Ham

I'm really looking froward to the pre-spawn jerkbait bite, 4 inch grubs for smallies, finesse grubs for crappie, sluggos for shallow bass, and the post spawn top water bite. Hurry up Springtime !

Behave Cricket.

Great post. Knowledge is power. Ignorance breeds fear. Watch where you put you hands and feet AND enjoy observing snakes from a safe distance. Just another animal. No more inherent malice towards man than a turtle.

Lots of folks aren't comfortable changing out lower unit oil,plugs, impellers, winterizing their boats, etc. His type service would be awesome for those jobs. I have no reason to believe that he's going to take on a job too big for him at someone's home. Kind of nice not to have to unload the boat and leave it somewhere else until someone in the shop has time to look at it. Either way, he's in the Mtn Home Area not LOZ so I doubt he "stealing" any business from you.

With the two flood gate releases in the last 5 years and the sustained high water releases after those events, the Islands at Rim Shoals have really taken a beating. I think without intervention those islands will be lost to the erosion of the peak currents. I would love to see some work done to build up the leading edge and replant native trees on the land that remains. Has anyone else noticed this? What group would be most likely to do the work or has the authority to authorize the work? Somebody did a similar project on the Norfork to save an island there. I guess we will see how successful that is over the long haul and what changes occur downstream as a result of it.

I'm not at all convinced that this will happen in my lifetime. I'll be shocked if this actually gets going in the next 10 years and mildly surprised if it happens in less than 20 years.

I'm all about following the science, BUT if you're going to put 1.5 million trout in the system EVERY YEAR, you've got to allow for harvest. Grey Blue herons take their share to be sure, but fishing harvst is needed also. The regulations need to be clear and enforcable. Extended areas of NO BAIT, NO BARBS, AND NO HARVEST would likely help. I'd support that even if it meant creating more river access areas for the lawn chair crowd.

It is interesting that a Brown has to be > 20 inches to be considered worthy on the White.

I had hoped it went well for ya'll.

A few jigheads. A few more packs of various soft plastics. I "might" be getting a spinning rod or two for panfish. I'm pretty well stocked.

Too many to list, but the top ten are 1) 100 trips 2) 3000 fish CAUGHT 3) 100 fish every month of the year 4) NO ZERO's 5) Fish with Dad 6) 30 species 7) 100 fish in a day on a fly rod 8) 200 fish in a day 9) fish with some new folks 10) fish a new Ozark stream

Quarry Park. They stock in October so I would try to fish November or December. They only stock 15,000 a year. Little knucklehead brookies get caught over and over running a hooking mortality guanlet AND big brown trout snack on them. Tough double whammy to face everyday.

I'm going to try to attend. Thanks for the heads up.

Phil, did you see anyone that you thought might be fishing illegally? I sure did. I know I should be careful what I wish for, but a AGFC presence the every day the first week or so that area reopens might be helpful. I saw guys that looked like they were dragging bait. I saw two boats doing that and they both seemed to be guides with clients. The three bumps on the log sitting there in chairs holding their poles perfectly still while they drift down rier. Guide netted every fish and would have to manipulate the clients bait after every fish. Ham

Less is more. You've gotten plenty of good advice. Lot's of ways to skin this cat. You'll find the ones you enjoy using the most. At this point, I'm not really looking for any additional lures. I am always fine tuning stuff.

Please do FS88.

I fished Groundhog's day just below the dam on BSL. I launched on the State Park side. Nice ramp no problems at all. Fishing was very good early, but the boat traffic seemed to shut em down really quickly. Crazy amounts of boats. Most behaved well. Did you spot the AGFC guy watching for people going beyond the wires? I got 20 to hand before noon and bailed out to go down river. I caught another 19 in the afternoon. I did have some real healthy bows up by the dam. Today would be better cool rainy weather would likely thin the crowd a tad.

I still want to catch a shadow bass as pretty as the one Andy has in his picture.

I like yaks over pontoons because of wind issues, but boat boats offer advantages.

Spam is pretty good fried especially when used to add to a fried egg and a nice slice of american cheese on an english muffin. Some folks are awfully thin skinned these days.

I struggle to land trout on size 20 and smaller that are barbless. If those same tiny drys have a barb though, I land most of them. I tie barbless ONLY. I primarily do so because I mainly fly fish in the catch and release areas and on the White River tickets are written if the barb isn't mashed down "enough". I have broken hooks trying to get the barb mashed down "enough". As a bonus though, it sure is nice to be fishing barbless when you get a fly stuck in you instead of the fish.

It would be nice to be able to call and see if the "projected" releases actually occured. It would be great to have them list the water releases as CFS not as units on line.

Heck of a deal. I'm shocked no one's stepped up to the plate on those. Where are you located?

I have a 42 inch bottom and it is plenty stable, but I've been told by those that own both that the 48 inch bottom is a much more stable boat. It is amazing how shallow a river jon with jet will run. I run out of courage before I run out of water. It reality, I'm choosing to spent a little time instead of a lot of repair money. It ain't the 6 inches of water I'm worried about, it's the rock sticking up 4 inches off the bottom in 6 inches of water. Hang in there GM. With a new kid on the way, it ain't your time to have a new boat. LOTS of good used glass trout boats on the market. In a couple of years, pick up one of those.

I do think there are times that the browns move upstream to spawn some of the lower river areas get kind of thin in the big brown department. I've heard that you kind find MORE big browns loosely pooled in certain areas as they move to spawn, but haven't seen that myself. Come fish the White whenever you can stand the temps. Bring jerk baits from 2 1/2 to 7 inches long in a variety of colors and throw them until the fish tell you what they want. They eat all day everyday but NOT some days are better than others and some hours are golden.