Ham

Not really, but lots of other things do.

I remember those or at least the ads for those.

Smoking is terrible. No one should smoke, BUT the UK is losing so many personal freedoms. they need a lot of changes

You should have tried a flyrod some.

I had failed on two previous attempts to catch a fish in this county. Both times I had tried from shore at Wapanocca NWR that I am sure can fish wonderfully at times, but would require a boat and putting your time in. progressing from Phillips into Lee, and then into Crittenden County from the southwest lead me to target Horseshoe Lake. Public access to Horseshoe Lake from shore is pretty limited. I headed for an AGFC boat ramp. The boat ramp parking lot was nearly Full. People were either really catching them or people had really been catching them recently. It is that time of year. well, I caught my fish on the first cast. a hybridized Longear. Happy to have him. I cast around a few more times and I had a small LMB hooked up, but he self released. As always, I had another card to play. I threw my stuff in the card and headed to Imboden, AR.

Lee County : After catching my first fish in Phillips County, I was sorely tempted to fish a ponded area below the lake, but time and stuff. I could not resist looking at Porter Bayou which looked yummy for weird stuff, but most likely completely worthless for game fish. I fired up Google Maps and it told me Bear Creek was 9 miles away and 15 minutes. Woo Hoo let’s go!!! It was a beautiful tree covered drive through a wild terrain. Mapping kept updating and the drive got longer and longer and longer. Was it in crow mode? It didn’t take too long, (51 minutes between the fish I caught in Phillips Co and Lee County)., but the was weird. Bear Creek Lake was beautiful and lots of ppl were fishing. I parked at the swimming area. I Headed down with the trusty Bug Launcher. 4 Big Largemouth were cruising around. Blackspotted Topminnows easing around. Bluegill everywhere. It took two casts.

Sunscreen/covering up are always Good ideas. A lot of time sun damage from a well spend youth comes back to haunt us. Try to protect your children and grandchildren.

It’s been a while, but I got back after it. I made a trip to Florida. No, a second trip to Florida and I drove this time. Newsflash, Pensacola is a long way from Flippin, Arkansas. You can’t sugar coat that turd. 12 hours in the car is not a fun way to spend the day. I did my Florida things wrapping up at like 5 pm Thursday. I immediately beat feet to get a few hours closer to home. It sucked and then sucked some more BUT it gave me the time to hit three far flung (well not close to Flippin) Arkansas counties. Got to hotel and had problems. Finally got to bed about 11:30 and was up at 0515 the next morning and on the road after the complementary breakfast at 0615. I did my digital pre fishing and had some spots to check out. I mapped them and took my swings with preset allotments of time. First up was Phillips County. I crossed the Mississippi at Helena, Arkansas and got to Storm Creek Lake about 10 AM. My gear was a train wreck from running and gunning in Florida. It took a few minutes to get it lined out. About my third cast, I got a hard take and a decent scrap. Male Bluegill. I wish I had a few days there. That lake has lots of fish. It’s up on a ridge and just down the hill is a swamp bayou and beaver ponds and stuff too. I could root around and have real Fun. Phillips County Conpleted and off to the next spot. Ahead of schedule for a change.

I saw way more bass than I did Bowfin. 🙁 I have plenty of other places to bass fish.

Man, I sure thought so. It is flooded by the Black River almost every year and I thought would help with fish populations, but I didn’t see much and caught even less.

It was a VERY Long time in the coming, but I finally got my Hobie Pro Angler 12 in the water. there will be a learning curve I am sure, but it went pretty well as far as the boat goes. I won’t be bench pressing it any time soon, but I can manipulate it on and off the truck OK. I got a set of wheels if I need to drag it around very far or over abrasive terrain. I would rather it had not been so windy for the debut, but I went anyway. I went to Oxbow off the Black River that I had been wanting to fish for quite a while. It has a “ramp”, but I didn’t trust it with a 20 ft Waldo. I could see me bogging the trailer in gumbo mud alone on BFE. water was stained, but looked very fishy. I had 4 bait casters ready. Spinnerbait, Squarebill crankbait, Chatterbait, And Buzzbait. I fished the outside edges of the cypress trees. The inside row of cypress trees. I fished the inside edge of the lake. I fished laydowns and stumps. I changed size and color of spinnerbaits and crankbaits. I fished for hours and never had a bite. so, I relocated. my goal for the day was 10 fish. I did not start fast. i switched spots and switched to fly rods. I got a red spotted sunfish and a warmouth pretty quickly. I saw a bunch of small gar and eventually caught a couple of small ones. The larger ones played hard to get. I saw a bowfin, but I could not get it to eat. I saw some common carp and they trolled me pretty hard. i rounded out my numbers with more panfish and went home. I got really irritated with the wind. The Hobie does well with prefab drive or a paddle. Very stable but responds well. It does catch a lot of wind. good to get out. Good to fish old school. I wish I could have gotten a few fish in the bait casters.

That’s a bit of an issue. Most of the fish I clean will be crappie and they are relatively delicate. You have to have a stronger knife to fillet the more robust saltwater species, but crappie require more finesse.

I’m looking to upgrade my electric knife. I have been crappie fishing more lately and harvesting a few crappie now and again. My old Mr Twister corded electric knife is 20 Plus years old. I won it in a tournament (door prize?) back in my Minden, La days so I can’t say that I haven’t gotten my money’s worth out of it. It’s still functional, but I would like better. I keep a VERY low percentage of the fish I catch. Crappie are a delicious fish and I like to provide a meal for family and friends every so often. Does anyone have real world experience with the Rapala or Bubba brands of rechargeable electric fillet knives? I think I have narrowed it down to those two brands. Thanks in advance.

