Ham

Freakin beautiful when I crossed in last Monday.

They stick out like a sore thumb. I saw several in the Rim Shoals area. You can watch them swim to and fro. I also saw a Bald Eagle hit the water hard getting a fish. Put these two observances together and you get a need for repeat stockings of the mutants. I'd rather have more Brookies and Cutts.

My bad. I appreciate the links.

Is it great news John? I'm not really sure. The slab helped maintain water levels upstream a little bit which kept it floatable longer which I see as a positive. So I would expect more difficult floats. I'm not really sure how much fish migration was an issue anyway? The creek goes dry between Yellvillie and Hwy 101 more often than not so fish migration is limited to certain sub-sections of the creek anyway. I know smallies migrate to deeper water in winter and will migrate down to lakes or resivoirs if the creek runs into one, but there wasn't going to be a mass migration down to the White River. What species of fish were they expecting to do better with this change? Better access to the education center is a plus. Bank repair and stabilization is a plus. Maybe we will get a better area for launching kayaks or canoes out of the deal. Regardless, I guess the project is coming and we will see what happens.

Could you post a link to the projection generation schedule? You might want to make note of the offical caveat and remind folks that it is usually "most" accurate if you make plans after 6 pm the day before your trip. None of the information is a sure thing BUT much better than a total shot in the dark.

A took a quick look via Bing. It looks like trips are to outer space rather than the moon itself and the price tag is in the millions. There is a waiting list and I would imagine that trips aren't going to get very common for awhile yet.

#18 ad that's stretch for me. I got really humbled by a guy using 26's one day when my 18's would not even get looked at. It was BAD.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to give that a try.

I pretty much reach for War Eagle stuff first these days. I prefer the Screamin Eagle 1/2 oz. I throw whatever color looks good to me based on available light and water color. I do lean towards the shad colored stuff. Typically with one silver and one "gold" blade.

Beautiful country in Boxley. Where the elk out yet? My wife and I hiked that area a couple of weeks ago and the Elk were every where. I'm glad you guys had a good trip. I really need to get my wife on an overnighter, but after 12 days w/o power from the ice storm this past spring I was informed that she was DONE camping for the year. She kinda likes her yak so I'm going to have to pack REAL light too and likely leave out ALL fishing gear which I might really struggle with.

I agree completely, that's why the eyes and antennae are unnecessary and more for you than the fish AND it's still going to get hung up and if you fish it where it needs to be thrown you'll lose several of them in a day. It's cool though. Looks great and if you're having fun with it, rock on!

EVERY jig will hang to some degree. Some casting angles are worse than others. You can learn ways to fish that have you hanging less BUT hangups are gonna happen. I'm not above swiming to get a jig back when the waters warm enough. It's OK if you want to dress that jighead up, but it IS NOT necessary to do so.

One that you and I have talked about that I'd rather not discuss publically.

Launched in the rain and took out in the rain. Fished in constant rain inbetween. I fished roughly 4 hours. I caught 11 bass. Of which, eight would have been legal keepers. The three non keepers were all > 13 inches. I had a 19, two 18's, and a handful of 17 inch bass. I had 4 other bass hooked. Two of those were in the 17 to 18 inch range. I missed another 5 or 6 strikes. The best part is that I saw every strike. I caught my fish out of flooded bushes in 6-10 foot of water. The fish were really aggressive. These fish weren't sipping the baits. They were crushing them. Water was about 65' surface. Water was very clear, but had a little dingy section next to shore from runoff. Water was obvisiously rising. Great day. I think I like fall fishing on these lakes more than spring fishing.

Hubba Hubba

Good looking stuff; Good Luck with your sale.

Gee, makes you wonder why the COE doesn't allow or create higher than usual water conditions every so often to enhance the spawn and fry survival. I'm not talking about flood level, but an additional X number of feet that would help the fish W/O screwing the pooch.

I'm sorry ya'll didn't catch em better. I'm in the middle of a long stretch of working so I can't remember what the weather was like last Saturday. We had perfectly miserable weather for mammals which was perfect for fishing. Give me clouds and wind this time of year and I feel like I can catch a few fish. I was further down lake than you were. I don't usually fish the immediate area close to Lakeview, but I do fish the stuff closer to Mt Home than Buck MOST of the time. I'll try to get back after them soon.

Miserable weather in the fall has meant better fishing for me.

I think I can be patient for about 10 mintes worth of non sense. I would have started getting pretty annoyed after that. It's nice to offer to help, but as others have noted sometimes folks won't let you help. I think we are preaching to the choir. Most folks on here know to load and unload out of the way AND know to only take up one lane at the ramp.

I'll give you a holler for some half day trips in the coming weeks.

Hey Wrench, how often do you need to get the boat out during the cold water time to avoid the winterizing stuff? I'll likely not go too often in the big boat once water temp drops below 40 degrees UNLESS we get a multiday warming trend. Once it heads up from 40 degrees, I'll hit it again. I still think I'll get out once a month or so. I have the boat in covered storage, but it does get sub freezing in the boat barn. BTW, I had a water pressure guage freeze and bust while my boat was at the shop last year. So that makes two cases you've heard of.

Service from St Croix seems to vary based on who you happen to get on the phone. I've had relatively good luck, but others I know have been at loggerheads with St Croix and give up on St Croix rods forever as a result.

You certainly had a good day for throwing spinnerbaits. Any size much? LMB or SMB or Spots?

You don't need to drop the cash for flurocarbon. a quality 4-6 pound green mono will work just fine. Inline spinners, spoons, F7 and F9 rapalas will all catch trout for you BUT I prefer Zig Jigs. I've caught literally hundreds of trout this year on Zig Jigs. I use the 1/8 oz most of the time. I prefer the greens and brown colors. You might want to consider hiring a guide at least for a half day trip to get a feel for the river and how to handle a trout boat BEFORE you rent one. You're coming a LONG way to do something you've never done before and I'd like ya'll to be successful. Swimming those jigs isn't too different than tightlining a jig for crappie, but the White changes flow etc almost every day and a decent guide would be able to take you to a section of river that was fishing good. Corn and Powerbait definitely catch trout BUT that is not necessary to catch them.