Francis Case over the weekend

Made it out to the Platte Creek area of Lake Francis Case this past weekend. Sure was a cooker out there. Even though the ramp, and this State Park were closed, we made the best of it. The first pic is where the ramp usually is at, starts right there next to the street light. The next is the truck & trailer parking area, just back in to the regular parking area and push your boat off. This whole area was about 5 feet deeper just two-three weeks ago. Going around the lake you can see high water lines on the trees and shore line…amazing, and the water continues to drop daily.

We figured fishing was changing every day, not only was the water warming up fast, it was going down. What worked 2 weeks ago, might not work this week. Started out along a favorite point with sunken trees on both Saturday and Sunday. Both days we started out rigging a bottom bouncer, 5 foot snell and half a crawler in 12-20 fow, then when things slowed down we tied on cranks and trolled back.

Saturday was hot and pretty breezy, we had no trouble getting our limit of 12 (3 of us) and we didn’t catch one walleye over 20 inches, almost all were 14 1/2 to 16 inches chubby and hit hard. We did catch one about 17 and one 18 1/2 on our last swing though a bay before heading in for a cool shower. No camera this day.

Sunday was bright and hot with a slight breeze, we went another mile or two past our original favorite point, every point has sunken willows or cottonwoods and we figured out quick that baitfish were using this as a hide out and prey fish were on the prowl.

So began an amazing day. We caught just about everything. Gills, perch, mooneye, smallmouth, walleye, sauger, skipjack, white bass. We went through 2 1/2 dozen crawlers pretty quick and had too many caught to count. We had about 6 in the box, and I had a large walleye break my mono leader right at the net, we guessed about 22 inches or better. We then put the motor in gear and started pulling cranks, we had a bunch of doubles, many one after anothers, and the net never got dry. We experienced a couple pretty cool things in a couple of the bays. If you hear what sounds like a bunch of kids splashing at the beach, look around, the white bass would school a bunch of baitfish and push them to the surface. If you were close, cast your rap into the white water and hang on. These guys would scream a bunch of line out quick and if one got unbuttoned you had another before you knew what happened. There were a few we netted about 18 inches or more. The 3rd pic is a tripple, we could have done this a few more times, but decided to keep moving. 4th pic is my buddy Randy holding one of the nicer smallies caught, we had a couple nice ones. The last pic is the end of the day boxed fish. All were 16 1/2 or better, the largest just a hair over 20. So almost all were dream sized eaters between 17-18 inches and chubby! Planning one more trip here in the next week or two.

Nice!

sounds like a blast!!

WOW, way 2 chomps

have some friends up this past weekend 2 and they did good 2

was done by noon Sunday, with there 16, four guys in boat

I’m leaving 4 Oahe in AM, 4 four nights five days

Think I might B passing by all the fish

I like fishing case, but have been not there since end of June

lot of trash on water, how has that been going

am looking at a trip up there 2 in next ten days or so

I hear things are going fine on Oahe also, not so much trash on the water anymore just a few logs floating around.

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I hear things are going fine on Oahe also, not so much trash on the water anymore just a few logs floating around.

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Thanks 4 the nice report

nice work! On oahe fish are just one shade away from actually jumping in the boat themselves- Smelt population is and or will crash again this year due to flow going through the turbines- just my opinion-that’s it- Fishing should be even more incredible for at least another year. Have fun, and hope gfp is on it, and the smelt rebound!

Nice fish & pics

here’s my take on the high water and bait fish, I know in Oahe some walleye will suspend and associate with the smelt, the others forage on other food sources. While the population of walleye using smelt/cisco may suffer during a down turn in the these baitfish populations, the other population of walleye may actually flourish because this high water has provided nursery’s for young baitfish to thrive. The amount of young baitfish just introduced to the system has to be huge. How many years ago were the limits increased to try to harvest some of the walleye population suffering? Now, look how fast it has all turned around.

And after the flushing in 97, Oahe went through the biggest drought spell ever and was at all time lows. It was a perfect storm. I hope that isn’t the case this time. No doubt, lots of bait fish were washed downstream, but from a biology perspective, that should be helping the fish all the way down to St. Louis???

Yep, good points gentleman- you never know what is going to happen. Could be a completely different situation than the last flushing with all of the new habitat. Let’s hope so! Whether the smelt are up or down over there, seems like you can always find them somewhere. It would just be nice to have stable forage, water level, and flow for a while so the PIGS can keep showing themselves more and more. Unbelievable place to fish!

No doubt a great fishery. I miss fishing those mud lines on the wind swept points.

yep the mud lines are generally a good spot to focus, don’t forget to throw the motor out of gear once in awhile. You get kind of awe-struck from the scenery, the wildlife and the bluffs, kind of a cross between trolling in the blackhills/badlands. I caught a great tip off this site to keep the cotton wood cotton off your crank, put a small split shot about four feet up from your lure. We had a whole crew of people over for a huge fish fry, just picked sweet corn, and a big cooler of different micro brews from Pittsburg, was my most favorite summer meal so far.

pretty easy to see the Bald Eagle, the second is of a Golden Eagle just a few yards from each other. We could tell the eagle we thought was a golden was quite a bit larger, and went back and forth from a juvenile bald to the golden. We were convinced once we saw it fly off that it was a golden.