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Fished this morning and found fish shallow (8-12ft) and deep (25-50ft). The shallow fish where around spawning banks and the deep fish were in 25-50ft around trees in spawning areas. Shad can be seen anywhere in the water column and I mainly focus on bait hanging around 1-15ft below the surface regardless of overall depth. I fished 3 locations and would start my search out deep then move shallow. I did not catch a Kentucky up shallow but did catch LM and SM in the 8-12ft range. Had 12 keepers and 8 where LM. Used a 2.8 Keitech on 5/16 and 3/8oz heads. When deep fish are high in the water they seem skittish when the boat gets within 60ft. So the heavy jig heads allow for long cast even in windy conditions. WT 48-49

Fished with my son Sam on Friday and Saturday, launched at Spring Creek and went both up the lake and down the lake. Water is generally clear, with a slight stain the further up the north fork arm you go. Water temps from 47 to 55. Caught some keeper largemouth on wiggle warts and swimbaits, had a few more follows on the swimbait and lost a couple I had hooked up on the wart due to completely forgetting how to fish in the past year lol- the green bass were towards the fronts of creeks and pockets, on chunk rock. Caught some smallmouth in the 12” to 14” range on the Ned on flat gravel in the backs of spawning pockets in the Oakland area, but no keepers. I’m guessing they are the first wave of bucks moving up to spawn. We had a good couple of days knocking off the cobwebs, and Sam is getting pretty solid with a baitcaster. The bite was a little slower than I’d hoped, and it took me a little longer to dial in on them than I’d have liked, but my general impression is that the lake is REAL close to getting really good. tight lines all-

I fished from 7 AM until 4 PM today and I had to work for my fish, caught 20 bass, 5 were keepers. All spots and a few smallmouth. Ned rig was best bait with a couple of 2.8 swimbait fish thrown in. Some of the fish were really shallow. Most were in 10 FOW with a few out at 20. Fish were scattered, did not find any schools. One of those days where I moved around a lot, fished a lot of places. No largemouth, should be catching a few, but not. WT 52 to start, 55 when I left.

Well it was another day of me being the net boy for Dutch's fish. He caught a 3.25 smallie and a 22" walleye. I got to net them. The bite was decent today compared to what it has been for us this year. We caught 31 bass and the lone walleye. We had 5 keeper bass with the smallmouth being the biggest. Ned rigs were our best bait, with a couple on a 2.8 swimbait and a couple on a 2.5" tube. For whatever reason most of our fish came from rocky or gravel banks. We could not get any around trees. We caught them in 10-20 FOW for the most part. Early in the AM we found a bunch of bass on a 30 foot deep flat. They just would not bite for us - we caught a half dozen of them, lost a few more. Really light biters, we threw everything at them with the Ned working best, but it was frustrating being over quite a few fish and not being able to figure them out. Quite a few loons around. We came across a half-eaten gizzard shad floating on top and once we got about 50 yards away from it, an eagle swooped in and got it. Always a neat sight to see. If you like redbuds, they are blooming now. WT 52 Here's the fish I netted:

Played around with new camera on a trip a couple weeks ago.

Mine was somewhere in the 30's can't remember for sure. But they were drafting down into the low 200's that year. If you got drafted you went to basic, Fort Hood and then Saigon for assignment to the field with a bunch of pukes who did not want to be there with a bunch of lousy officers. So, not wanting to do that or flee to Canada, I enlisted in USMC for the shortest enlistment possible. Two years. It was horrid as first but by the end of my time there I was having a lot of fun. Do not regret it at all. My time in Viet Nam was on deck of USS Mobile or USS Denver. Never got SVN mud on my boots.👍

My buddy and I hit out around 10 and quit at 2. WT had dropped to 50 from 55 on Wednesday. And the fish didn’t like it. I caught 4 any buddy caught 2. Biggest was a 17.5”er. River dropped significantly too. Made running even more sketchy. I think the fish are still in winter mode.

Hey everyone, coming to stay at Lilley's this weekend, wondering how the lake has been fishing? I'll have opportunity to fish off the docks all weekend, any suggestions welcome....ill be trying to put my 8 and 6 year old on some fish as well. Pictures of my fishin buddies

its a very nice building - perfect for meetings

I have a question for you bass guys caught this about 3 weeks ago on Stockton it measured 19 1/2 inches. Not positive what flavor it is. I guessed it as a mean mouth.?

