Grand Lake get together.......Tackle Preparation

[carolina-rig-01]

Guys I know that some of you are driving great distances to fish a lake you have never seen before and because of all the tournaments on Grand, information is hard to come by online because everyone is so tight lipped. I thought maybe I would give you a very loose rundown on what tackle I would bring if I were you so maybe you can be prepared. I haven't been on the lake for a few weeks now so some of this information is past knowledge, some is tribal knowledge, and some is information passed on to me from some of my tournament partners that have been on the lake. I say this is a loose rundown because even the recent information is from before the monsoon we have been getting over the last week or so.

The water was a foot or two low before the rain and last I checked it was now a little over three feet high. GRDA is pulling water and they don't like letting the lake get too high because of flooding issues below the dam if they have to release a lot of water at once, so I would say we would be lucky if the lake is a few feet high when we get there if the rain stops.....on the other hand if the rain continues we may have high water, but it's anyones guess how high. A big pattern in the spring is fishing flooded willow trees that are all over the lake, if they are in the water. Flipping and pitching soft plastics as well as spinnerbaits and buzzbaits catch a lot of fish around these trees. Post spawn fish are often found on stretches of chunk rock that are either hauled in by dock owners or around bridges, medium and deep diving crankbaits are great in these areas if you bounce them off the bottom. Pre spawn fish can be found on long tappering points that lead into spawning coves, there are several of these points all over the lake so you may have to cover some water but when you hit the right point it can be game on. Everything from a carolina rig to a deep diving crankbait and anything in between can get you bit in these areas. Bed fish are a possibility for us as well and this is pretty easy to figure out so I won't go into details. There are lots of docks on this lake and tons of them have brush piles planted around them, these are always a wildcard as well.

Here are some of my favorite baits and favorite colors. I know that chances are, not everyone shares my love for these same baits so the chances of everyone having the same baits in the same colors are slim. So you might just use this as a guide to help pick and choose what you do want to bring.

Crankbaits

Spro Little John
Bomber (model 7a)
Bomber Fat Free Shad (bd6f)
KVD 1.5

These are just some of my better producing crankbaits. In muddier water Firetiger is tough to beat. As the water starts to clear then I like Sexy Shad, Tennessee Shad, Ghost Minnow, Rootbeer Chart., Brown and Green Crawdad colors. Basically if it has some form of chart. in it you can't really go wrong then as the water clears I start replacing the chart. with more natural colors.

Spinnerbaits

For flipping and pitching spinnerbaits I found that Stan Sloans spinnerbaits do really well and their head design comes through brush better than most other styles. However they are hard to find and Booyah is a close second as far as coming through brush. If I am chunk and winding them I like War Eagle. White/chart. is tough to beat in dirty water and then I like more natural shad patterns in the clear stuff.

Soft Plastics

There really isn't a soft plastic bait that doesn't work well on this lake. But for flipping and pitching I seem to like Baby Brush Hogs the best with Chigger Craws probably being a close second. Tubes are a great flipping bait here too. Dragging around Powerworms can load the boat for you as well. Normal colors though, all shades of greens and browns if the water is clear. If it's muddy then I like black/blue, tequilla sunrise, redbug, and probably my favorite is bullfrog by Zoom.

I know this probably isn't much help but maybe it will give you an idea of what baits you really don't want to forget. If it were me I would bring everything and leave what I don't need in the truck so it's still there if I need it.

If your interested here are a few links you can check out. The top one is the page that shows you the lake level and the second one is Grand Lake fishing reports.

http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/PENS.lakepage.html

http://grandfishingreport.com/pgs/reports/reports.htm (Ivan Martin is the only fishing report I would pay attention to)

[Jrob78]

Thanks Kory! I was getting ready to post a thread asking similar questions. Good post!