Kayak fished below the Mansfield dam this morning for 4 hours. 3 of us caught only 4 LMB. Saw lots of 2-4 pounders but no luck getting them to hit. Last hour of fishing they were letting water out thru the dam.

At least ya didn't get skunked! How deep where the 2-4 pounders that ya saw?

I fished it in May and ot the same results. One fish in about two hours. Same thing though, saw alot of cruisers with nothin doin.

All the fish we saw were in 2-5' of clear water. Saw some big carp, some Gaspergou(sp), some perch(bream?), and many LM bass.
Two bass boats had worked the area right before we got there, and I think that most of the bass saw us before we saw them. The area was mossy with lots of clear spots scattered around, and we would usually see the fish when they cruised across the clear spots. Looking upriver toward the dam, the areas that held the fish were mainly on on the left. We didn't reach that area until about 9AM. When they let water out from the dam, the current was about the speed of a fast walk except right close to the shoreline. I thought that maybe the current would trigger a bite but it didn't (at least for us). By then we were french-fried so we drank a cold beer and went to the house.

As to the forked tail fish I saw below the dam. They were not freshwater drum (I looked at pics of the drum), and they were not catfish. Most of them appeared to be 12-24" long and looking down at them vertically they were fairly slim side-to-side and fairly deep from top-to-bottom. They did not appear to hug the bottom like a carp, and they were always in a school of at least 2 or more fish. Anyone know what kind of fish they are?

Were they smallmouth buffalo?

Probably big gizzard shad

Sounds like giant shad to me.

Is that the Guad that guy is on?

Could have been big shad. Thanks