Steve McBasser

Well I can't believe its come and gone again already..... When I pulled out of the driveway Thursday morning at 7:45am the temperature was in the mid 40's, at best, and it was pouring down rain. It slowed down a little when we hit Willard but was pouring down again by Walnut Grove.....When we got to Ruark Bluff West it was a steady spinkle as we set up camp at the group site. By the time we were done setting up our tents and leveling out the campers the rain had quit. With the lingering clouds and the steady winds I knew the fish would be biting so we couldn't wait to get on the water. We had 11 guys and 4 bass boats so we split up 3,3,3 and 2. Our anxiousness to get on the water was rewarded with an awesome bite that loaded the boat. In just a few hours my boat had 3 limits of whites in the live wells and we had thrown back a couple more. When we got back to camp we found that our buddies had found fish too so the fish for the fish fry Friday night was taken care of in the first 3 or 4 hours of the trip. We fried enough fish for cox's army so if anybody went to bed hungry it was their own dang fault. We caught bass, white bass, walleye, drum, and cat fish. It was an awesome time with the men in my Sunday School class. We thanked the Lord everyday for the country we live in. We know how blessed are we that we can just go play for a few days if we want to. Freedom is awesome. Can't wait until our spring trip now.

Biggest bass was 17 1/2" and 2.75#'s....... caught a hundred whites though.... It was hard to look for the blacks when the whites were biting so fast. Hope ya'll caught 'em good.

Count me in too guys..... sounds fun.

nice 'eye for sure....

We had 6 guys the first day and most of the second so we fished 2, 2, and 2. Saturday I took the odd man out so we had 3 in our boat. It worked out great. The more the merrier...We will probably have more than twice that many for our fall trip. Last few days in October. 10/29, 30, and 31... Bring your keeper fish a little before dark on Friday and join us.... we'll fry 'em up.

I put in reservations for our annual spring fishing/camping trip back before Christmas down at Campbell Point on Table Rock. Got an email from Recreation.gov in late March letting me know they were cancelling our reservations due to Covid-19 and wouldn't be opening the camp ground until June 1st..... I immediately called Mutton Creek and moved our reservations up there since they are privately owned rather than being a Corp maintained facility. We had 5 sites reserved at Table Rock but there were only 4 available at Stockton. We set up camp Thursday morning and headed out on the water. Everybody caught fish and brought their keepers back to camp Thursday evening so we could start filleting fish for our big fish fry on Friday night. Early Friday morning we were awakened by a round of several severe thunder storms. We got multiple inches of rain and stayed in camp until 1:20 in the afternoon. Then we went out and caught a bunch more fish and brought them back to camp to fry. We had a great fish fry with all the trimmin's including home made ice cream and strawberry shortcake for dessert. We normally have anywhere from 12 to 18 guys on these little outings but this year due to the virus we only had 7 of us. We all had our fill of fish so Saturday we just played catch and release and had a ball. It was awesome. Can't wait til our fall trip now. Planning for the last weekend in October...

Nicely done Dutch....

Been there, done that Quill..... landed in an open tackle box. It wasn't pretty.....

Taught my Sunday School class over 'zoom'.... finished up about 12 noon. The wife made us cheeseburgers for lunch then I headed to the back of Aunts Creek to meet my buddy Andy. Started out with a jerk bait... nothin'. Then we ran across a windy point so I threw one of the wiggle warts he painted for me, no takers on it either. Then we pulled up to a gravel bank that looked perfect for a ned rig and started catching them pretty quick. I threw it the rest of the afternoon and it just kept catching them... amazing. Andy caught them real well last week on a zara II so he just kept throwing it. He caught a handful of dinks but all our better fish came on my ned....

Awesome report Tinboat19

Spent 4 of the last 5 weeks quarantined at the house. Finally got a chance to escape and went to Stockton. Launched at the Mutton Creek ramp at 6:40am. Water temp was 53.4*, air temp was mid 30's. Started out with a Mega bass vision 110+1. With no takers after several casts I started throwing rattle trap, nothin'. Picked up my pole with one of the custom painted Wiggle Warts and caught a nice one on my first cast. Then Gary started catching them on his PBJ ned rig. In the first hour he had me down by 3 or 4 fish so I put the crank bait down and started catching them on the ned also. Over the next hour of so we learned that the crank bait bite was better in the wind but the ned would take over when the wind lay down. Main lake windy points were best but secondary points worked too. The very backs of the coves and pockets were no good but from the points to halfway in was money. We wound up catching a bunch ....good ones too.

Awesome report Bill.... thanks for sharing.

Nice table fare there..... good job.

This is awesome on several levels..... well done gentlemen.

Believe it or not, I fished a tournament years ago where a guy that didn't like tournaments parked his car right in the middle of the ramp. Every boat in the tournament had to jack knife their trailers around the car and then cut it back real hard to get around him. We talked about releasing the emergency brake and rolling it off into the water. But then we were afraid it would get hung up and then we would not be able to launch over it. Somebody should have gone to jail over that deal.....

Slept in again so Ron and I didn't get to Campbell Point until 11am and fished til 6pm. Water temp was 48.2* at the ramp and was pretty stained. Started out gettin' bit on a ned rig and a hula grub while it was cloudy but couldn't get a bite on the jerk bait. Then the sun came out about 2pm and as the skies got brighter they flip flopped and started eating the jerk bait and ignoring the bottom bouncers. We ended up with 15-20 fish,.. 7 keepers. Great day on the water and always a ball to fish with Ron. This post has been promoted to an article