Ham

It was toasty warm and Spring has arrived down here. Wind was light and variable. Fish location was so random.

That's my nephew with his hard earned White Bass.

Another tough day. Fish are very scattered and picky. The ones we're catching are big though. I got 11 today.

IF I am remembering right, that is below Big Creek but above Shied Hopper Bridge? Parts of that are good. A little up river is better or a few miles down river is better too, but you should be able to catch fish there

I'll end up using that ramp a lot more once we move to Marion County.

I swear my phone is possessed

Today was Day 1 of 3 on the annual White Bass trip I make with my Dad. Wind was crazy high for down here. 20 plus MPH really makes it tough to fish down here. We fished just a little while and I got this chunky Green Trout. I got a series of jarring strikes w/o hooking the fish. I finally hooked up again but the fish quickly pulled off. My Dad finally got a good bite and caught a chunky Largie then he added A couple of White Bass. We both got lots of strikes but most fish weren't hooked. Frustrating and strange. I broke a nice White Bass off because I was too hyped up. We wanted to catch them in the river, but once again had to fish shallow back waters to get bit. Waited out a thunderstorm. Huge Thunder from nearby lightening strikes and lots of rain. After the rain, I finally got my first White Bass of the year to hand. He shook out of my grip before a photo, but we relocated to another shallow lagoon and I caught a few more. Including this sow. We fished as long as we dared before heading to the ramp. Loaded the boat in gathering darkness. I caught 7 fish today. Thank Goodness I took a couple of pictures I hope for better weather and a few more fish tomorrow.

Well then, I guess you wouldn't believe I caught 136 in 5 hours by myself then either. Bummer.

I was greeted by 76 degree temps and sunshine when I got to Shreveport. Spring has sprung down here. We're going to try for White Bass tomorrow with maybe some Yellow Bass as well.

remember thee are no good Browns down river.

. Check the Gut on this Norfork Brown

. Little Cutt with a mouthful of Zig Jig

CajunAngler with a 22 inch Brown on a Zig Jig @ Rim. This was a couple of years ago. He absolutely destroyed me on size and numbers that day.

. My buddy Godfrey with a nice Zig Jig Bow below the Dam

My bad. I'll try again.. I I think this is my son with a big Dry Run Creek Bow

. Nice Cutt I caught on a Zig Jig@ Rim 19.25 inches

I've tried really hard to keep my jig colors as simple as possible. Zig Jigs are offered in a lot of colors and they all have guys that buy them by the dozen, but I'm trying to keep it to 6 colors in my box. If I am fishing Low water especially with sun,I'm always going to reach for Olive/ Ginger first. Overcast skies generally make me pull out triple olive. October thru April, I'll throw Brown and Orange if the other two don't produce like I want them to.. I want some version of black. Maybe black/olive, black/red, or just black. You really do NEED white in springtime if you're fishing below the dams. It does work year round, but I start with it early spring below the Dams. I've started trying Ginger when I'm faced with a lot of algae and trash in the water. It seems to stand out from the trash better than an olive based color. I've had some missteps. Colors I was sure were gonna be great that have not worked for me. For trout, I can't recommend purple, brown/ginger, or olive/orange. They will catch fish, but slower than the others. I made three trips in a row where I had the same two individual jigs tied on. Olive /Ginger and Triple Olive. While it was unusual that those two jigs both survived three trips in a row, it's not surprising that I was using those two colors. I have started a trip with my buddy Godfrey where I was trying something different while he was throwing Olive and Ginger. He caught eight fish before I had a bite. I changed to olive/ ginger and caught a fish on the first cast. so color can matter a lot.

No idea. All of y'alls Loons are down on Bull Shoals.

