Advice for Philpott

[CrMiller]

Since there is a Big BASS tournament this weekend at SML with over 500 boats entered I was looking to possibly take a young family member out to Philpott fishing. He is new to fishing and I personally have never been to Philpott so any input you guys could give to make our trip a bit more enjoyable would be great.
I plan on obviously fishing for some LM but we may also tie on some Lindy rigs and shad raps and pull some ledges for Walleye. Where to put in? Areas of lake to target or avoid?

Thanks in advance.

[johnr]

I spend a bit of time there. Actually most of my time. We skunked last evening for the first time this year and the first time in maybe a few years.

My advice would be to fish the lower 2/3 of the lake now due to some stained to muddy water in the upper end.

If you just wanna catch fish, pull shiners in 10-15' of water on freelines and splitshot lines off the back of the boat. This will catch just about any gamefish swimming there this time of year. I tend to leave the night crawlers and spinners at home until the water is solidly into the 70s. It was 61 yesterday.

Walleyes can be very scattered now. I've gotten them in just a couple feet all the way down to 20+' at this time of year. It's a wide swath of comfortable water for them right now. A lot of times they are suspended 10-15' down in 20-40'. Bass are the same, but with the spawn approaching a lot will be tight to the shoreline.

Finding bait is always a good sign in the spring.

[CrMiller]

Thanks for the advice johnr! Luckily I have a couple dozen shiners and creek chubs in a home bait tank from the last couple weeks I need to get out to make room for shad so seems like this is the perfect opportunity!

Again, thank you because I want to make it an enjoyable trip for a new young fiaherman!

[31Airborne]

The CoE ramps at Philpott are superb. Have never used the marina ramp near the dam end but it looks nice - plenty of room to back in and tie off.

I've fished the Pott twice this time of year (FoM tournaments) and both times I was able to find bass shallow (<5') in backs of creeks and coves/cuts. The more brush along the shoreline the better. Don't be bashful about skipping a fluke into that brush. Cover the open areas of coves, creek backs with a rattle bait or squarebill crankbait (Rayburn red was especially good to us during our outings). Do not ignore points (main lake and secondary). We caught our better fish holding on points as they were moving up. We were also surprised with a couple of nice walleye on those same points. Jigs (natural colors w/ small profile trailers) worked best for us.

We fared better up in the stained water (~3-4' of viz). We did catch fish in the clear water (and it's gin-clear) but that's not our forte. To John's point, find the bait and you'll find the fish. If you don't see bait move until you do.