Ham

I would have been satisfied with a few stores having a lot of friends in the fishing business and fishing fantastic places all over the world. I'm not much of a megalomaniac though.

I prefer 12/3

I don't see an upside to a Bass Pro takeover of Cabela's. I expect Cabela's clothing quality to suffer.

Ok, I work the weekend of 11/19-20 and again on 12/17-18. Other than that I'll do my best to be there.

An awesome get together of OA guys on the White River . Usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually slinging mostly jigs at trout, but not required to fish jigs. Usually plenty of boat seats, plenty of food, and plenty of good company/ good times. The only downside is not being able to fish with everybody.

There are AT least 20 people I have met thru OA that I would rather be President than any of the folks still in the race. I'm so disgusted over what's coming down the road.

There are hybrids in Truman? Who knew. ?

Hard for me to tell how big that one is really. I'm sure I've caught some 12 inch ones. I'll have to start measuring I guess.

Somebody should snap these up.

PM Mr Babbler and ask his advice.

That's my best guess, but don't bet your life on it.

I think it takes 6 hours BUT you need to make sure you know when they started generating. They only give the value at the top of the hour so IF they started running water at say 12:15, you won't see that until 1 pm but the water sure gets there earlier than you expected. I use 5 hours as my guess. Get the phone number to Rim Shoals fly shop. For a nominal fee, they will water taxi you to safety IF you get caught by high water. Get to the island IF you aren't sure you can make it to mainland. Check during the day to see when water started. Remember the caveat.

I did not catch any my last few trips, but it is that time of year. The lamprey were here before the trout. The adult lamprey feed for a few months parasitically and then spawn and die. The population is self limiting in that regard. I don't harm the lamprey that fall into my boat, but that being said they are creepy as all get out.

Brown trout teeth are sharp

This was the rainbow caught the next cast after the crappie.

Warm water fish

A couple from Bookievillie

Windflowers line the banks too.

After lunch, I hooked up the boat and headed to Norfork to sling Zig Jigs. I had checked the projected generation. I wanted to allow some time for the water to get clearer and cleaner.i did not wait long enough. It was still brownish and trashy went I started. That did not thrill me. I got one to hand pretty quickly and settled in. Sure was hot though. Ran into a wad of brook trout. One gave the game away by swiping at my jig at boat side. I caught three brookies In a row and missed a couple of visual brook trout strikes. I ran up to top of legal area above the boat ramp at Quarry Park. I got a couple of nice fish. I set into a good fish and fought him to boat side. I was very surprised to swing a Largemouth Bass aboard. I put him in the live well. I took him downriver to a backwater area where he might have some friends to play with. here's where Ham screwed up. All of the sudden, the water rose again and trashed up again. I had failed to note that they were going to run 1 generator for a few hours and then increase to 2 units for the last 2 hours before shutting the water off. Crap. I spent the rest of the day hitting small eddy areas and other reduced flow areas. I found a creek and caught 2 more LMB and a big crappie. The cast after the crappie, I caught a slob Rainbow. I don't fish Norfork for numbers. I fish Norfork for Slams and for size. I had an eighteen inch Rainbow and One of my last few fish was a big headed Brown. He managed to bite my finger. Their teeth are really sharp. I could not find a Cutthroat though. I motored back to the pool with the boat ramp right as they turned the water off. It really drops out fast. I quit fishing when I broke off a nice fish. It looked like a big fat Bow. Barbless so she'll shake it soon. I ended up getting 16 fish to hand. It would have been sweet to get another Slam, but I failed to get it done. I didn't Go Away mad though. I'll get more Slams.

I did another wet wade fly rod only trip to Rim Shoals. This time around I fished in the morning instead of the afternoon. I fished from 0900 until 1215. I started with a Trout Crack fly again. A rainbow ate my indicator on the first drift. That just kills me. I caught my first fish in the first 5 minutes. I lost a nice one not longer after that, but it was foul hooked anyway. After the first four trout brought to hand, I switched back to my hopper and dropper. overall I felt much better about the day. Even when the fishing was slow, I was confident in what I was doing. First drift with hopper and Ruby Midge and I hooked up. That's so sweet. I fished along catching equal numbers on hopper and the midge. The rainbows were flat eating the hopper. Very few misses on hopper. Maybe last trip was just one of those times where it is hard to catch em. I stumbled across a wonderful little area where I caught fish after fish after fish.i had takes many casts in a row. it was so great. Most of those fish were on the Ruby midge. They literally chewed my fly to pieces. I reused a couple of hoppers that I had already smashed the barb on. Those got chewed up as well. I was going to save the Ruby midge for a pic, but dropped it and lost it when I was replacing it. I was planning on quitting at noon so I started working my way back up to the access. I chose to avoid The Nam this time around. I picked fish pretty steadily. I had one take my midge away from me in the last few steps away from dry ground. Turd. I most definitely left them biting. I ended up catching 23. Lost another 6 or 7. And had another dozen takes I missed. No troutrage this trip.

My largest bass ever came on the first generation suspending Rogue and I grew up catching springtime bass on the old floating Rogues, but 24/7 has changed his middle name to Rogue. i guess I would too if I had the same level of success with them.

Man that's rough. Glasses aren't cheap. I'm well past just using "readers". I moved 45 boxes of flooring into the bluff cabin to acclimate prior to installation. I had no idea that stuff was that heavy. And yes it was Hot and Humid. We had three dump trucks full of chad delivered prior to that so I'll be working that around in my spare time over the next few days.

Grown up Beanie Weenies?