Ham

I have the Cabela's Dry Plus wading jacket. They areon sale right now. I wore it yesterday in the mid 30's with a misty rain. It did great. Kids did well at Dry Run Creek.

Uhhhhh I'm glad ya'll get along, but I REALLY DOUBT I'd do that if I were in your shoes. Good on you I suppose.

I've got the Olympus SW 720. I love it. Cajun Angler has the Pentax Optio, he's happy with ihis camera as well.

Hey JE I'll be glad to take a look at what he has. I probably would be plenty happy with what he has skirts and all. I'm not as OCD about spinnerbaits as I am my spook type baits, I just want some shaddish colored stuff. I've seen the War Eagle Purple shad color work behind me when I was throwing a "Spot remover" type color so I am interested in picking up some shad colored skirts with a little purple in them. I also have some spinnerbaits that I think wll work they just need clear water skirts. I've run across a few brands of skirts now so I might be able to fins what I want. Skirts do have a shelf life so I need to be careful about how far ahead I get. I do the cable tie thing once I have a good skirt on a good bait. BUT that sort of makes on the water changes more difficult. low rolling through rocky points with sunken cedar trees will help me use up some of my existing spinnerbaits though. I had gotten used to throwing spinnerbaits on 20/25 pound line in Louisiana, but I guess I'd be better off with 14-17 lb up here?

I'll be trying some of the War Eagle SB's next year, but at first blush, I'm not wild about the hook they use. I'd prefer it to be a round bend Gammy or Mustad Ultra Point. I'll be buying some War Eagle replacement skirts for sure and wish I could get their Purple shad or smoke purple. I really want to avoid having to make y own baits or skirts BUT I will IF and only IF I have to do so. I really don't care if the spinnerbait head is painted or not. I've caught too many bass on plain leadheads to worry about it.

I've recently moved up to Mountain Home,AR from Minden,LA. I'm getting more time on Table Rock and Norfork. I'm not sure how much I'll fish Beaver and Bull Shoals, but we'll see. I've been using spinnerbaits with decent success. I have mainly been slow rolling them, but I have also caught a few pretty shallow when the wind was blowing into the bank prety good. I've got lots of spinnerbaits from my mudhole fishing days that have large blades and lots of chartreuse in the skirts. Up here, I've been using clear skirts with a little hint of color (blues,greens,purple over clear that might have some very small silver flake in it). I've caught more fish on double willows, but I'm certainly fishing them more too. I like the profile and blades size of some of the 1/4 oz models, but the delay in the bait getting down is troublesome and at times I will need a retrieve speed that will be too fast to allow the bait to stay down. I have considered adding weight to the hook shank to keep the same profile/blades but be able to retrieve faster while staying deep. At night, I think I have what I need. Black with colorado blades. I will be doing the majority of my lake fishing in Spring and Fall. I'll see how miserable full on winter fishing will be, but likel;y I'll be a trout guy during the winter and a river smallie guy during summer. I hope that spinnerbaits will work through late fall and again pre-spawn. I would appreciate feedback on what type of spinnerbait others have had success using (head size blade size and/or brand name), Areas of the lake you like to use them, Time of year or better yet water temp and conditions that scream spinnerbait at you, and how you prefer to retrieve it back to the boat (slow roll , bulge, steady retrieve, stop and go, etc. I ain't asking for much am I?

Still learning the lake. Weather was interesting. Windy then calm. RAIN and then sun. Some big nasty static electricity (also know as lightening) a little too close for comfort. Most of the time we had enough wind or rain or clouds (or combo of all three) to help keep the fish active. The shad have not moved in the backs of any of the creeks I have seen yet. The shad I graphed were in the 60 foot range. We caught a fair number of bass (LMB, spots, and smallies). Nothing of any size really. We did have several legal spotted bass, but it was a C&R trip. Water temp was about 64' on the surface. We caught fish on grubs, cranks, topwater, and spinnerbaits. Water color ranged from very clear to way too d*** clear. I saw isolated blow ups way off shore which I guess was stripers, but we did not catch any of those. I need better electronics and the gps waypoints for about 1000 deep water brush piles. I plan on fishing Norfork spring and fall. In the winter, I'll trout fish and once it warms, I'll be on the rivers and creeks.

Thanks Don. I'm going to try a few of the expensive options. I may just give that Jackall a try.

I'm trying to learn the wake bait thing as well. Yesterday, I tried it off and throughout my day on Lake Norfork (it was my 2nd trip to the lake). I've looked back and forth doing searches with various key words about waking but IF I overlooked something and ask a previously answered question Please forgive me. I'll be fishing Bull Shoals and Norfork mainly. I'm going to guess this is primarily a Spring and fall technique since the fish in the summer and winter will be very deep. I'm there on line and rod selection. I was going to stick with shad like colors. I caught one and hung another, but I had a lot more follows than takes. Is this normal? I had a big ole saltwater sized jointed Redfin. I really struggled to keep it throwing a wake and wiggling good. I understand that not all baits of the smae make and model work equally well and I had that bait along for stripers, but tried it for waking since I had flat calm and plenty of shaded bluff banks to throw at. I also got bit on a Bandit Foot loose while waking it. I tried a variety of different sized spooks, but no takers. Has anyone tried the the high dollar import stuff? If they worked, one at $15 bucks might be cheaper than buying 4 of the "cheap" ones before you get one that works. I'm not buying anything until 2008, but I'll look through all the stuff I have looking for other baits that might work in this role, I've already tried a half dozen that did not.

