3/31/2008


Water Temperature Middle South Main Channel – 55 Rising
Water Level = 4 Inches Above Normal pool and Steady
Water Clarity = Murky, Cloudy
Last Rain = 3/31/2008

Looks like we have a report from Steve and the Juice from the Saluki Bass Club.

Hey Mike, just wanted to give you the info on last night. James and I fished last night and had a pretty good time. We took my buddy Casey Murphy and this was his first trip to LOE since he got back from Iraq a couple months ago. We had pretty good luck throwing spinner baits with copper colored Colorado blades through the weeds. James aka "The Juice Man" boated a damn nice fish that ended up weighing 3lb. 10 oz. (thanks digital scales). Murph and I each caught 2 around a pound to a pound and a half, and Juice caught 2 more about the same size. I started off throwing some black jigs but it was so windy out that I gave up on it and decided to fish a faster bait. It ended up being a great trip, mainly because Murph had a blast, so much so that he's planning on buying my old boat from me so he can fish the lakes more often.

Talk to you later--Steve and Juice

Thanks to - Steve and Juice

Bass fishing on LOE is very good. If you can't catch'em on cranks or spinners try bottom bouncing some black rubber from the shore out 20 feet.

Crappie on the other hand... I'll try again this week.

Fish On!
Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

03/26/2008
Middle South Main Channel – 52 to 54
Water Level = 6 inches Above Normal Pool
Water Clarity = Murky,Cloudy (a little better than muddy)
Last Rain = 03/23/08

Here’s the best crappie report I’ve received this year. It’s from my well sort of a buddy Steve. He has been fishing some strip pits in the Bellville, IL area and he writes…

Hey there Bald-e-locks!!! How's the fishin'?? Been hitting the strip mines up here last few weekends......spankin' there as…!! 2 Saturdays ago, me and a buddy cleaned 38 crappie and 8 eater bass. On Sunday, we cleaned 26 crappie and 10 eater bass. This past weekend we fished only on Sunday and me and him cleaned 31 crappie and 7 bass. Had 8 fish over 1 1/4lb. Some real slabs!! Freezer is damn near full already.........Guess I 'll have to break down and give dip…(dad) some??!!

Steve’s a little on the rough side. Gives rednecks a bad reputation. His command of the English language is well, challenged. But he can catch fish and kill ducks so he is sort of a friend of mine.

Here’s a LOE bass fishing report. While I was fixing a dock yesterday a couple of guys fishing snuck up on me and shouted “Hey do you need any help?”. At the time I was hanging precariously over the side of the dock (Steve that means I was damn near in the water) attaching a strap. I was startled so bad I almost ended up in the water!

They stopped laughing long enough to tell me they’ve been hammering the bass fishing a crawdad colored crank bait. It looked like a medium diving Killer B but could’ve been a Rapala. And they said as active as the bass are they believed almost any bait fished towards the banks would catch fish! They told me to keep it a secret.

He who gets the last laugh…

Fish On!
Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

03/25/2008
Middle South Main Channel – 50 to 52
Water Level = 6 inches Above Normal Pool
Water Clarity = Murky,Cloudy,Muddy
Last Rain = 03/23/08

Man, it was ugly out there. It was windy, cold, dirty, muddy and if you were crappie fishing it was slow as molasses in, well in March on a cold, windy, dirty muddy weekend. And in true LOE form the bass fishing was hot! At least for those who used finesse baits, jigs, or all sorts of rubber and presented it slow in 3 to 10 feet of water. More than 1 limit of 5 fish were caught that weighed 19 plus pounds! 3 to 5 pounders were on the list and black was the color!

But back to the crappie. Jim and Dick were on the lake. I was with them briefly on Friday. Jim reports -

If you count putting line and a lure into the water, we fished Friday and Saturday. The water was down about 4.5' from the peak of the flooding on Tuesday and was it muddy. Plus we tossed in strong winds and we couldn't convince the fish to eat.On Saturday am, we did find two crappie within about 5 minutes of each other and that was our exciting weekend. Great time to talk and solve the world's problems which were in fine shape by the time we left Mike off Friday night. Not sure now come they are screwed up again now.Mike should be very busy this year. Docks damaged or gone all over the lake. Fortunately they are moving the forecast for this weeks rain back some so things might settle down a little bit. Rivers should mostly peak today.

Steve Nemeth & James Bradley from the Saluki Bass Club have offered to give me reports of how the bass fishing is on the different lakes they fish during the year and of course LOE. Welcome Steve and James! Steve reports -

I finalized the stuff on my new boat yesterday and were going to LOE Monday. my buddy James and I caught 5 or 6, 2.5 to 4 pound bass at the Crab Orchard visitor center pond with a chartreuse spinner bait and a giant Colorado style blade. If you get the chance they are biting pretty good out there right now!

