Few Questions About A Lake Thats Stumping Me 2025
rockchalk06 reply :
Im kinda stumped here. What has worked for me for years and most every lake I have ever fished, does not apply here for some reason. Once you think you got something down, a lake like this pops up.
This lake is a bit over 1000 acres of pure structure heaven http://www.outdoorsok.com/Oklahoma/BellCow
It literly looks like they cut the tops of every tree in a forest off, then flooded the valley. It screams big bass. I know it holds some giant fish. At my local Academy, they have a bragging board of the different lakes. This lake has produced some big fish.
I talked with a guy today that pulled out a 9.7 pound LM. When he showed me the pictures on his phone, taken today with scale and tape, I was dumb founded. He has 3 double digit bass from this lake this year. PIctures to prove it. He released every one. Generally from talking to most of the people that fish here, they release about every bass caught due to the numbers being so large and the size of the bass caught. In Central Oklahoma, we don't get much for big bass, but this lake has its fair share. The main reason most release.
Top water has worked at most every place I have ever fished. At this lake I couldn't get a hit off a top water if I mouthed off to an MMA fighter and slapped his girl on the butt. Flukes, popr's jerkbaits, worms, lizzards you name it. Early AM, low cloud, sunny and evening no luck.
The west half of the lake is like mud. Very dirty with about 2 foot of visibility. Now the east half is crystal clear????
Most of the guys catching big bass have boats and are right upon the structure but several reports of guys from shore, swimming a jig or worm and getting lucky. Everyone so far has been having good luck on green colored jigs and plastics. I've tried about everything I can think of.
Any help would be great.
Nitrofreak reply :
WOW !!!
What a beautiful place you have to fish, first thought in my mind is tubes, amoung the timber I would be looking for something just a little bit different, all of the timber is pretty much vertical from what I can see, but look for timber that has a different angle in all of that stuff, like a 45 degree limb, a jig I would toss right up against the base of the timber and let it fall on a slack line allowing the jig to remain as close to the timber as possible all the way to the bottom, a small spinner bouncing off of the timber changing directions will or should attract attention.
No matter the cover, always keep in mind there is still structure the fish will use, look at the outer edges of that standing timber and you will most likely find some sort of creek channel or drop off, get a jig and put it on the edge of that shelf and let it drop over the edge of the channel, if you like worms then do the same with it, small cranks along the edge of that channel should be effective as well.
Don't be blinded by the amount of cover or how amazing it looks, structure is always key to how they find and use different variations of cover on any body of water at any given time, so be open minded.
fishking247 reply :
i would fish the stumps with a 10" worm...good luck
Siebert Outdoors reply :
I'd probably start on laydowns in 10ft or less water in the dirty water.
Crestliner2008 reply :
Good place for a Slammer or other large swimbaits. 
Fontana Finesse Man reply :
Like Nitro above, I would concentrate initially on the cover along ditches or creek channels and then work out from there. Muddier water, my weapon of choice would be a spinnerbait with double colorado blades on it, probably a 1/2 to 3/4 oz first. Then I would drag a jig around these same areas. Clearer areas, I would fish the timber vertical same type areas with a big worm, texas rig. Standing timber, I have always liked hanging my line over a limb to present it at different depths and just shake it.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/4/2012 at 8:15 PM, Nitrofreak said:WOW !!!
What a beautiful place you have to fish, first thought in my mind is tubes, amoung the timber I would be looking for something just a little bit different, all of the timber is pretty much vertical from what I can see, but look for timber that has a different angle in all of that stuff, like a 45 degree limb, a jig I would toss right up against the base of the timber and let it fall on a slack line allowing the jig to remain as close to the timber as possible all the way to the bottom, a small spinner bouncing off of the timber changing directions will or should attract attention.
No matter the cover, always keep in mind there is still structure the fish will use, look at the outer edges of that standing timber and you will most likely find some sort of creek channel or drop off, get a jig and put it on the edge of that shelf and let it drop over the edge of the channel, if you like worms then do the same with it, small cranks along the edge of that channel should be effective as well.
