Stump bumper

Good info, makes understanding these terms much eaiser. Everyone is in a hurry for the fall bite, but latley we have had a high pressure system resulting in 2 weeks of bluebird skies, clear water and that is rarley good for fishing, even if water temps are droping from summer highs. Next week promises some clouds and rain that will stain the water and make the fish more comfortable in the depths we a comfortable fishing for them.

I am thinking about a short trip this afternoon for some sunset fishing. Anyone fishing Swepco in good weather right now? I am thinking the fish will be around the darn or deep in the center, but I have not fished over there since it was 45 outside and this past winter the lake was cold most of time. Any reports at all would be great, bass, crappie or cats.

IMO that it is not intended to be a sport but an effective way to harvest a natural resourse for food and is a right for people to be able to feed themselves from the land were as sport fishing (what I do) is a way for people to amuse themselves.Growing up I had serveral relatives that depended heavely on meat from troutlines and hunting to stay off food stamps and there was very little sport in traping for food but it in no way made it wrong. I can't stand people who build million dollar homes in the country, then complain about geese and ducks in thier yards but pass local regulations that hungry people cannot kill them for food. That just rubs an old country boy wrong, even though I no longer hunt, but I believe that there is a reason to harvest game other than the "sport of kings." But there are rules made so we can all get along and IMO we should follow them. (If you do have too many of those pesky geese in your back yard, I can send gradma's reciept for goose with orange sauce.)

I cut and remove any I find that are unmarked, but I know on the Arkansas side it is only legal to have unattended lines out between sunset and sunrise so if I find fish on a line at noon they become free fish. There a rules for fishings jugs and lines just like any other fishing and wish the Fish and Game would get off their boat seats and do some work on clearing these out and if that is not in thier job descebtion then that needs to be addressed also. They seem to worry alot the size of spots in my live well and there is never more than 5 fish there, but they seem not to care how many are dieing on a troutline with 200 hooks, but pulling a trout line is a lot harder than opening a live well. I can't count the number of turtles I have cut loose from limb lines that have not been used in weeks, that is a crime not only in my book but in the fish and game book also but seems to be left up to fishermen to police each other. So IMO if you are cutting illegal lines and carring them back to shore and discarding them properly, keep it up, because I don't think anybody else is and if you don't want your lines cut and thrown away, run them at sunrise then take them with you.

My PB spot out of Beaver was 4.5lbs and I have caught serveral 4lbs but during a tounament the biggest spot I have wieghed is 3lbs. That should be fun though, I have found that the larger spots don't school like the smaller spots, all big spots have come from ceder trees on drop shots or spoons in the thick of the trees. I did run into a few schools of 2lb spots last week that when I caught one on a point the other others would follow to the boat, but I think the wind was causing them to gang up on the points and after the wind stoped they probally went thier own ways. JMO, but I think the smaller fish need to hang together and larger fish are able to stake out a territory and defend it.

I went out yesterday from 3pm until dark and didn't see any of any size. There were hundreds in the back. smaller than your hand and tons of shad with waves of shad moving from the lake into the bay, but nothing feeding on them. I saw scadred schools of larger fish hanging form 10 to 30 feet on the locator, but the were small schools and wouldn't bite anything I threw at them(spoons, cranks, drop shot). I think it was the hotter day that delayed thier feeding and is probally a night thing right now, I need to get up early and try before sunrise.

I guess we are spoiled here in Rogers with our local stores like Hook, Line and sinker. I can stop in there and if I don't find what I am looking for, I tell them and they will say stop by Thursday, then it is there and when those are gone they replace it. I also have picked up on serveral lures just because the people who have worked there have made money fishing those colors or baits in the local lakes.It's nice to get advice on boat repair, fishing conditions,hunting stories and a bag of worms with a free cup of coffee in one place, not to mention a good deal on a used rod or reel once in a while. I doubt if Academy will ever let us sell our old boats in front of thier store. They did look to have a good selection of BBQ grills and other stuff, so I guess it's more like Wal-mart than a fishing store and I should just acccept that. I would have to agree that I sort of miss Sportsmans, they did have good sales on higher end rods a lot, and a good selection of soft plastics and expected the same from academy.

Seems to be a lot of wasted space in the fishing dept to me. There is a whole isle of zoom but non of the colors in the types I use, no redfins, some lucky craft but nothing that is really popular around here. Line takes up entire isle and less of selection than a Walmart. I do like all the different spoons, but they seem to be spread around the entire department, I also like H2O lures but that is such a small selection almost not worth a trip. I was really looking forward to having a big sporting goods store in Rogers, but two trips and I have everything I need from them for a year. Anybody really excited still?

With the grub,, I like the double tail creepy crawler as a change up, and look for gravel. I would also add to always keep a top water on deck, redfin, shallow jerk bait, popper, really doesn't matter as long as it close at hand.