I read this deal this morning and my first reaction was to giggle about it and walk away. I appreciate all the folks I know that have piped up and vouched for me . I do ACTUALLY fish. I don't just blow smoke online. Way back when I started fishing Ozark creeks for smallmouth bass I quickly realized that we were catching so many fish in a day that I couldn't keep straight how many I caught. I was used to going and fishing hard all day and catching maybe a dozen fish or on a huge day maybe 25 or 30, but on a creek BIG numbers were easier to catch than keep straight in my head . I got tired of saying "I'm sure we caught at least 40" or "it had to be at least 50". I wanted to be as honest as I could be so I bought a clicker. I decided for me to consider a fish caught I had to touch it. And I started keeping close tabs on what I caught. JoeD man I'm sorry you have trust issues. I'm sorry you refuse to believe that someone else could catch more fish than you did. I'm sure you have mad skillz and all, but you have to understand that every dog has his day. Did you also have trouble believing me when I went to Bull Shoals the other day and fished for hours and never had a bite? Other guys caught fish that day and some good ones too. I freely acknowledged that I stunk it up and I was proud of them for doing a lot better than me. The White River is fantastic and jig fishing for trout certainly seems to be the best way to put big numbers up. Your photos show trout caught on jerkbaits. That's a great way to get a GREAT BIG Brown, but not a great way to catch a bunch of fish in a day. UNLESS FLOW IS REAL HIGH, I think a jig will usually out number a jerkbait. I carry a lot of jerkbaits in my trout bag, but I rarely tie one on because 1) I catch more on a jig and 2) treble hooks injure the trout more. 6 to 9 hook points do more harm than 1 barbless point. A lot of photos were taken that day. Way more photos than I usually bother with. They are on my buddy Darren's camera. He uploaded them to Facebook. IF we were friends on Facebook, you would have seen them already as several folks on here have. I sort of suspect that if I posted 10 photos, you'd want 20. I don't take the photos to prove anything to anybody. I don't post reports to prove anything to anybody. You aren't likely to believe me anyway and I don't really feel any obligation to prove anything to you. I don't much care for being called a liar though. That part bothers me a little bit. The numbers thing is a game I play to motivate myself to fish hard and to fish as often as possible. I'm not in competition with anyone other than myself. For me, it is FUN to fish hard all day and try to catch every fish in the lake or river. Oddly enough, many of the fish that I or my friends catch make really vivid memories. Since my 100 fish trip on 2-8-14 caused such butt hurt for you. I'll put out all of 2013's numbers for you to hate on and disbelieve. I made a total of 87 fishing trips. I had 8 trips where I caught over 100 fish and I had a total of 22 trips were I caught at least 50 fish. (8 + 14). March of 2013 was terrible for me. I only caught 45 fish for the entire month. July was pretty freaking great though. I caught 619 fish that month. I fished with 23 different people of the course of the year. More than half of which I had never fished with before. That was real cool. By coincidence, I caught 23 species of fish last year. I'm really gonna have to step things up in different species this year. I can tell you every day I fished. I can tell you how many days were in my Bass Cat, my canoe, my trout boat, my kayak, wade trips, or a guest in someone else's boat. I know how many trips I took each month and how many fish I caught each month. How about fish totals by year then?. I moved up in 2007. New job, new house, new routines. Not much fishing. So Let's look at 2008 thru 2013 2008 = 1078 2009 = 2201 2010= 2433 2011 = 2356 2012 = 2365 2013 = 3174 I'll keep up with overall numbers in 2014, but the only number I really care about is the 52 species goal. I'll post photos on that deal as the year rolls along. I'm headed down to Louisiana tomorrow to try and fish with my Dad as his health allows. Hopefully, I'll add 6 or more species to the 8 species I've caught so far this year.

I quit liking that set up for most things once I tried Nanofil with a leader. I've used a fluro leader, but I'm having trouble convincing myself that it's better than a mono leader.

I'm using a mish mash of Daiwa, Quantum, and Pfulger. I got burned by the binding Shimano deal years ago and I won't ever buy another Shimano spinning reel. I also got burned buying some US Reels. Cabela's closed them out @ $50 bucks for a reel that had retailed for $150. Absolutely the worst drag I have ever seen on a spinning reel. I love the large arbor reel, but the US Reels I have are junk and I won't ever buy another. I just recently pirchased a Lew's Gold. I have not had a chance to fish with it yet. Like Dave I really prefer the 2500-3000 size reel. I won't buy another reel < 2000 size for any application. The line behaves much better for me on a larger reel.