A few months ago I started making myself tie flies. I was tired of thinking about going fishing and not having the flies I wanted. So I just started tying at least one every few days. It’s back to being enjoyable and a good stress reliever. This week’s offerings;

Thx!! I swear you could throw a bobber in the water without a line on it and I’ll stare at it all day😆🤷‍♂️

Howdy Guys- I wanted to post a quick review on some rods. As some of you may remember, I had my whole collection of gear from G.Loomis/Falcon/St.Croix/Virtus/Lew’s/Shimano disappear from my house when I left at the start of my divorce in 2023. Through some Black Friday sales and some other promotions over the last two years, I’ve managed to replace all my gear with the Edge rods, by Gary Loomis. Edge is the finished rod division of Gary’s blank company called North Fork Composites, which he started after recovering from the cancer that caused him to sell G.Loomis to Shimano. All their rods are made in the USA, in Woodland, Washington, with a second production facility coming online soon in Houston, Texas. I’ve now managed to put some hours on a large variety of their offerings, and overall am a happy customer. First the ugly: Their delivery times on rods that are backordered are absolutely ridiculous. In stock rods (like 6 out of two dozen or so) got to me in a week, everything else was between 60 and 90 days, with one rod taking about four months for delivery. The gentleman at the factory explained to me that they are running at max capacity on blank production, and they build blanks on a rotation, not as rods are ordered. Between all the OEM blanks they build for other rod makers, plus all the various models from fly to steelhead to inshore to pelegic to bass rods- it may take a good bit of time for the build schedule to get back around to whatever blank you want, so I would not recommend them to anyone who needs a rod immediately. Now the good: The rods are really freaking good. Like, the only thing I’ve held that can go head to head with a G.Loomis NRX is the Edge Silver Widow. They all have carbon handles, which after getting used to, I do like, and I believe do make the rods more sensitive. Every rod I have balances extremely well, which makes them feel even lighter in hand than their actual weight on the scale. They are priced under G.Loomis by roughly $100 per comparable series, and they fairly often have sales ranging from 30 to 50 percent off of their normal factory direct pricing. So- for those who can exercise patience, and are looking for the best value in high performance rods, I recommend taking a look at Edge. I now own everything from an ultralight BFS rod to 8’ extra heavy swimbait sticks, in the Delta, EFX, First Strike, Black Widow and Silver Widow lines. In rough comparison to G.Loomis, that translates as Delta=GCX, EFX/First Strike=IMX, Black Widow=GLX, and Silver Widow=NRX. My favorite is probably the Silver Widow finesse spinning rod, but honestly I’m impressed with every rod I have. There were a few that were a little different than I was expecting power wise, and some of their powers and actions listed on the website are a little difficult to translate. If anyone wants to check out the rods in person, I’m in West St. Louis county, travel regularly to SEMO, and this spring/summer I’ll be traveling back and forth to Bull Shoals/Springfield area and occasionally LOZ to fish. I will make every effort to meet up with anyone who wants to hold one in their hands, as they don’t have a dealer network and are online sales only. I’m not affiliated in any way with the company, I’m not on any sort of prostaff deal- so if you order one and it takes you half a year to get it, don’t be mad at me. I’m just happy because I was able to replace a whole bunch of gear for about a third of what it would have cost to go buy G.Loomis at Bass Pro, and I don’t feel like I’m losing anything as far as quality goes, and in some cases I’m definitely gaining something over competitive rods.

Got there about 10. WT still only 53. Ran about 4 miles. Nice green color. Started catching them at the first spot. Bunch of sub 15” fish. Jig caught em all. The 17” fish in the 3rd picture was an absolute tank. Drove home in the rain😐

The spring is just loaded with fish. Got there at buzzer Wednesday and went straight to work on stocker bashing in zone 2. Managed 15 to 20 before migrating to zone 1. Zone 1 was less populated between rock dam and big dam. I managed another 10 to twelve up there. Most fun was sight fishing to fish staged up behind grass beds. Drifted a scud over the back edge and fish on. Caught a few below the Rock dam as well stripping streamers and deep dredging scud. Had a fish blow up on a froggy fly as well. (I got bored 😂 ') beautiful day and the most fish I've seen in the park in years.

