Meyer Blog: Beaver Lake Wrap Up

I just got home from a decent showing at Beaver Lake. From my pre-fish, I was more than happy with the way it turned out. Let’s just say my pre-fish – “Sucked!”

It’s a decent sized lake. On the first day I stayed local and put only 1 keeper in the boat, a small twelve inch spotted bass.

On day 2 I ran up the river and fished the stained water with spinnerbaits. I caught one small keeper in the river. After about half of a day I ran down towards the dam and caught a nice 4 pounder on the Jackall Squirrel jerk bait. That was pretty cool.

On the final day of pre-fishing I returned to the dam area and caught a couple of small keepers. Once came on the jerk bait and the other on a Jackall MC-60 crankbait. I did find some pretty cool areas , some steep bluffs with deep trees.

On the first day of the event, I went out firing the jerk bait. I didn’t have any fish in the boat until I rolled up to this one bluff and put a limit in the boat in about 5 minutes. It was only 7.5 pounds, but it was a limit.

I was looking at the trees on the graph and I could see the fish on my Lowrance unit in the tree tops. They were all spotted bass and they were about 30 feet deep. I started swimming a small grub just above the tree tops and was able to get them to come up and eat it. I lost one 2 plus pounder right at the boat that could have made a big difference. That fish might have helped me make the top 20 after the second day.

On day 2 I went straight to the spot I caught the limit on day 1. I was able to put a limit in the boat really early and I culled a few times. They weren’t big fish, but they were fish. I left the area a couple of times to try to find bigger fish. That never happened, so I kept returning to the spot and catching more fish. I ended up catching over 25 keepers on the spot and culled up to eleven pounds and change.

Overall, it turned out O.K., especially after the tough pre-fish.

The spot ended up being a lot of fun on the third day of the event. I wasn’t in the tournament, but I had the pleasure of taking a soldier fishing for the day in the soldier appreciation tournament. We caught a lot of fish, but it was COLD. He ended up taking 3rd place in the tournament and we had a good time on the water.

Next up is Hartwell in South Carolina. Hartwell is a giant lake and although I have fished it a litle before and its a fun lake with a lot of blue back herrings, which leads them to eating the bigger baits. It should be a lot of fun.