I want to like Woods.
 

I have started to fish Woods a little more over the last 9 months or so after seeing some of the monster bass that have come out of there. I spent about half the day Saturday riding around scanning that lake and have come to the conclusion that there is just not that much to fish off shore. I found a few places that had some structure on them but nothing like I was hoping for. I did not find any schools of bass, I did find a bunch of those stupid yellow bass. One of the spots I found had 4 big boulders side by side and I caught my lone small mouth off it. I thought it was a cat fish because it just kept digging and then all of a sudden it just blasted out of the water about 8 feet in front of the boat. I did catch one more largemouth in the grass on a frog. I want to keep trying the lake because the traffic seems lighter that JPP but man I can only handle so many single digit fish days.

Figure it out so you can tell me, I hate JPP this time of year.

I've never fished Woods either. I looked at the lake map on my Navionics app and that lake has a lot of offshore flats and small humps from what I'm seeing. That's where I would spend my time. Does it have submerged vegetation? There is a long flat/point that runs way out into the lake just west of a big bridge in the middle of the lake. It has 2 islands on this flat. That's where I would spend a lot of my time. It appears that the shallow part of that flat is roughly 6 feet deep all the way out to the end. There are lots of little points on that flat that drop off to 25 feet of water. Those would be key areas. I don't know if you've tried fishing there but it's just my suggestion. Sorry if you've already tried there and didn't find any fish. There are also quite a few small humps on the lake. I guarantee you that some of those have big rock or wood on them and that they hold fish. I enjoy studying lake maps and that has been one of the biggest keys to my fishing success in the last year or so.

A friend of mine and I go 1 time a year to Woods and the trip is always a blast. We go the first week of April and fish the bank grass with small spinnerbaits, wake baits or flip the holes and any wood in the grass. The picture is several years ago but we normally catch at least 1 over 5 and numbers of smaller fish. Both in the pic are over 5. http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2018...643093876e.jpg

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Good fish Shoe! I caught a nice one earlier this spring.

That picture of the yellow bass came from the left side of the point/islands you are talking about. I scanned some of the right side also and found nothing. I'm amazed at how little rock/wood anything like that is on that lake.

Forget the Bass. Fish the channel for crappie. Good spot in front of the pump station.

There were guys trolling that area while I was there fishing. They caught a few fish while I was around them.

In Hopes
 

Of finding the kind of fish I've heard about I've been down there probably 5-6 times. Never did much good and fished all over the lake different times of year. Last year there were huge grassbeds in the northwest bays. We threw everything at them except each other and had one small blow up on a frog. That ended a 17 hour day. No fish. Love to hit it but just no luck there for us. Maybe local fellas know better.

That's it. Im taking a trip there some time in the next couple of months. From looking at the lake map it looks like it sets up for the way I like to fish and I love a challenge. I didn't realize it had the quality of fish in it that it does or I would have already been there.

Clients caught 18 hybrids, 2 largemouth, and 2 catfish today on Priest.They didn't want a picture with the 12 lb channel cat.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d4c6376901.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0f25ae9cda.jpg

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Yeah, but you are trolling around..... Even Sambolie and I could catch fish if we drove around half the lake pulling A rigs ;)










Nice work Merv, I am just going to focus on JPP. I went to woods to dodge traffic mostly.

Live bait, shad.
A-rigs don't seem to work too well this time of year.
And even if I told you the exact location where the fish were caught, it wouldn't mean anything.
I took my clients to the same place we had caught fish the previous morning....no hybrids or stripers. Caught one 12 lb catfish.
Found fish in another location (that I had checked everyday for the past four days).
These fish are nomadic. A person has to check all the known hangouts til they are found.
Told a friend where we had caught the fish yesterday. He went and said no fish there today.....and I don't doubt him.

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Oh I don't doubt you, I've found that to be true. The offshore bass bite is the same way, ride around till you find them......

Interesting, basically what I told about topwater bite in the spring, but you decided to call me every name in the book and make fun of me.