Nice report. About what time of day was the topwater bite? I was on Norfork yesterday, not too too far from the area you described, but a miss is as good as a mile. I caught a few fish, but I would certainly enjoyed your trip.

After all the tourneys are done for a bit, I'd like to discuss the techniques for slinging a blade at TR, BS, and Norfork. Depth, speed, blade type, etc I've had some success, but I am always looking to improve.

Hey Al: Go dip up a bunch of scuds and sowbugs. Dump those in and watch the feeding frenzy that takes place. Frozen cubes of bloodworms should work and they would "move" as the outflow from the pump broke up the cube. Young Bullhead catfish are fun. They find very interesting places to hide. I've had various tanks at different times and while they were lots of fun, I don't want to go there again.

Hey War Eagle, Not that you asked, but you really should spend some time in open water learnig to safely run your boat. Get a feel for how to run rough water. Get a feel for getting on plane and coming off place. A big ole glass boat sits down when you get off the gas and you WILL take water over the stern until you get the hang of how to do a rapid stop. FWIW 4000 rpms burns a whole heck of a lot less gas than WOT. I have fished from boats with outboards for 40 plus years and the move from a 40 hp to 150 hp was still a learning curve for me. I rode in some big boats before I ran mine, but I still had to learn for myself. Heck of a first boat! Enjoy it, but learn to use it safely.

I'd agree that all three are good boats. Sometimes a dealer will have one of the three on sale or you get a chance at a used one or whatever. I'd like a tarpon with NO keel or at least a greatly reduced keel. Glad to hear that MR has changed their design. Hopefully the good folks at WS will do away with the leaky center hatch as well. Enjoy your boats.

I have a Tarpon 120 and my wife has a Tarpon 100. Granted each year they make slight changes, but I have not had the water via the hatches issue. My boat only has two hatches. Both are on the center line of the boat. One is immediately behind the cockpit and then there is the forward hatch. I have not had leakage issues. I have read about guys developing leaks in the Manta Ray on the leading edge of a scupper hole under the seat area of the boat. All boats will develope leaks eventually if used on shallow rocky rivers during low water. Folks using a boat on lakes and ponds won't have these issues. I kinda felt like MR and the Redfish had copied the Tarpon hull very closely. I want my scupper holes in tracks so that rules out the MR. I want a big front hatch so I can stow fishing rods inside. I like the seats Tarpon have. I find them to be very comfortable. I do get out and stretch from time to time though. Lots of goood boats. If I found a better boat than a Tarpon, I'd buy it BUT so far I haven't seen better than the Tarpon.

Looks like a nice boat. I'm wondering if you looked at the WS Tarpon series before you made your choice. If you chose the Redfish over the Tarpon, I'm wondering what helped drive that choice.

Oh Bobber I wish I was. Kyle's was worse,but I had some idiot James Taylor wannabe singing far into the night at Tyler Bend. I'm ok until about midnight and then I start getting PO'ed. Agreed about the road to Kyle's. We stayed there during a monsoon weekend the ruts got worse and worse each trip in or out. Several places I didn't dare slow down as much as I would have liked to for fear of getting stick, but I was fairly white knuckled trying to keep the truck on the "road". Kyle's will teach you to use L1 or L2. Steel Creek ain't a whole lotta fun, but it's worse if you get in a hurry.

I've stayed at Tyler Bend. It can get a little noisy until the wee hours on the weekends as well. TB should be a good choice for the listed reasons, plus it has some hiking trails and the vistor center. I have friends that like Buffalo Point a lot. It is as nice as Tyler Bend from what I have heard. Off season would be better, but you can't have everything.

Basically, if you don't police your own actions, someone else eventually will. A LOT of bad behavior has gone on for a LONG time on the Spring river and the Niangua river. I's rather not have checkpoints to deal with either. I thought by having a checkpoint that alieviated the need for a probable cause. I like the Niangua. I've even caught a fish or two there. I'd like to see it without a thousand cans on the bottom one day.

If people stay away from the Spring river because they are afraid of getting caught with drugs or being drunk or some other violation of reasonable laws, I see that as a good thing. It ought to make my fishing day better. I think that if you answer an enforcement officer's questions politely and respectfully, you shouldn't have any problems UNLESS of course you're doing something illegal. I'm still going to wait a couple of years before I try a weekend during the summer break. I'm not sure how long it will take for word to spread and how long they will stay with this program. Nice river to fish except the young drunk and stoopids.

I have been told that there is limited natural reproduction of trout because the water chemistry is wrong. But,I will certainly yield to those that may have better information. In the past, my trout fishing on the Spring river has always been late summer and early fall. If the trout fishing was any easier, it would have to be a pay for fish venue. Many Islands is pretty close to the end of the trout water isn't it?

While the plastic bottles and soda cans are certainly ugly, they are all but inert and don't pose a great danger to the river itself. CHemical run off and siltation are a lot worse. Having said that, I pick up a sack full of garbage everytime I head down a stream. Ihate to see debris like that every bit as much as you do. I would definitely have hit the log jam with a tube or a topwater.

Consider fishing the Red River below Lock #3

Favorite hmmmm spook most productive ... soft plastic on a jighead.

Put in at Spring River Oaks. Take out at the low water bridge on the east bank or go all the way down to Hardy. You'll need a boat. I've never fished it like I want to, but I caught fish. This is a trip I plan to do with Cajun Angler. Hopefully this year.