Most of the stripers seem to be in the North end right now. I am not a big stripper fisherman, but that is where I see the striper guys. There is a guide known as fishingforexcellance on the table rock site alot that fishes for stripers on Beaver and if you send him a PM he will probally give you a good update. I have run into him serveral times on the lake and he shares information without holding anything back, great guy. I would look betwwen point 5 and the darn myself right now and maybe Rambo creek around the mouth. The best way to fish for stripers seems to be ballons with live shad, but I always use jigging spoons or catch live shad and hang them down on a drop shot where I see large schools of shad on the locator. Right now the shad a leaving the main lake and running up the creeks at night and back out during the morning, if you are on the shad you will find the whites. If you are on the South end of the lake, contact Hickory Creek Marinia, great group of guys that can direct you to where the fish are being caught day to day and always have hot coffee going. Hope that helps, hope the striper guys come along to give some better updates.

Were they all spots? Any big ones?

Right at dark I came upon a lot of big whites right in front of the ramp in Monte, saw a boat launching as I was coming out and they said they had caught 47 the night before on top water. I hit 10 in 12 cast all aound 2-3 lbs, shad was coming in from the lake in waves and the depth finder was full of schools arond that entire area.

To the above list I would add electric blue and zoom old purple. I subsitute the old purple for the purple/brown laminate, sometimes it works better, sometimes not. Seems the LM hit the old purple better. A bottle of chartruese spike it is also a necesatity, I never throw watermelon anything without a touch of spike it.

I had a report of Stripers in Praire Creek this morning, has anyone else caught any around there latley? Seeems too early forthem to be that far south to me, but what do I know.

My personal experince is if you have lots of wind and/or dark run off and muddy water spinnerbaits are great. But for the other times (most of the time) that cranks will out produce the spinnerbait bite up shallow. I have been throwing some very small H2O crankbaits latley that has had some very good results. The spinnerbait is a lot more versitle when getting deeper though. If you are flipping jigs you may want to down size a little, I have noticed that when people come from OK and start throwing jigs they are very big jigs and they target visable cover in a foot of water. I use a small round head finnesse jig and cover the bottom just like a crankbait. If you see boats two or three cast from shore around a point, they are probally throwing jigs along that point. Tuesday in the wind I had 30 fish right of the gravel but Wendsday with dead slick I didn't catch one fish less than 15ft deep, even though I saw some hunter packs chasing shad on the bank.

What is the name of the warehouse? I pass through there on the way tp Springdale and would like to check it out.

Ran out of Monte, probally bad idea since I saw some top water back in the bay. Found some small spots up near gravel points, blue bird skies and water temp was 76 in the afternoon. Water was gin clear, saw a lot of suspended fish in 40 - 50ft of water down about 10- 20ft so tried drop shot and no takers. Saw some big fish on bottom about 20ft so I droped the spoon on them and landed a nice 22in walleye. I only saw two other boats all afternoon, nice day even though the fishing was slow. Running a small squared bill crank along the shore was the plan but that was a very small fish pattern today.

I have been throwing a simple little white malibu crappie jig lately when I have found them on those little 2in shad/minnows. I don't know what those little skinny shad type minnows are but everything seeems to spitting them up.

I was out from 5pm till dark in the Monte area and caught serveral 17-19 in largemouth right of shore with senkos no weight. Had some top water action out in 40-50 ft but they were all small spots, lots of shad balls on top in the back of Monte around dark.

I like those top water explosions also, but I am surprised to see that clown pattern, I am stuck on the smoky joe red fin.

Yes it was a sexy shad colored B200.

I fished around the Nursrey pond and blackburn creek and was really surprised how many bank cruisers I saw in the middle of the day. I hit the lake about 3pm until dark. There were alot of little spots in the creek feeding on shad and minnows that were thick. Water temp was around 78 and clear. Did a little trolling and picked up two eyes one 16in one 17 in and more spots than I could count, stoped trolling because every time I would start I would have a little 10in spot on the line. Out in the main lake I saw about 50 gar feeding on a point and decided to play with them so I threw a Sammy at them and brought back good largemouth that were feeding with the gar. Switched to an unwieghted trick work and still pulled back bass, where were all those keepers Sunday when I was fishing for money?

I have never had trouble with the rubber skirt bands holding the skirts on. I will break off a jig before I wear one out, I haven't bought a pre tied jig in years, it takes about a minute to look at a jig and tie one like it after you get a sysetem going.

Twice Sunday I had a school follow a hooked fish to the boat, both times the hooked fish was caught on a crankbait. The first time it was my partners fish and I droped a worm on the following fish with no luck, the second time he ran a crankbiat in a figure 8 around the following fish with no luck. We argued at leanth on how to get those following fish to hit, so was wondering if anyone had any experince that might help.

Just wondering if you ever tried a spoon on those little top water spots? It is an old trick to throw a spoon and let it fall threw the school and sometimes you will find the bigger fish feeding below the school. I like the blue/silver kocadile spoon myself.