Me and the wife have been camped on one of the ARK lakes for the last week and all I did was set catfish lines, but did catch one 3 LB bass in about 30 min.  In 4 days I put up 9 Gallon bags of catfish.... thats why I spent so much time setting lines!  

We moved to an OK lake yesterday and I got out early bass fishing this morning.  I figured up in a 5 fish limit I had around 19 LBS!  Biggest one got off.... he was 6 or better!  I did catch a 5 Lber and a couple 4's though.  What was weird was the fish were up in 6 to 8' of water.  The surface temps down here are in the high 80's.  Never would have thought that but I'm guessing the water has no oxygen down deeper and that may be why they are up so shallow.  For those interested one was a cb fish and one was a T.worm fish.  All others were off that darned ol C-rig.  As Arnold would say "I'll be back"!  probably spend at least a week here at the lake or so since work (construction) is slow right now.  I've got to get some pics on here though.  I'm outa boat oil, outa brushhogs, need ice and have had boat probs so I gotta get into town.  Anyone else finding fish in shallows with the surface temps so hot??

What lake are you on? I was just recently in OK with a friend of mine and the bass were doing the same thing.  All we could do was fish from the shore. We were on lake Longmire... wby?

if you think the oxygen is low, stick a straw in the water and start blowing   ;D

maybe they came up to feed?

    Only in the morning time.  After about 9:00 all the fish in my lake head down south.

     

d**n, sounds like a ton of fun!  Cat are in my top 5 target fish!

My understanding is bass can tolerate a wide range of temps. At the upper end they need a lot of food.

The lake was Pine Creek.  As for those that don't believe the water down deeper looses O2 then tell me why when I set trotlines out every perch past about 10' comes back up dead and bloated?  Why do minnows do the same thing when minnow fishing?  I've seen it before typically in late summer but not this early.  I didn't fare so well today but I was trying to find new spots and didn't fish the places I had caught them in before.  It was trying but thats the only way to find the new holes.