I have to think five straight days of low 40s air temps and drizzle with low hanging clouds have put the fish in a rather neutral mood. This place needs some sun and thats it. A 3 day warming trend would be nice but in mid MO, thats an unrealistic expectation in mid March. My practice strategy was to try and find a couple groups of fish getting ready to move in the direction of the shallows but that has been kinda miss and miss so the last day or so has really been about trying to find places where some of those fish may be moving to when the sun does show it's face and then try and get bit in those areas, even a nudge on a jig would tell a guy hey, we are here, we are just not active YET... What few fish I have caught would lead me to believe that they are further back towards the flats than most would think they would be including me, two to six feet of water around prepared brush piles and if you get any kind of rock transition in the vicinity that is a bonus. So, given the above to be my theory, I plan to junk fish those spots in areas with a variety of techniques in hopes of figuring what presentation the fish want on the fly, not ideal but it's what I got.
So my first derby of the year is on Lake of the Ozarks and it starts Thursday. My folks still live there, on the 1mm of the main lake so I was able to get some insight into what the lake is like and what the weather had been doing and the news has not been good. The lake froze over bank to bank this year and I don't think it has done that since I was a kid and I was told that coves had a sheet of ice on them just a couple weeks ago and the water temps confirm that. I measured 39 at the mouth of the Gravois, 41 at the mouth of the Glaize and 43 at the mouth of the Niangua but in the backs of the creeks yesterday, I saw high 40s and even a 50 deg reading 3/4 of the way back in the Niangua but where it is warm it is hella dirty, oh, the lake is also at least 6 ft low, alot of the shallow cover, ie crappie beds, are sticking halfway out of the water around the docks in the back of the creeks. Muddy warm water would tell a guy to look at the shallow cover hard and I have but had minimal results doing so. I have also looked real hard at typical structure spots ie creek channel bend coming close to the bank leading into spawning flats, rock transitions etc and had terrible luck there too. Now the weather has been crap, 39 deg air and rain this am and predicted to blow 20-25 but later in the week it IS supposed to stabilize some in the mid 50s and some sun...finally. I really think some fish will start to get active come mid week, I just need to scout enough spots where I believe those fish will move to and be RIGHT. A BFL is going off today and I will get to the weigh in to see how those guys faired, watch a bunch of heavy sacks get weighed and I will feel totally lost.
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