Don't be blinded by the amount of cover or how amazing it looks, structure is always key to how they find and use different variations of cover on any body of water at any given time, so be open minded.
Will do. I have to be careful of the fallen timber unless I am using weedless rigs. It is do dense that little gremlins steal your lures. I have lost a total of 14 jigs and to many cranks, hooks etc to count.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/4/2012 at 8:23 PM, fishking247 said:i would fish the stumps with a 10" worm...good luck
I will give that a shot next days off. I wondered about that large of a worm, but the fall is upon so it may work.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/4/2012 at 10:29 PM, Crestliner2008 said:Good place for a Slammer or other large swimbaits.
I forgot to mention swimbaits. If anything has a treble or exposed hook, the timber gremlins will get it! Its super thick. I have been using some 5" 4" and 3" Hollow body swimbaits weedless in about 5 different colors. I did catch a few small 10" Hybrid Bass, but nothing LM on them.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/5/2012 at 2:01 AM, Fontana Finesse Man said:Like Nitro above, I would concentrate initially on the cover along ditches or creek channels and then work out from there. Muddier water, my weapon of choice would be a spinnerbait with double colorado blades on it, probably a 1/2 to 3/4 oz first. Then I would drag a jig around these same areas. Clearer areas, I would fish the timber vertical same type areas with a big worm, texas rig. Standing timber, I have always liked hanging my line over a limb to present it at different depths and just shake it.
I will give the spinner baits a shot. Vertical jigging is out of the question for the most part as I am shore bound. Most of the structure is about 20 yards out from shore.
Nitrofreak reply :
Since you say the gremlins are over abundant there, and you are shore bound, I use a #2 gama offset hook straight shenk inserted into the tube on most of mine, depending on the tube size will determine hook size, depending on the tube diameter I will bend the hook to open just enough to make contact inside of the tube on both sides of the bait, when the fish bite down on the tube it will expose the hook for your hook set.
Like this, sorry I am not an artist and my cell phone camera has a focus issue but it gives you the general idea, it makes a great weedless presentation, T-rigged or weightless, I use it weightless.
rockchalk06 reply :
Thanks man. I will give that a shot too
deep reply :
Since we're talking about standing timber, I thought these pages might be of interest. I have preached this enough already, but anyone even remotely interested in catching larger than average fish should get a copy of this book IMO. Bill Murphy- In Pursuit of Giant Bass.
SPEEDBEAD. reply :
Deep, we need to meet up and fish. 
Nitrofreak reply :
On 10/5/2012 at 8:29 PM, deep said:Since we're talking about standing timber, I thought these pages might be of interest. I have preached this enough already, but anyone even remotely interested in catching larger than average fish should get a copy of this book IMO. Bill Murphy- In Pursuit of Giant Bass.
I have not read his book yet but it looks very interesting, We did cover that in the first post to some degree, since then we have found out that he is shore bound, we were tryng to give him the best suggestions we can for fishing the cover he has available to him from shore.
He said that most of the structure is at least 20 yrds off shore, now maybe he is not familure with the terms of cover and structure or he may not be able to reach that far out with his equipment, not really sure.
Trying to find productive structure from shore can be hard to say the least, but not impossible, trying to find lunker producing structure from shore, even more difficult IMO.
Bankbeater reply :
i would try hitting the side of the lake that is getting hit by wind. Maybe with a Rat-l-trap, or spinnerbait.
deep reply :
On 10/5/2012 at 8:44 PM, SPEEDBEAD. said:Deep, we need to meet up and fish.
Sounds good Speed, and I feel a little honored! Just let me know when and where, and my phone number is 434 327 97 zero eight.
deep reply :
On 10/5/2012 at 11:31 PM, Nitrofreak said:...
