Spent a few days up in Okieland at Lake Murray with the family. Good times. Fished a little (1-2 hours) on Tuesday and Wednesday and then from about 1-8 yesterday... Love that clear water.

First fish on Tuesday was a 14.5 inch smallie and I didn't take a pic because I thought I'd be catching many more 15+ inchers... Turned out that was the biggest of the trip! But wow is that place loaded with 10-14 inch smallies! At low light the bite gets ridiculous! You can catch them on anything: top waters, senkos, cranks, t rigged worms, finesse jigs. The best producers for me were a pearl senko and a green/blue strike king finesse jig. But when the sun was low they would annihilate the white H20 popper! No PBs but man those feisty little dudes are fun! I caught over 70 of the diminutive bronzies over the course of the trip with an occasional lmb in the mix...

Tucker Tower from below (I caught several smallies right here after taking this pic)


Most were about this size


Top of the tower...


Clear,cool water, hydrilla and rocks


Texoma is a much better bet for a quality smallie but if you want to check the species off the list and have a chance at 50 fish in a day then this is the spot...

I have been in the water at the base of that cliff where the tower is and a beaver swam right by me. I was snorkleing and it scared the [censored] out of me! I have also camped on a couple of the islands on the lake and it was a great time. Love it up there.

Nice pics.

Too bad about the red tide coming in the upper right of that 1 pic.

Sweet pics bud!

looks like some nice water to fish. I might just have to make it out that way.

That sure is some pretty scenery... I Love that clear water.
There's just something about those smallies.

Looks like a beautiful place! 70 fish in about 11 hours or so ain't bad either...

Went out to Lake Murray this morning. Didn't find any Smallies but I did fins some other fish. Everything was caught on a Bone colored Pop-R as seen in one of the pics.

Wish I could have found the Smallies!

First Fish...First Cast! What a big one!


Some more fish.


A little better.




Mush Better.


Nice Perch


Sunrise on the way.


It is a beautiful lake. Visibility was at least 6 feet. Water temp was 82.

Jon B you did better than me for variety and that lmb was bigger than anything I found... But if you go back anytime soon and wanna try the places I hit for smallies which were cant miss near sun up/ sun down...

1. Marietta's Landing: launch at ramp, go left and immediately start fishing the rocks heading towards the dam with a small finesse jig... Senko worked well for me too: white in the bright, dark in the dim...

2. Buzzards roost: launch and paddle to the tower directly across. Fish the point, the cove to the right... But it's the 2nd cove to the right of the tower that was really good. About 3/4 of the way into the back theres a tie off buoy. Both sides: senkos and finesse jigs. There's some timber and a good drop off back right side but there's a ledge all around the back that drops from 3-6 and they were everywhere along it...

gutcheck,

Thanks for the tips. You can bet I will be going back up there. If it wasn't for your tip on the white h2o popper I would have never picked up the Bone Pop-R. Plus you said to fish under Tucker Tower which I did and that is where I caught them all.

Thanks for the info.

Jon B-

Good to meet you today. Found a wad of smallmouth holding in rocks/ timber in the next creek south of Tucker Tower in 6-10 ft of water. Not much size to them. Biggest being 13 inches or so, but really fun on 6 lb test. Caught them on a drop shot Reaction Innovations Flirt in watermelon.

D.Thomas,

Nice meeting you too. Glad you found the smallies. Small fish are better than no fish...am I right? I still can't believe the fish I caught on that stupid Pop-R. Looks like I might have to try drop-shotting next time.

Was it a mad house at the ramp when you left? It was pure craziness when I left at noon.

Thanks for sharing.

Yep, I'll take small fish over no fish any day, lol. It was definitely a little crazy over there. There was a guy trying to launch a deep hull cruiser on that shallow ramp and finally gave up after about 15 mins of trying. By the way, i really like your yak setup! I'll definitely be coming back to this lake. I don't get to fish clear water like this very often! It's actually closer than some of the lakes I fish in E. Texas!

try Martins landing,put in at beach or closed down ramp and head west and hit all of the rock shorelines, short paddle and loaded with some nice size smallies and largemouth.