Lake Ozark Fishing Report

On Saturday a friend and I began fishing near the dam at daylight.  The water was like glass and his boat glided across the lake.  What a beautiful way to start the day.

Lake conditions : 
Air temp was 55-75
Water temp 62-66
Slight breeze in the morning with increased wind in the afternoon.

Lures: (lures listed based on effectiveness. * indicates fish caught)

*brush hog - darker colors
*money minnow 6"
*sinko
*fluke - white
*jig - PBJ color
*spinner bait -chartreuse
shallow crank - chartreuse
medium depth crank bait - crawdad
buzz bait - chartreuse

We began the day working as a team. We both tried different lures until we figured out the pattern.  Our first fish was caught on a baby brush hog in 4-8 feet of water.  We immediately began to work the bottom with brush hogs and jigs.   Our best fish were caught while sitting in 15-20 feet while casting to the bank.  Most of the fish were caught at a depth of 4-10 feet with chunk rock on the bank.  We had very few fish in areas with pea gravel or sand.   By 830 we had six keepers ranging from 3.5 to 4.5 lbs.
By 930 the large fish simply quit.  I am not sure why they decided to shut down, but several conditions changed.  The temp began to rise, the wind picked up, then it clouded over.
It was time to try different tactics.  We tried deeper water, spinners, crankbaits, and several others, but had no luck.  We did find some large females on beds, but they refused to bite and were difficult to locate.
 
Fishing was slow the rest of the day and we called it quits when the storm rolled in around 2pm.
Overall - brush hogs were a hit in 4-10 ft on chunk rock banks.