Hi all,
Well the good news was it was a perfect day on the water. As for conditions, my thermometer broke when we were loading up so I don't know exactly what it was, but it felt colder than 60 degrees for sure. Visibility was poor with murky conditions. Lake was spilling over so it is full. Weeds and cover were much more pronounced than when my boys and I shore fished 2 years ago here. Shore fishing would be difficult for most of the lake with current conditions. If you do tackle it, the most open area was around the spillway.
We only managed 2 small bass all day. We did not see any fish on beds even in some of the clearer areas. We trolled minnows plain. We tried BBC, John Deere, Fire Tiger Kalin grubs. We tried with minnows and without. We had 2 pole stamps so we tried Panther Martins, small white crank baits and nada. We put in a full day getting on the water at 8 AM until 5 PM. We varied speeds as slow as .5 mph and tried some passes at 1.2 mph. As for depth we tried putting the bait on the bottom and brought up in 2 ft. increments. I don't have a depth finder on my Porta-Bote so I'm not sure (but it seemed to vary anywhere from 7 - 15 ft in and around the coves). It is quite shallow where the river comes in on the North side. Also seems to be a place spawning crappie would set up shop.
I will try to post pics from my IPhone when I figure it out. It keeps telling me my file is too large for even one picture for the website. As for boat launch, it is very narrow. There is no way I'd be able to get the Ranger back in there.