush.   James will be throwing big jigs, shaky heads with big worms and swimming worms and swimming jigs.  He suggest dropping the heavy stuff down from ledge to ledge and swimming worms and jigs around those points, bluff ends and deep docks and let the fish tell you what they want and how they want it.

The quality bass during the day during summertime at Lake of the Ozarks will often move to deep brush piles off of points, brush piles off of the deep end of docks or big rocks in deep water.  The fish will come shallow to eat during low light areas or if we have several days of overcast skys.

Also, do not overlook shallow opportunities as well.   As the generation of water shuts down, the bait fish seem to get shallower, in the water column as well as a move toward the backs of big coves.   As, Bassing Bob Guest Advisor, John Neporadny suggested during Bassing Bob July Expert Roundtable (see video) fish shallow in the darkest parts of docks.

Bait fish are also being seen getting a bit shallow in the backs of coves and around condominium docks, when you see bait fish surfacing in these locations, try a shallow running crankbait, spinnerbait, top water (especially if you see bass surfacing to eat these shallow bait fish) and wacky style worms.

This should be an interesting week, as the fish transition into summertime hideouts.

We would welcome your fishing report and pictures, just send details to info@bassingbob.com.  Also, add your comments and pictures to our forums, facebook and picture galleries.

 

Below are some pictures from this past weeks fishing at the Lake of the Ozarks.

 

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