Bartlett Lake Fishing Report

THE CALL: Largemouth, fall shad pattern — be on the water by 7:00 AM and fish the upper end of the Verde River arm and the first secondary points inside it with a 3/8-oz chartreuse-white chatterbait until the 9:45–11:15 AM minor period closes. That's your window: calm 3–5 mph NNE wind, cloudy skies, air climbing 58→68°F through the morning.

WHY IT WINS:

• Water temp: the lake-page reading is 70°F from Oct 29 — 351 hours stale. With two weeks of November nights in the 50s at 1,768 ft, I read the surface at low-to-mid 60s now. That's classic early-fall bait migration: shad pushing into the arms and bass staged on the first breaks they pass.
• The forecast is a gift for the morning: 0% precip, 2–5 mph wind, and cloud cover until noon. Clouds keep fish shallow and widen the moving-bait window.
• The major solunar period (2:31–5:01 PM) is timing context only — and the forecast puts 11–19 mph S gusts and a 25% rain chance right on top of it. I'm not sending you into the afternoon build.
• No recent catch reports exist for this lake, so fish position is my read, not a report.

START HERE: The upper Verde River arm where the inflow water enters, then the first secondary points on either side as you work lake-ward. Target the 4–10 ft band on the point drops and any flat where wind or current stacks bait. Verify with your graph: shad balls plus hard bottom on a point = stop and fish it. No mapped spot data was supplied, so this start is condition-based — the arm itself is real; check its exact bends on your map.

THROW THIS: 3/8-oz chartreuse-white chatterbait with a matching paddletail trailer, burned just fast enough to feel the blade thump, over the flats and parallel to the point drops. Backup on the same water: a 1/2-oz white spinnerbait with double willows when the wind builds and you want a bait that keeps contact at speed.

BEST WINDOW: 7:00 AM–11:15 AM. Forecast in that span: 58–68°F, 2–5 mph NNE wind, cloudy, 0% precip. The 9:45–11:15 minor period sits inside it. Skip the afternoon — gusts hit 19.6 mph at 2 PM and rain chances climb to 25% by 4 PM.

NEXT MOVE: If the chatterbait draws nothing by 9:00 on two good points, slow down without leaving — dead-stick a green pumpkin 4" Senko on the same point breaks, 8–12 ft, and let the fall do the work. That covers the fish that have slid off the flat as the sun climbs. If the wind swings S early and starts pushing, move to the bank it's blowing into and keep the moving bait going.