Ham

I had gotten my trout boat out of the shop last week. Danny at Independence Marine got it fixed up for me. I had a gasket failure that was preventing it from starting/running and I had the water pump impeller changed out. It was way past due being down. I needed to do a shake down cruise. I always need to go fish and I have a stretch of 6 days in a row coming up so it was,now or never Well, I could go in a week or so, but that's forever away. So even though I prefer sunshine for trout fishing, I went. So, it was raining when I launched the boat and it was raining when I put it back on the trailer about 4 hours later and it rained every minute inbetween those events. Some of the time it rained pretty hard. Some of the time it rained less hard, but it always rained. I brought rods for jerk baits and I even started with them, but I caught all my fish on Zig Jigs. First cast with a Zig Jig and I caught a 17 inch hen Brown Trout. She really pulled hard. Soon after I caught my first Big Rainbow of the day. I lost a couple of Jumbows, but that's how it goes when you sling barbless jigs. I dropped down river to the start of the catch and release area. I caught an ok Brook trout. He had me behind some wood at first, but I got him to hand. Usually, the Brook Trout is the hard part of the Slam, but I have been catching a lot of Brookies this year. Of course, I've been fishing Norfork a lot more than usual. I was sick of the rain, I was tired of not being able to see thru my glasses for the raindrops. I was starting to get cold. I was soaked over about 3/4's of my body despite having rain gear,. I really wanted to catch that Cutthroat and complete my slam though. I kept grinding away. I lost a huge Bow that jumped way out of the water. I think it had a couple of lamprey attached. I dropped down to another area I like. Boat control down there is a pain in the butt, but it holds a lot of fish. I lost three good fish and caught one small bow. I ran through a tough spot and made a amphora cast below some broken water and hooked up. After a few hard pulls, a nice Cutthroat started thrashing around on the surface. I was able to slip the net under her. Woot! I had my first Norfork Slam. I head back upstream cold, but happy.

What? I was in total agreement with you. Saban is the El Chapo of college football.

Saban is most def NOT a Good Guy. Lots of stories outta Baton Rouge, Miami, and Alabama that point this out. Sure he generally knows how to act when a reporter puts a mic in his face, but that's not a full representation of his behavior. Did anyone see anything about the kid that wanted to transfer away from bama to UGA? Classic Saban lack of maturity and spitefulness. No reason to try to block him from having a final year of football. Great Football mind. Terrible person.

I don't know Boo about Table Rock, but my Happy Arse would try up the James River arm.

Grrreat, you guys don't have enough other stuff to argue about so you start talking smack about "good" scotch.

When life gives you green sunfish, catch flatheads.

I'm sure I could re-learn some flyrod stuff from you and show you Zig Jig stuff if the flow is UP. I'm also handy if you run into a technical issue like car or boat trouble EVEN IF I was not able to fish with you. Never hurts to know a local.

The MDC could try continued hunting and trapping North of I 70 and just trapping below I 70 and see what happens.

You know I live 10 minutes away from Norfork right?

I'd like to see Alabama lose every football game they ever play from now until the end of time.

I expect my Tigers will have a good year by most people's standards. I do not expect good enough play by the QB for them to win a National Championship. They also need better play from their O line. I expect Defense to be solid, but not necessarily world beaters. I expect there to be significant numbers of people that call for CLM to be fired. They will likely have 2 SEC losses. They will win their bowl game.

I thought it was a Brown when I saw the first post. I still do. Man, if you can catch em there, you can catch em anywhere. Good for you!

I have definitely seen them on the 11 Pt. I had one run my bait a couple of times. I have not caught one there YET.

Grrrrrr

I used to eat sardines when I was 5. I haven't been hungry enough to eat sardines in almost 5 decades.

I guess I had bailed on RS.com (whichever version it was), before Chief rolled up. I would have been forewarned at the very least.

The one Logperch I have ever caught came out of NFOW.

I don't know, but IF an OA member is being threatened by another OA member via your forum, I'd look into that.

This is Phil's site. If you have a concern, I would bring it to his attention with a PM.

The first plastic worms I remember were Fluttertail brand. You got them ina bag of mixed colors. All the colors of the rainbow in one bag. Soon after Fliptail worms became available. I caught a pile of fish on the Crème rigged worms. I threw them on my Zebco 404 before I moved up to a Zebco 606. I had a really good Zebco 33, but it was a little light for the fish we were catching on the rigged worm. I slow rolled them around coontail beds in the Bayou Pigeon area. Some of the grass had not topped out and you could slowly wind it over that or you could retrieve it aound the edges of the beds or in the channels between grass beds. Simply awesome. Flood waters of 1973 killed all the coon tail and caused massive areas to silt in. I so wish I could go back to 1972 and fish with the equipment and skill set I have now.

Not me Bro. I'm a river guy until at least October.

I'm looking forward to doing it again. My boat is out of the shop and hopefully fully functional. I need to test that theory soon.

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