A career should be an investment in yourself, and when one stays the course and pursues the right opportunities it pays off. Much like other investments, expectation of immediate returns is high risk, and very often ends badly. Good luck to you, gamble well. Mike

Hey, just wanted to chime in here with thanks for you and everyone else that post reports on this forum. I check in periodically, sometimes just because I love reading about fishing, but especially when I’m planning to be fishing Table Rock and feeding my bass fishing addiction. I skunked Thursday and Friday fishing the waters closer to the dam I normally hit when I’m on Table Rock, but decided to give the Big M area a shot Saturday based on reports like yours, seeing some very interesting structure on maps, and figuring there might be warmer water and more active fish further up lake. (But yeah, largely the reports). I threw a Ned, which fits my finesse fishing preferences well, and landed 33 bass over a nine hour day. All but one of them spots, the outlier appearing to be a meanmouth. Only three over 15”, and then just barely, but a great day of catching nonetheless. Anyway, don’t mean to hijack your post! My trip ended on a much better note, and I wanted to make sure you and the other active members of this forum heard a little appreciation for your work here. Keep it up!

Two on the grill. I guess get tiered of feeding them give them lead. oneshot

It's a niche market. Most beekeepers extract the honey and use the comb again. It is an expensive way to make honey when you make comb honey. But I have seen those little dribbles at Harp's, I toss about $100 of those dribbles on the ground when I work hives and scrape off comb that they have stuffed in cracks and between frames. Bees clean it up and put it back where it should be.

When I was in Basic we had to go to UCMJ "training" a couple of times, and I think it was 2 hours at a time. It was in a hot stuffy room and they had us sitting crowded together on those lousy folding metal chairs. It was in the afternoon and of course we'd been training all day. There was a JAG officer seated at a desk in front of us and he read to us, in a monotone, the UCMJ. It was a battle to stay awake. The drill sergeants stood along the walls and watched us during this training. Anyone that nodded off was sent outside and made to run around the building holding their rifle above their head with a drill sergeant yelling at them the whole time. It's not an easy deal to spend 10 minutes running holding a rifle with your arms fully stretched out above your head. Fortunately, I was able to stay awake, but it was a struggle.

If you'd had a low draft number it would have. Feel free to ask how I know.🙃

Got on the water around 10. WT 55. Slightly muddy to murky. Bummer. Ran about 6 miles and fished back to the ramp. Clouds, wind driven riffles and recent high water made it tough to see where to go since the river changes. I dinged around a bit heading up. Jig and crank did the damage. Couldn’t fish anything else with the wind. And I mean WIND!!!!! I left at 2 and had a really good day. A bunch up to 15”, couple 16’s and 17’s and an 18”. Lost a really big one because I didn’t get off spot lock. By the time I realized how big it was it was too late. 🤷‍♂️. The first heavy black line is 15” second one is 20”. Pics for @Johnsfolly😁

I wound up serving six years in the 700th Support Battalion of the Oklahoma National Guard. The last three years I served as "Radar" for the colonel commanding the battalion. I was the only one who knew how to do emergency leaves, accident reports, and AWOL's paperwork. A month before I was due to be free, they came to me and offered to make me a JAG captain. I politely said no. Tomorrow morning I will have breakfast with another Fort Lost in the Woods alumni. I will talk with him about this thread.

Last night I was pretty beat after getting up early and fishing all day, so I was sound asleep at 7 PM. Woke up wide awake at 3 AM and decided, what the heck, might as well go fishing. Today was tough, there was an early bite, then it was just dead out there. Wind really whipped up around 11 AM, so I stopped throwing the finesse stuff and broke out the cranks. Caught a half dozen on cranks, but I covered a lot of water to catch them. 11 total bass, 2 were keepers, and both of the keepers were largemouth. Caught 5 on a little 2.5" tube and the half dozen on cranks. The fish I caught were all shallow in less than 10 FOW. WT was 57 when I left.

Here’s what I’m listening to, and I’m not happy about it. It’s been running through my head, uninvited, for at least two weeks. Press play, if you dare😀

Well stuff is loaded in my wife's car she is going to take me fishing before we go to the Hospital for Test. oneshot

Fugifilms 35mm? Back in the day when you had to adjust the f stop and speed, adjust the exposure.... I was just looking at a video I shot off my Samsung S21 a few weeks back in the jet boat. Miles above what I used to do with the old beta max.

Ness is pretty modest I don't see him flashing anyone or anything.

I don't think any of us are going to change anyone's mind on this subject. We clearly have different life and work experiences and our views reflect them.

It is a very nice building. Pat and I checked it out while up at Taney Fest. Walked around outside. Peeked in the building where they strip the eggs and milt. Watched them mix the two creating a new generation of stockers. Pretty neat!

