Weather / ice
If you're fishing Grand Lake this week, you're a diehard. The deep freeze has ice around the shorelines, bays and coves, and anglers fishing docks on the south end are fighting line freezing in their reels. Even so, a few folks have been out there and caught a lot of nice Crappie, so it can still be done in this lousy weather. Jeff wouldn't recommend it, but he remembers years when the upper end of the lake (from Three Fingers up) froze hard enough that people went out and ice fished on Grand Lake. He hasn't seen a winter like that in many years.
Monkey Island memories
Around the winter of 1980 Jeff spent Christmas vacation with his grandparents on Monkey Island. They had a little two-bedroom cabin and an enclosed three-slip dock with a wood-burning stove (Jeff still has that stove). His grandpa cut three wells in the ice with a chainsaw and Jeff and his brother Crappie fished through the ice. He also remembers sitting on the porch listening to the wind and current break up big ice sheets on the main lake, and how much damage that ice could do. His grandparents bought on Monkey Island in the 1950s; Jeff was born in 1970 and has spent his whole life coming to the island, watching it grow with Shangri-La Resort, Tera Miranda, the HOAs, nightlife, boating, skiing, fishing, golf, golf carts and biking.
Crappie
Reports from guys fishing big marinas around Duck Creek: really nice Crappie, fish pretty deep but hitting good. They were catching them on the 2-inch Lucky Bug in Thunderstorm and USA colors on a 1/16 oz jig head. Those colors are made for the really clear water on the south end of the lake. Look for the Crappie bite to stay about the same through the cold.
Shad kill / Catfish
Once the ice breaks up around the shores, bays and coves, expect the gulls to show up and a shad kill to start. Jeff looks for the Catfish bite to slow down when that happens.
White Bass / Paddlefish
White Bass fishing up in the creeks and rivers on the north end should keep getting better through January and February. The cold water bunches Paddlefish into huge groups. They can be harder to find, but once you locate them the bigger groups can make them easier to catch.
Luck E Strike
Visit the new Luck E Strike website. The Greenwood, Arkansas plant is manufacturing American-made hard baits, soft plastics and Jimmy Houston Redman spinnerbaits. The assortment is about 260 items, with roughly 160 made in the USA right there in Greenwood. Toby Keith is Jeff's partner in Luck E Strike. Ask your Grand Lake dealers to carry the American-made products. Full capacity is expected by mid-summer, around ICAST in mid-July, when the catalog and full assortment should be done.