Steve McBasser

The men in my Sunday School class camp out together twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. Thursday 10/8 was HOT! and sunny and the bite was tough. We still caught fish of course but we had to work at it. Thursday night that cold front went through and changed everything for a few hours. We got a steady rain through most of the night and Friday remained cloudy and cool with a real nice 20mph northwest wind. The fish bit good all day. We wound up having a fish fry Friday evening. Then Saturday was HOT! again and the bite was tough. We used to only go up on a Saturday, but now we go Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Surely one of those days we can get a decent bite going. Anyway....we had a ball. Everybody caught and ate fish. We had bass, walleye, and crappie. Next year we are going to wait until later in the month. Maybe even early November like we did last year. The main objective was to have fun and get to know each other. Mission accomplished......

That's how it is when you chase schooling fish. Its feast or famine. Its always fun while it last though....

There is a really great story behind that old boat. Andy bought it about 15 years ago. He had it for just a short time when he and his 2 brothers took it up to Stockton Lake. You know how fierce Stockton can get sometimes. It had a 115hp Johnson on it at the time and it ran very well. Anyway, long story short, while coming across the big water with the wind howling and the waves rolling, they broke the boat in half over a big wave and barely made it to shore before it sank. Somehow they got it back on the trailer and found about a 36" crack all the way through the to the bilge straight across the bottom of the boat. When he bought it, he had no way of knowing it was completely water logged and all the wood supports were gone. He spent about 3 or 4 months digging every ounce of rotted wood out of it and completely glassed in new stringers, and wood supports. I would guarantee that its better now than it was when it was brand new. He took the rub rail off and all 10,000 screws and rivets and separated the top cap half from the hull. Sanded everything down to bare fiberglass and rebonded it all back together with that super thick fiber glass mat. It was a work of art when he got done with it. He added about a hundred and fifty pounds to it in wood, fiber glass mat and resin but it is a real beast now. I wouldn't be afraid to take it anywhere.........and now we have a running motor on it again..

My buddy Andy and I have been working on an old '72 Johnson 65hp for the last several months. His brother found it for $35 in an estate sale or something and the guy said it had locked up 40 years ago. We tore into it an found that the bottom piston had seized to the cylinder wall and the rod had windowed the block. We ordered a used short block on Ebay and swapped all the externals off of the old one and mounted it on the midsection. After several hours of tweaking and tuning we took it to Aunts Creek and actually got it to run down the lake several times. We made about 20 casts and caught one fish apiece. He caught a nice brownie and I caught a little chunky Kentucky. Talked to a couple of guys at the ramp and they said they had killed 'em all day on square bills but they were all dinks......(click on the video link to watch it run) Andy's_65_running.mp4

Guys.....I'm planning to fish Table Rock Thursday. Did anybody go the last day or two? I haven't been to the 'Rock for about a month. Just wondering what kind of bite to expect.....

Dang! That's a nice "mean mouth". My buddy Andy and I caught those things around Shell Knob about 10 years before the MDC would admit they existed. Awesome fish.

Guys, My fishing partner and I have been discussing the possibility of coming down to Norfork and striper fishing this winter. We would really like to get in on a good, deep spoon bite. Can anybody tell me when and where we could start.