Ham

. 5 and some change

. Chomp

Local fishing conditions were MUCH less than ideal. Rains to the north a few days prior to our visit had caused most of the river systems to be blown out. We only had a couple of inches of visibility and maybe as importantly all that water lowered the salinity which can drive the specs out to the ocean. We talked to multiple local guys in high dollar boats that were scratching their heads trying to fiure out a way to catch a few fish. We were told that the fishing had been great prior to the muddy water. When you a working stiff, you have to plan ahead and go when you get a yard pass. I play the cards I'm given. So despite the dirty water, when the fish refused full size offerings, I fed then finesse. Because Dave suggested that I give the Ned a try, I had my Ned gear. I think about my third cast with the Ned I was hooked up. At one point, I dialed in on a kill zone and had fish hooked up four casts in a row. I was lucky enough to get to fish with Richard Button who is a buddy of Billethead. Richard is a very good fisherman and was willing to stay in a set location and continue to work the Ned with very determined retrieves. Fish are moving in and out of the small bayou we were set up in and every so often there would be a flurry of bites. After, I caught a few fish, Richard tied on the Ned rig that I was offering. I was able to set up Les and Cody with Ned offerings as well. As is often the case, I had decent numbers with minimal size. Henceforth, whenever you catch an undersized Red, feel free to refer to it as a "ham sized" Red instead of a Rat Red. I caught numerous fish that would have been legal in La, but not in Texas. All my flounder were too small to keep. I had a couple of decent Specks, some small Black Drum, and a croaker. Friday was cool, cloudy, and windy. Friday was much warmer, but still kind of windy. Sunday was WARM and windy. Thank God for the wind. The mosquitos would have carried us away and left our drained bodies for the crabs. Water temps climbed so rapidly. We saw 49 degree water in the afternoon of Friday. Water temp was all the way up to 69 degrees on Sunday afternoon. I am confident that if the water had been normal that we would have caught more and bigger fish, but I had a great time catching the fish I caught and a lot of laughs with the fellows. Round trip it was 1515 miles. It was as pleasent a 12 hour drive as you could ever have. I finished up catching 71 fish over the three days.

Great trip Man! I go out of town and you smoke them in my absence.

You Da Man Bret!

Great job man. What a big ole hen. There are a lot of different colored trout on the White.

St Croix Premier "L" I like at least 6'6" but 7 ft is my preference. Nanofil out throws mono and out performs mono. You will need leader material. Harder to come by but the Dorber OMT 84UL is a real nice stick.

Oh don't get me wrong, I love panfish on a flyrod too. I just love to fish in general.

All Hail Rick the Rock Eater!!! Lol Crazy man.

Are you talking Ray Duncan's Pappy jigs? What size hook?

If you catch trout on Jigs at Taney, you'll be fine on the White. You might need a little while to adjust your game a bit. It is a river. Taney is now a lake they run water through. Look back at various fishing reports on the White. You should whack em.

My Bad. I thought that was something you posted today. Nice, nice fish BTW.

Who knew there were so many bass in Mother Russia. No way you caught a big fish on a Ned. The Ned rig is for short fish only. Lol, It got to over 50 degrees here today, but maybe it was much cooler where you were.

Reading comprehension is WAYYYYYY OVERATED.

Those Table Rock Spotted Footballs are so nice.

I'm soooooo glad I have no idea what ole blue is talking about and that I have resisted the swimbait addiction so far.

I'm not a big fan of drifting a fly from a boat ANYWHERE. I am hoping to hit that tailwater from a yak using it as a water taxi. It's about to be a multispecies thing as fish move up river in the Spring. I'll happily catch the trout, but I would never go there for the trout as I live less than 20 minuttes away from multiple launches on the Norfork and the White.

Don't feed the troll. If you have people that repeatedly stir the pot and de-rail threads, perhaps you should just add them to your ignore list and maybe EVENTUALLY the troll will move on and play their internet games some other place. It stands to reason that if the same few people are always starting crap that they start crap because they enjoy it. Carry on.

Well actually, I kinda like floating creeks and catching 100 fish mostly smallmouth better, but to each his own.

In fairness, I'm not fishing for the bluegill either. That's a lot of Bluegill for BSL though. Legal limit is 25?

No doubt about that. I have had a boat in the past with two temp gauges and they never read the same. I would watch the one that read high on early spring trips to try and stay positive. Usually the unit I have now isn't as far off the other reports as it seems to be now. I have an old school glass stream thermometer that I need to bring with me and compare next time out.

I find it interesting that while I don't catch a lot of bluegill on Bull, I catch some monster gills. Toads.

I hope they come with built in Febreez dispensers. Gizzard shad STINK.