There is definitely bait in the lake but it is just not as plentiful as what it usually is for the spring and early summer. You will see balls of bait on the graph but there is usually entire coves filled with bait or in past you could see schools of bait fish that would stretch hundreds of yards and that is just not there. There was at least five times I can think of in January and February where you could see tens of thousands of gulls picking bait off the surface from flat creek island to eagles bluff after 2-3 days of bitter cold. There was so many birds it looked like it was snowing across the entire lake. Water warmed up and all the birds were gone overnight, probably because there was nothing to eat. I remember reading the post from the guy on the forum that caught the lake record blue this winter and he thought a large portion of the weight was just threadfin from a kill it had gorged on. Usually in april and may there will be so many threadfin spawning on every point that you will foul hook shad just about every cast, that just didn't happen this year. Usually the whites and hybrids will just sit on points and humps and wait for the bait to come to them but they are definitely on the move looking for bait this year. Finally a lot of the fish you do catch will just not have the weight they have had in the past for this time of year. Fish caught in april looked like it was already July they were so skinny. Palestine is certainly not the only lake like that this year. A lot of guys are seeing the same thing at other lakes based on the posts on the TFF. All you have to do is look at the LTSA weights and reports from their sand bass tournament this year. It will get better but this has definitely not been a good spring.

Good info guys! I feel like I'm getting a crash coarse for Palestine WB. I really appreciate it! Correct me if im wrong but the shad will spawn several times through the summer? So we should see a rebound pretty quick? and when the thermocline sets in it will concentrate the WB on the points, humps ect at the depth the thermocline is at?