So far, I think I like Black/Chart and Black/Black the best, but still willing to let the dis change my mind. I think carp will get all stupid over the smaller ones. I hope so anyway. Thanks for the samples Marty!

I really appreciate Les helping me get set up with LiveScope.

I’ve had a series of frustrating fishing trips lately. I always have a lot of irons in the fire and trying to work out where and when to fish is a constant struggle for me. I decided to stay local and if I sucked at least it wouldn’t cost me as much for gasoline. I saw the wind forecast and picked Norfork because I have some spots where wind wouldn’t eat me alive. I have three of four general areas that I have positive history on in the spring for crappie. I picked Fouts boat ramp. I wish I could say that I still fished as hard as 10 years ago, but these days I walk the dogs and screw around before I get going good. I probably fished from 10 am until 3:30 pm. I wanted to catch 25 fish and keep 10 Crappie if I could. I ran to a cove that I had never fished before. I started scoping. I found a brush pile that was loaded with crappie. I got bites on my first 6 casts. Sadly, It took five casts to get a hookup and the first fish I hooked took my jig. I had a nice keeper on my 6 th cast. I worked the pile with different lures and colors and angles and got 6 keepers before they shut down on me. The pile still had fish on it, but they would not play. I had a couple of 13 inchers on the day which is as big as I want to keep. I know other people will eat a two pounder, but if I try to release em over 13.5 inches. I even got a Magnolia Crappie. I ran to another cove and searched for brush. I found the one pile I knew about. Sadly that there were no new brushpiles for to find. That brushpile only seemed to have bluegill on it, but I scoped out some crappie suspended under a boat dock and I was able to shoot a jig down beside the pontoon boats and finish my 10 fish limit. I threw back a bunch of 10 1/2 ‘s looking for 11’s. I got another 13 incher. I ran around a bunch looking and finding other brush, but I didn’t catch much on any of them yesterday. I did mark them for later. I finally got tired of eating white caps in Waldo. I retraced my steps on the two spots that worked well before and finished catching my 25 fish I wanted and went home I’ll get out there and clean the crappie here in a little bit. Should be plenary for a Good meal for 4 or 5 people. I needed a get right day. I’ll figure out a spot for early next week and try for crappie again.

I’m Sorry Phil. I wish he could have been young, Happy, and Healthy forever. It’s tough losing a beloved dog.

Sounds Great!

Bowfin?

So, did you catch em?

Im Team Pangolin. I’ve know about them since the mid 80’s. Stuff like this makes me hate people. Maybe they should drop a hammer on poachers.

I think they are an absolute blast to catch trolling. Silver Salmon caught out in the ocean are a beast. I have caught them multiple times on 10 ft mooching rods with a 1:1 mooching reel. Their power is hard to imagine until you’ve hooked one. Basically unstoppable on the first run. You have to let them run. Something is going to break if you absolutely lock. It down. The hook, the rod, the reel, the 20 lb mono one of those items is going to fail when a 15 lb Silver takes off IF you refuse to give ground.

It may look like it was fall off a log easy, but I promise it was not. Long hard days. Leg cramps three of the nights. Lots of driving. Lots of fish I was targeting that I did not get. big misses : Lookdown, Jag Guapote, and Checkered Puffer the offshore stuff made me feel like I was a total newcomer to fishing. I have a certain fishing skill set, but I have a lot to learn in salt. I’ll probably wrap this up and the next version can start up when I start pushing for 225 or 250 on fly.

So, today was the last day. Rise and Grind. Fished a bridge again. I had shots at a Checker Puffer, but failed. I got three tomtate. Then tried Jupiter inlet. Tide really wrong. Saw a few fish. No bites. then back to Phil Foster to fish until we HAD to go. Then rush and catch our flights out. I did not struggle to find flys the fish liked. I struggled to find flys the fish would eat. First fish was a French Grunt. I think. then I finally got a Silver Porgy. I finally found a fly they would eat. A small Y2K. But it was barbless and I lost some fish because of that I ended up catching three of them. I also got some Pinfish. #sopokey I got two of those. And a a white Grunt. But the best fish of the day was an unlikely catch. I was trying a heavy fly for Lookdowns out off the NW corner. When I brought the fly in a saw a bug dark fish take a look. A few casts later the look was an eat and I came tight. I was using a 3 weight for the little guys, but this guy had me walking briskly to keep up. I managed to wear him down and caught a 2 pound ish Common Snook. I had Needlefish hooked, and Sgt Majors, and a Night Sgt I think. Saw all kinds of amazing parrot fish that would not play. but a Good end to a Hard, but satisfying trip. Another day another flyer. Pretty Stressful end to the trip. Everything took longer than planned and I was worried I was gonna miss my flight. They started boarding as I walked up. No worries. On the plane flying now.

So, Tuesday we were set up to do a half day trip with a guide in some canals near Boca Rotan. Good Grief the money that’s down there. We were after Four species of snook. We were told that getting all four was difficult, but the guide expected us to get three of the four. we didn’t. I got the first fish. Real nice take. Easy peasy. Tarpon Snook Pleasy. And then we caught Common Snook, Mayan Cichlid, Jacks, and a lone Lookdown which I did not catch. We had some difficulties in the morning so the guide trip ran long and cut into our Boca inlet time. We missed most of the high tide. So many fish and so much rejected. Made me want to say that I hate fishing, but I don’t. The only bite I gut in an hour at Boca would have been a Flyfer Sea Brim. I fought him down carefully on the three weight and the tiny hook pulled when I tried to lift his chubby butt. We finished the fishing with a trip to a canal looking for Jaguar Guapote. I really want one. I still really want one. I did get some consolation prizes. Red Head Cichlid. Coppernose Bluegill and an Oscar. another great day that we topped off with Fish tacos using the Bar Jack, smoked fish dip, smoked mackerel, and sashimi.