Eagle Mountain 4-23-11

Took Jim and Cecil fishing on Eagle Mountain this morning.  It was a beautiful morning with good temps and plenty of wind to get a good bite going.  We graphed a few on a mid lake slope, but no takers.  So we headed to an area I have caught fish this time of year after a shad spawn to see what was going on.  Eased up to it and noticed some boils, dropped the trolling motor down, and got to catching.  We were fishing in 1-3ft of water using rattle traps, mepps, sassy shad, and curly tail grubs.  It sure was fun watching Cecil and Jim catch onto some doubles on the ultra lites. 

After that bite died down the fish moved out on the ridge and a group in a pontoon were nailing them, but we decided to head to a different area of the lake and give it a try.  We looked at a few humps for a slab bite, but nobody home.  Headed to a point, but a guy was already there, so we headed to another point and saw David and his customers out trying to get some little girls on some fish while staying out of the wind that was getting really strong.  Checked some more humps with nobody home again, so we headed to battle the wind on another point with the wind blowing in on it.  Got there, put the trolling motor down and it didn't take long to start catching some good one's in 1-4ft of water.  We were catching some good fish while another boat was on the other side of the point putting a hurt on the little one's.  They were catching more than us, but our fish were bigger on that side.  After the other boat left I slid over to the other side of the point and started nailing the small one's slabbing straight down in two feet of water, they were thick in there.  It took me a few minutes and I got a great idea, cast out off the ledge in deeper water and see if the size picks up...first cast fifteen incher.  It was a great time on a shallow water bite today.  Water temp was 70.4 starting out and I forgot to look later in the day.  We caught fish on grubs, sassy's, Ol'Ugly Slabs, Mepps, and rattle traps.  They all worked equally well if fished correctly.  Kept 43 for our Easter dinner and let way more than that go.  The fish I cleaned were all spawned out and feeding aggressively, however only 3 fish had something in there stomachs.
Here is a pic of the eggs after they spawn.

The females still had a stretched out pregnant belly, but was empty when you pushed on it.  Hero time is really going to be here the next couple of weeks as they all start feeding after the spawn.
Here is what they were eating today.