My mistake Nitro, I should have read your first post more thoroughly. I don't entirely agree with you (that one can not "target" big fish from the shore), but that may be because I fish tiny reservoirs, an order of magnitude smaller than rockchalk's.
Nitrofreak reply :
Hey that is what forums are for is it not? discussions and debates on everything? I never said it can't be done, I maybe should clarify what my thought was and see if it makes more sense, fishing smaller, narrower bodies of water, as you had stated ie...reservoirs etc.., may be somewhat easier but not as easy as one would think, it still takes a great amount of effort and searching from shore to find the structure that is productive, a difficult task in itself would you not agree? now that being said, how much more difficult would it be to find a piece of structure from shore that produces lunkers? much more difficult in my opinion, now throw in a large body of water as in this case a lake, still not impossible but the added difficulty has to be considered much greater in my opinion.
In my opinion you have to find the structure that lunkers lay claim too, on bigger lakes like the one in this post and like I like to fish, it is rare to find that kind of structure anywhere close enough to shore for someone to find, but come spring and fall, if you can get access to the shallows of these big lakes, lunkers are very much a possibility on a consistent basis at least for a few weeks or a little more.
So I am not saying you can not target big fish from shore by any means, I feel it is very difficult to do so on large bodies of water from shore, especially if you are looking for the structure that consistently produces bigger fish.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/6/2012 at 12:47 AM, Bankbeater said:i would try hitting the side of the lake that is getting hit by wind. Maybe with a Rat-l-trap, or spinnerbait.
I will give the spinnerbait a shot. As for anything with trebble hooks that isn't top water, it's snagged on the first cast. There is that much structure
Nitrofreak reply :
On 10/6/2012 at 5:13 PM, rockchalk06 said:I will give the spinnerbait a shot. As for anything with trebble hooks that isn't top water, it's snagged on the first cast. There is that much structure
You may be getting structure and cover mixed up, structure is the conture of the bottom, cover is anything on top of structure, in this case cover is what you are trying to fish, standing timber and timber that surrounds the standing timber.
pbrussell reply :
Are you fishing from the shore? I can't remember reading that you were or were not.
Anyhow, I would put money on some fish being located where the muddy/clear water meet. If there's any kind of structure in that area, all the better.
rockchalk06 reply :
On 10/8/2012 at 8:50 AM, pbrussell said:Are you fishing from the shore? I can't remember reading that you were or were not.
Anyhow, I would put money on some fish being located where the muddy/clear water meet. If there's any kind of structure in that area, all the better.
Yepper. Stuck shore bound for now.
You know, now that you say that, there was a guy last week just decimating the crappie population off the point where the water changes.
I was in the Academy today and talking with the guy at the fishing counter. He showed me another picture of a 6 pounder taken from Bell Cow Lake over the weekend someone brought in. Caught it off a SK jig in green pumpkin in the channel pitching it into some cover. I swear, I'm gonna build me a raft
piscicidal reply :
On 10/8/2012 at 8:50 AM, pbrussell said:Are you fishing from the shore? I can't remember reading that you were or were not.
Anyhow, I would put money on some fish being located where the muddy/clear water meet. If there's any kind of structure in that area, all the better.
<-- yes, this!
At least in Florida, you don't want to be fishing in muddy water, if you can help it. Ultra clear water will hold fish but can be tough, especially if you are fishing shallow. The fish will not be aggressive. I would focus on the stained water between the muddy and clear.
NEjitterbugger reply :
I would throw some topwater things to start, through or by weed cover aswell as a few casts over sunken debris, give the fish a chance to get up to your bait depending on the depth. Up north I have been real successfull with zara spooks latley.
Best of luck,
scaleface reply :
I have also had the frustration of fishing a heavily timbered lake with little luck. Just keep plugging away . My rule of thumb is the choppier the water the shallower the fish.
CPBassFishing reply :
Sounds like a pretty highly pressured lake. When I go to one I like to ask what most people are using, try that for a day, and if it doesn't work try something the bass probably have never seen.
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