Some of my relatives in OK raised sheep. They put greyhounds in the back of a pickup with a couple of guys. They drove the fields until they spotted a coyote. Then they would take after them with the truck. When they caught up the guys in the back would throw the dogs out. They would hit the ground, roll over a few times then run the coyote down.

Big Thanks to all you guys that served. It never crossed my mind at that age to go in the service. But now that I’m older (old) I wish I would’ve.

Thanks!! I got out yesterday!! Today the girls are pampering me.

Just got back from lunch with broom-wielding former bank president not 15 minutes ago! We've been friends for 40 years and counting. Get the work done, do some extra, have some fun too.

Dog? Cat?

I’m going to bust this one off in the morning. Probably on a big rock that I will claim was a 5 lb smallmouth.

And explain why you didn't turn it in to MDC because you're a felon and not supposed to be around guns.😍

Let me see if I can explain this in terms you might understand 🤪 Enhanced image stabilization is achieved through coordinated control when Canon's RF lenses with optical IS are combined with the EOS R5 C camera's electronic IS when shooting XF-AVC or MP4 formats. With an RF lens that has optical IS and the electronic IS in the EOS R5 C camera, coordinated control helps achieve the optimum hand-shake correction effects. This helps achieve better anti-vibration performance than with conventional IS-equipped EF lenses (using optional Mount Adapter EF-EOS R) and electronic IS together. Back to me talking now: what the he77 is all that about?😀

It was a beautiful day weather wise and fish wise. I started out losing my first 5 fish (3 on a jigging rap in 30 fow). I didn’t think I would ever get to say “net please” but it finally happened a couple of times. It was my best day so far this year. Thanks for the trip buddy.

Today is wife's birthday, she requested ribeye and whatever vegetable I wanted to add. Seared the ribeye and it cooked to a nice rare to medium rare. Asparagus came out darn good too.

Dang, Very excessive. How many bites do you want next season? 😁 Our bees are doing fantastic. I started adding frames. Swarm traps are ready to start putting out.

Bobber down! I like watching local fishing. 👍

That's a good deal, getting out there with your son. And also, good to see you back in the fishing world.

Corner Crossing Now Legal in 6 States, Court Rules

My in-laws farm was a quail haven for decades. About 400 acres with nice thick fence rows and intermittent wood lots. It was common to jump 5 or 6 different coveys on each hunt. Back then the locals would do planned horseback hunts running dogs for coyotes. They would notify everyone in the area and my father in law would put his cattle in the coral so the dogs wouldn’t bother them. They would run coyotes all over the county. I enjoyed seeing them come the area. Sometimes as many as 25 on horseback. Then people began to complain and the tradition died off. Now you would be lucky to jump one covey on the same land. And in fact, the last time we hunted several years ago we jumped so many coyotes it was ridiculous. My father in-law said the demise of coyote hunting is what devastated his quail population.

Oh some little Piggies. Was going to do a Goat but they figured the Steer needed company. oneshot

Mizzou getting Mizzoued again. It’s painful to be born a Mizzou fan.

I've got an Ultrex Quest and I can adjust the settings through my Helix depthfinder. I have not messed with the scale settings, but Dutch has changed his because he was having an issue with the boat holding in wind (I think that was why he changed the settings), @Dutch. Here's the official explanation: Trolling motor performance can be impacted by factors including, but not limited to, wind, water conditions, boat specifications, battery health, wiring, etc. Boat Scale provides a method of adjusting how the trolling motor will perform to account for these and other variables. The Minn Kota trolling motor comes from the factory with Boat Scale set to zero. Boat Scale can be adjusted up (+2) or down (-2) to increase or decrease how the motor control software applies power while using a navigation mode like Spot-Lock. An example showing the need to reduce Boat Scale would be while using Spot-Lock and the motor is over-correcting or making frequent adjustments. In this case, try reducing Boat Scale to -1 to reduce this behavior. If the behavior continues, reduce Boat Scale to -2. An example showing the need to increase Boat Scale while using Spot-Lock would be the motor is drifting away from its target location frequently or needs help to make corrections. Try increasing Boat Scale to +1 to help improve the trolling motor accuracy in this case. If the behavior continues, increase Boat Scale to +2.

USMC does emphasize close order drill. I can still call cadence in my mind. You guys gave me goosebumps with the memories of those days.