Breeden Says Table Rock Giants Live on the Edge

By Pete Robbins 

 

Big Bass Tour events on Missouri’s Table Rock Lake are among the toughest to strategize because the big winding reservoir is full of so many fish – of all three species. While it doesn’t produce a huge number of Texas- or Florida-sized dinosaurs, enough true trophies show up that you can never be safe. 

 

Since 2019, it has always taken at least a 6-pounder to win the overall top prize. Sometimes there are a handful of sixes that dominate the top of the leaderboard, with fractions of ounces separating the top dogs. Other years, a handful in that range get brought to the scales and get dwarfed by a rogue monster. That’s what happened in 2022, when there were four fish over 6, but top honors went to an 8.02 pounder. It was even more pronounced in 2019, when a 9.02 was the big winner. That year three anglers caught 7-pounders and likely went home disappointed. Tenth place was 6.22, a fish that would’ve won the boat two years earlier and two years later. 

 

Major League Fishing pro Cole Breeden has spent a lot of time on the Rock and noted that “Over the last two years there have been more big fish than I’ve ever seen. I know of at least three bass over 9 pounds that were weighed in and in the spring it seemed to consistently take high twenties or thirty pounds to win.” 

 

He expects that in early April there will be lots of fish still chasing bait balls for several more weeks. He’d chase them around with a Berkley Drip, and said that he’d expect the biggest concentrations to be in the mid-range depths – from 12 to 25 feet around timber. Finding the bigger ones may require turning your attention to the outskirts of the most active zones. 

 

“There are so many smallmouths and spots and small largemouths chasing bait up high, it can be hard to take your focus off of them,” he explained. “Those big fish want to be around those baitfish, too, so look for areas with good populations, but those bigger fish may be deeper, or closer to cover, or closer to the bottom.” 

 

Another pattern he’d run is docks – both smaller docks and larger marina systems – in flatter areas, which may be comparatively rare on Table Rock. Pea gravel is often the key to finding the best ones, and he believes that “big fish live around them all year long.” 

 

While docks all over the lake may have quality fish on them, he said that the ones in slightly dirtier water should bite best, so he’d run up the various arms until there was sufficient stain. Then he’d skip around a Berkley Hit Worm (MagScent) rigged with a 3/32 or 1/16 ounce weight. 

 

Breeden expects that a glide bait may also produce some outsized fish. “It’s definitely getting to be that time,” he said. As the fish move up and get shallower, he’d again look for a little bit of stain to enhance this pattern and he’d “chase the wind.” Given his choice, though, he’d rely on the other two patterns mentioned – the follow to strike to landing ratio with the big gliders is just too low for his liking. 

 

No matter what you decide to fish, follow the live leaderboard, because one spit-up shad can make the difference between a big hourly check and a much smaller one. There are lots of checks to be had, so strategy makes a big difference at Table Rock, where the fish population is high and there are lots of cookie cutter bass.