Alright, I'm going to start with I've fished Gibbons some since my last report, but I'm only going to report when I find a notable change in the fishing. The game has changed since my last report.

From what we've seen, the fish are definitely under lily pads. The majority of the action we've had has been on the groups of lily pads near the boat ramp. Which is really good for me, cause I'm not hindered by the bumble bee we have for a motor.

Saturday the water temp was 76 as I recall. Sometimes it was windy, sometimes it wasn't, got a good variety of wind conditions. The bits I've noticed are as follows:

If it isn't chartreuse, it ain't no use.*

*With the exception of white frogs

Hollow body frogs are getting lots of action. On Sunday alone, I (just me, not the fishing crew in general) had 26 strikes at hollow body frogs alone. They are kinda half [censored] striking at it, or just striking near it, or I was a [censored] and jumped the gun in 25 of those 26 cases. Landed 1 fish. I am not convinced that all of them are striking because of food. I think some (most) of them are reaction strikes of something bouncing along their lily pads. This was consistent throughout everyone with us, very low hookup rate. (story of my life) They loved my white storm sexy frog, they loved my fishing buddy's black and chartreuse frog, not a big fan of my black and orange frog until I jerry rigged a chartreuse trailer into the skirts, then they kinda liked it. The vast majority of the bite on frogs is just before and as the sun is rising and setting. Can't really give you a good pattern of retrieval to work off of, it was kinda just so long as the frog was there and moving froggishly then they'd slash at it. If anyone has advice to increase our hookups, then we'll gladly give it a shot next time we're out there.

Weightless soft plastics were also doing reasonably well when the early morning and evening bites slowed down. We had best luck with flukes (used a chartreuse marker to add color). There were 2 gentlemen who turned us onto this route that were using sanko worms with good (better than us) effect. I think that a part of it is because the fish didn't have to commit all the way to the surface. It was slightly sub surface, and the hookup ratio was much better (I didn't have very many strikes, but the guy with me had better luck).

Tried a chatter bait along the edge, no dice.

Flipping and pitching can work as a follow up technique if you can find a very specific fish, but that is difficult because they are moving quite a bit.

Didn't bother to try a spinning bait because I ran off and forgot them at the house/truck.

And thats all I've got. If you've got questions, I'll be in and out a bit.


Outside of fishing, one thing bears repeating: Watch out for stumps. I know yall probably know alot more than me about boating in general, but we had 2 encounters with stumps, neither were above the surface. The first we were making a pull across the lake, and figured we were safe in 13 ft of water, nope. The other we were trying to back out of a lily pad flat and slammed our power head into it. Its better to get there late than never at all or with a big [censored] repair bill.

Ladies, and Gentlemen, until next time.

Great report

That's the report I've been waiting for. I have only fished Gibbons on a few occasions. One of my most memorable was throwing a Spro on the lilly pads and watching them explode through the pads. I had about the same luck on hook-ups but it was an experience I'll never forget. Unfortunately I like wade fishing but I guess they have eliminated that now.

Thanks for sharing the details

Yea, some days the Gibbons bass just slap their tails at the frogs. No idea why....aleady have full bellys and boredom I guess.

Wait a full minute and follow up with pulling the Senko just twichin along on the same path as the frog was just pulled.

Is Gibbons going to be open this weekend with all this rain?

Fished Sunday evening the 29th. Caught only about 20 in about 3 hours. The week before had 52 in 5 hours and buddy had 60 in about 6 hours. All of my fish came from deeper water. A lot of fish are still being caught up shallow. My buddy never fishes deeper than 6 ft and I never fish less than 10 feet so you can see they are really biting on any pattern you like to fish. This has been the best year so far that I have had on Gibbons and this will make 28 years that I have been fishing it.

You sure they are bass hitting the frog? Small gar will often slap at them in the pads when the frog is moving

I fish Gibbons a lot. I get a ton of gar hitting the frog.