Lake of the Ozarks (2nd day Toyota Series)

[D.W. Verts]

In my search for a new boat I stopped in at today's second day weigh in of the MLF Toyota Series at PB #2 on the LOZ. While I wasn't fishing I did take in some good info just to pass on to UB members.

The lake is just about five feet down, water clarity throughout is fairly to very clear, with some decent stain up the major tributaries. Water temps are (were) coming up, with the average in the low to mid 40's. The day started at about 46 degrees, and it was 81 when I pulled into the parking lot at 1430 hours.

The bite is two weeks away from doing whatever you want to catch bass, and overall it should be described as a GRIND. However as always there were some decent bags over twenty pounds, and when I left the weigh in to go look at a boat the big bass was something like 6-15.

I will say that the bass I saw were beautiful and healthy, with some of them with HUGE bellies full of shad. I also saw some FINE smallmouth. Love the smallmouth.

The best bite seemed to come on the A-Rig (of course the top 25 weren't talking and I didn't even try) fished on mostly main lake and larger creek channel banks and swings. The jerkbait was also a key producer, with a jig/grub coming in at a far away third. The forward-seeking sonar guys were the ones tearing it up. By far, if you weren't looking at the bass you weren't hardly in contention.

There had to be shad close by, and there was reports of bass actually schooling (down with the shad) and herding them around. Apparently if you found that situation you could load up.

Sorry, but that's all I have. But the guys I spoke to are old friends and good fishermen- if you're going to be on LOZ soon this is where you start.

Dale