Thanks,
Steve Nemeth, Saluki Bass Club

You're welcome Steve, and...

Fish On!
Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

3/21/2008

Water Temperature - North & South End 52 In The Main Channel
The back waters have warmed into the upper 50's !

Lake Level From Normal Pool - Plus 1 Feet & Falling
Water Clarity - Extremely Muddy!!

All roads and ramps to the lake are open and accessable.

Fish On!

Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

3/20/2008

Water Temperature - North & South End 52
Lake Level From Normal Pool - Plus 2 Feet & Falling
Water Clarity - Extremely Muddy!!

The picture on the front page was taken yesterday at 11:00. At the time the lake was 3 foot over the dam. The lake topped out sometime early in the morning at 4.5 feet. I believe this is a record for LOE.

The water conditions are terrible. Besides being very, very muddy there are trees, branches, docks, pieces of docks, and boats floating freely. If you have to be out there slow it down and be very careful!

I am for hire and will fix all your dock problems as well as building you a new dock. So if you need a repair or your docks not there, give me a call at 618-995-1296.

I probably won't find time for fishing this weekend but Jim and one of his 2 Dicks will be. I'll report their results. In the meantime...

Fish On!

Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

03/18/08

I spent most of the day helping a customer with a flooded walkout. Couldn't stop the water. Helped put things up and out of the way of the water. Installed a floor pump and told them to call their insurance agent. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop it.

Got a call from a customer informing me her dock was 8 inches from floating off its anchor pipes. Tried to get to her but the road was flooded out. Called her back and told her to pray the lake wouldn't raise much further.

Another customer called me and gave me a dock job on the spot. Their dock was last seen heading down the main channel.

I had to cut my boat loose from the dock. It was tilted on its side and full of water. There was 3 feet of water over the dock. At normal pool the dock is roughly 14 inches above the water making the lake level a good 4 feet over normal pool at 5:30 pm! I believe that is the highest I've seen it in 35 years! It was still raining.

At 6:00 pm Tia and I tied another customer's dock to the shoreline. It floated off its anchor pipes and the electricity line I installed kept it from floating away until we got there.

It is raining now. As of this morning all the docks I anchored stayed in place!

Jim reports -
Paper says that some places here in Carbondale got over 9.75" of rain and the 24 hour period wasn't over at press time. Roads closed and flooded all over. We tried to take Brownie to her training yesterday and couldn't get across town as many of the intersections with the train tracks were flooded and the ones that were open were jammed with cars.

Paper says that the spillway sign at LOE was underwater. So the water was at least 4 feet over the top of the spillway. Fire's department rescued a woman on Market Street from a flooded car. Down past Sue's old marina probably pretty close to Mike's Uncle Rich's place.

Still raining steadily. I need to stock the lake in my back yard. Plenty of depth for them now. Supposed to end later today and clear up.

Dock On!

Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors

03/17/2007
Middle South Main Channel – 44 to 48
Water Level = 2 inches Above Normal Pool
Water Clarity = Murky,Cloudy,Muddy
Last Rain = 03/17/08

Hey, finally got to fish! Went fishing for the first time this weekend. My old friend Jim and my old B-In-Law Chuck all went fishing for the first time this year. Chuck is retired and in some sort of therapy so we waited until the doctor gave him the okay to travel and associate with the public!? Here’s a report documented by Jim:
Mike, Chuck and I fished Saturday am, Saturday pm and Sunday am. I got out for a bit Sunday after breakfast. Fishing was slow. Mike caught the biggest gill I have seen at LOE, an easy 9.5" fish, and Chuck on Sunday am took two bass over the slot one under the slot, plus at least one in the slot Saturday.
On the whole fishing was slow, but we did catch a fair number of bass, I got 2 crappie, one was 14.5" and the other one was over 13". We also took several additional gills. Plenty of bass tourneys going on and they said one on Saturday had a winning stringer of 19#, the other over 17#, so bass are going better than crappie right now.

All of our fishing was on the main channel and we never got to the north end of the lake. With colder than normal water temperatures the crappie are not very active on the south end. Chuck’s biggest bass was 18” and caught on a crappie pole and a chartreuse tube jig. What a fight! In fact all the bass were caught on tube jigs and crappie poles. Not that I expect all of you bass people to switch over to crappie jigs but I would bet there were tourney fishermen who would have to put a keeper in the boat…

Fish On!
Mike O.
UBetcha Outdoors