Ham

Keep trying DD. if anyone can catch one, you can.

We are going to have to take the good with the bad. It will enable more ppl to fish from Snow to George's creek. I will be one of those ppl from time to time. I wonder if we can use this access prior to completion of all the work?

I should have said that it is the best I have tried. I'm not about to buy all the fancy import fluoros on the market. Some of them may very well be superior to the Berkley 100%, but it seems like a great product to me. I don't need anything better. Getting it free would be an upgrade though.

A couple of more thoughts then. How many times do we catch "keeper" fish that have recent hookmarks? I know I am catching a lot of fish that have been caught before. I would catch a significantly smaller number of fish if all the legal keepers had been kept. It also shows that while there certainly is post release mortality, that catch and release does work and makes a positve difference in our fish populations. We should understand though that some fish are going to be injured and/or die no matter how well intentioned we are. It seems that sometimes fish are hooked in highly vascular areas and bleed out internally. No blood in the water, but they struggle for a while and roll over and die a few minutes later. Sucks. All the more reason to treat the fish as well and carefully as you can. I hate for them to die for my entertainment. "I don't bed fish because of the impact on the spawn". I don't bed fish because I don't think it is the best use of my time on the water. I KNOW that I am catching spawning fish. Most of them are going to be in some stage of the spawn during March thru early June. I'm just staying off of them and covering more water than the guys locking down on a bed fish. IF you fish from March thru June, you are catching some spawning fish and pulling them off of their beds for those critical seconds regardless of your good intentions. If you want to pat yourself on the back about not catching spawners, you should fish from August thru Janurary only or stay out in 30 plus foot of water. I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular about this, but it seems poorly thought out at best to throw that line out there.

The Berkley 100% Fluro is about as good as it gets. I've used the 10 lb for jerkbaits for a couple of years now. Very abrasion resistant yet seems pretty supple. It doesn't seem to be thick per strength. Don't avoid the 100% Fluro because of Vanish. Vanish was a bad product. They may have improved it, But I will never buy any of their line labelled Vanish. I use Seguar Abraz X on baitcasters and I bought Red Label for leader material. I've gone back to my CX Premium for leader material. Fluro is too picky about how it is tied and I don't think I was getting advantages the advantages of Fluro to offset the disadvantages in my < 8 foot leader. I felt like the Red Label had a little too much body.

Sorry Man, I was just having a little fun. I'm sorry if it didn't come across that way.

Lots of very interesting thoughts come to mind looking through this thread. In regards to crappie management, what I have read is that they are very difficult to manage. Crappie have a lot of natural predation from other fish and animals. So even without the impacts from man, their populations numbers are going to wax and wane. Add in that they have widely varying success at spawning, their are good years and poor years at every lake that has crappie. Not every lake is equal in crappie production and some lakes also don't fish very easy for crappie. It may be that lots of the Table Rock crappie roam offshore and suspend and are not easily targeted. The lack of good spawning locations may very well hinder recruitment. Could artificial habitat be added? 10 inch minimum seems about right. 10 fish limit ought to be plenty. 15 is more than plenty. Anything more than 15 just seems excessive to me. Bull has been super tough for crappie this year. I hope next year will be better.

A body of water can stand a certain amount of harvest to be sure. I do not believe that Table Rock or any other place would fish the same if every angler kept every fish he legally was allowed to keep. How many fish would it add up to be if Mr Babbler and his clients kept all their legal limits every time out. A very large pile indeed. And those fish with their future spawns are gone. Or Capt Don? Or any of the other very knowledgable guides and anglers that spend 100's of days on the water. Small sample error to say your family does this and the lake is fine so the behavior is without potential for harm.

There is a ton of truth in this. I guess I live in a blissful ignorance telling myself that ALL the fish I release survived. Part of me knows that this is not true, but I'm happy that I don't know how many actually die.

I think he got a phone call from Capt Obvious

Look, I've fished Bistineau enough to know that is NOT that great. It isn't in the top 10 in Louisiana. Shallow. Difficult to navigate. Water quality issues. Some large fish. Some spotted Bass. Lots of rough fish. Smelly. Hot, muggy nasty from May thru September. Just say no. Without serious Payola, How does it make the list at all?

So how does it taste?

all part of the "selection" process.

I'm a sucker for those kind of lists, BUT.... Lake Bistineau at #27 ??? and Where the heck is is Tenkiller on the list? Of course, I'm pretty happy with their selection for #1. The fish in my avatar came from Toledo Bend.

I bet Super Dave's Ned Head is pretty close. It is made with a steelhead hook after all. I think I could make the 1/8 oz work.

It would take ONE 29 incher on a flyrod to make it worth the trip.

Try the Smokey Bling color.

I have a buddy that is able to get to Alaska every few years. He is completely done with Salmon and goes just for the BIG Rainbows.

A pretty nice little trip to Norfork. It was partly cloudy and completely HOT. Water temps were 82 increasing to 84 as the day wore on. The lake was fairly quiet early, but got stupid with pleasure boaters later. Anyone with any sense would have wrapped things up before 12 noon AND It would have been much better to be there at the first hint of daylight. I did not do either of those things. On water by 7 am and I came off the water about 315 PM. I hated to leave, but I had some MUST DO items. I stumbled onto a surface bite early. It was a mix of Whites and LMB. I had a Super Spook Jr on, but it was hard for the Whites to hook up on it. I added a Zara Puppy to the mix and caught fish better on it. I aslo got one on a grub. Cloud cover extended that deal for me a little bit. I imagine that is happening at first light in the right places. I got lucky. After that, it was a Ned fest. I tried really hard to make ANorfork fish like Bull Shoals Nope. Tube got whacked, but never by the right fish. I did throw a variety of surface lures in a lot of different places. NOPE. I also broke out the UL stuff to try an catch a Red Ear. I got a LOT of Long Ear Sunfish and exactly ONE Pumpkinseed. First Pumpkinseed of the year. All my bass after first light were smallies. I was fishing a mid lake area and that is NOT the part of the lake where I expect smallies to dominate. The Ned catches Errrrbody, but smallies seem really prone to biting it.

Oh Geez now I feel guilty, I think I had a 15 minute trailer to the ramp I used this morning. Fish were blowing up within sight of the boat ramp. I eased over with trolling motor and caught 7 (a mix of white bass and LMB) mostly on topwater baits. Those were the last largemouth I caught all day. The rest of my bass were smallies. I moved around a lot tried 15-30 FOW. Never found the better fish I was looking for today. I would have on Bull.

She's standing in a good spot.

Feeling kinda grumpy down here on the big flooded pond. I'm gonna have to fish Norfork today.

Nice Redear!

Summertime and a good breeze makes for a good hopper bite NOT flow level.

For me, The Buffalo starts at Ponca. I work for a living. This is a bucket list deal for me, but it has to wait a while.