So our local club(35 guys in it total) fished a 3 day tourney on Rayburn this past weekend. I prefished some Friday so a recap of all 4 days. We stayed at Tiger Creek lodge and used Umphreys and Mill Creek as our launch points.

Friday- launched at Mill Creek and it was quite windy so stayed on that side of the lake hitting cuts and pockets. Actually had quite a few fish bite just letting the wind push me down the banks on a white chatterbait. Had some issues with my prop so cut my fishing short and headed to the lodge. Water temps in the mid 60s and kinda stained in the areas I was checking.

Sat- with the cold front that rolled in the boat was nice and frosty to start out. We launched at Umphreys and I hit all kinds of stuff working my way up lake into the Ayish/Mill creek arms. Ended up burning 9 gallons of gas which is a lot in my Tracker. had a 5 fish limit but they were all cookie cutter 14.5" fish so weighed 8.56lbs. Prob caught 12 fish on the day using a Mister Twister Buzz bug in rayburn bug and also white and green pumpkin chatterbaits fished around any shoreline cover you could find. If it was 1" deep still throw at it. Haygrass didn't seem to work as well as it did in practice was more just the wood cover on the bank. Leader for day 1 had 15.5lbs and I was in 5th.

Sun- launched from Mill Creek ramp so I went south to the pocket just below that and fished every inch of shoreline moving back out towards the main lake. Warmed up really nicely that day and the fish were biting. Caught 14 or so bass total and had another 5 fish limit for 8.96lbs. Again flipped the Buzz bug and threw the chatterbait around anything from 3' deep and shallower. Also mixed in a Cliff Pace swimjig as it got really calm and they seemed to like it. Leader had like 7lbs that day so was sitting 6lbs behind or so.

Mon- started off warm and not windy but quickly become cloudy and windier as the day went on and that big front started moving in. We fished day 3 as a combined single/team event so had a partner with me. We hit haygrass early and he put 2 in the boat using a bream colored jig with a craw trailer that he was swimming around the cover. We moved around quite a bit hitting anything that looked good then just decided to focus on the shallow shoreline cover as we only had 6hrs to fish. We went way back near the old road bed in the Mill Creek arm and started burning water. We got into one area and it was really Fun for like 10 mins as we had 9 fish come into the boat and missed numerous others. Not all were keepers but he managed to put 2 more in the livewell and I kept finding ways to lose fish... I think I was mentally exhausted at that point after 4 days on the water as I had 4-5 fish just randomly get off due to my errors- running into the trolling motor, holding rod high not low as she jumped, setting the hook and not realizing I was too close to him so not a good hookset, etc. He lost a giant that stripped drag and just came off. We guessed 8lbs or so but hard to say being so dark due to the clouds. Was super shallow so all sorts of dirt stirred up too. Swim jig, chatterbaits in any color, and his jig used as a swim jig all worked Monday. We prob had 25 bass of all sizes make it into the boat and missed who knows how many. Prob some other lure that would/could have worked better but we had a good time. Went to the weigh-in and he had 8lbs and the leader ended up with 36lbs all together. I had 17 since I zeroed the last day.

Recap- water looked amazing all week. Water temps from 56-65* all across the lake from powell point to backs of mill creek to umphreys. Would have loved to have a foot or so more water( lake was 2.3' low) to have more stuff to throw at shallow. I couldn't get a bite deeper than 3' but that was just me others in the club worked well deeper from what they said. Chatterbaits and swim jigs and flipping worked best for me. Covered water and hit anything that looked good even if it was barely in the water. Attached are a few pics.

Nice Rudy. The little man is smiling it up! That's awesome.

Fivebites- yeah 3 of the guys brought their sons with em and we all let them "help" us hold fish for the pics! They loved it!!

Nice write up.

More pics from the trip. Love being on the water!

Great pics!

And nice recap.

Solid post. Thanks for sharing.

Yup no grass this year. The big numbers are 15ft+

looks like y'all had a good time. Great pics

Great report and pics.
Rayburn is quite a special lake. We saw 6 bald eagles fishing there a couple weekends ago.

They are all over around that area.

+1.