Nolan_Whaley

That stretch is ok right now. As the water drops it will get less and less fun. It's a lot of long still pools with a few places with current. We did it last weekend, and there were a surprising number of other floaters, but not tons of people. We also did it last fall, and it was a loooooong day of paddling thru smelly long still pools. Any of the stretches below shelvin rock are better over all for fishing. There are a few holes along the delware-shelvin stretch that hold fish, and then a lot of dead water (at least to me) in between. Nothing too major as for obstacles. That stretch i just remember to always stay left at any river splits. A couple of fun ledges to run thru with the river up.

I've floated the sections of the james from delaware to galena. It seems to me that the fish are pretty scattered, but i've caught some nice ones. However, there are a lot of public accessible places, and I don't catch too much near those if you are bank fishing. Seems like you need to get away from those. In the higher water find the current breaks. Big boulders, tops and bottoms of pools, large tree trunks. Floated hootentown to mccall bridge last weekend, and didn't catch tons, but the ones i did catch were really nice. Absolutely crushed a red wiggle wart. Also caught a few fish on small watermelon red tube. One goggle eye on spot remover jig + trick worm. A smokey rainbow grub is another bait that usually produces.

We wound up going to Baxter, and catching quite a few. However, not much size. Pockets in little indian with gravel points produced. Boat in 25-35, and fishing 15-30 depths. Bluff ends didn't work. Places we fished, you either caught one and then several more pretty quick or nothing. 3/16 stand up jig with trick worm caught nearly all our fish. I think we caught singles on a carolina rig, swimming a grub, and tx rigged baby brush hog. I tried the fluke rig when the water got slick, and had no takers. We had no luck in the back of creeks. Everything was on main channel pockets and across the mouth of those. Late afternoon, we moved out to the main channel to find a cell phone signal as we were also chasing some lost luggage, and fished in the wolfpen area. This produced some bigger fish and a couple of smallies. Gravel, 20' +, trees or timber, and it seems like the fish are just stacked. My temp gauge stopped working, so i have no temps to report. Saw a few fish on beds, but they truly were few and far between. Going to the kimberling city area today if we don't have a flood.

Thanks for the reply. I love fishing around Cape Fair. Figured it would be muddy big time with the rain we've had. And ya, i'm in bass mode. Believe me, i've read every word Bill has written, at least twice. His (and a bunch of others') reports have given great info about kinds of areas and baits.

Have a buddy coming in for 3 days of fishing (thu, fri, sat). The whole lake is an option. Thinking about starting with Baxter area. If you could fish any area of the lake, where would you go?

Wow, talk about words of wisdom. Thanks again Bill for all your informative posts. Took my uncle out Sat fishing and we fished this pattern. I had to keep boat in 30' and fishing cedars off ledge/chunk rock secondary points. When i got in shallow, nothing. We threw 3/16 stand up jigs with trick worms and caught lots of fat 14". I had one nice fish on that, but battery out on scale, so i won't lie about weights.... Wish i had thought to swim a grub. duh. What are some good suggestions for fishing those deep cedars? pitch past them or parallel and fish the deep side? between the trees? I think i was just getting lucky when i didn't get hung up. Lost a lot of jigs, but catching fish made it worth it.

I fished around point 12, main bay temps were around 55.5, back of the coves a bit over 57. That was 2-6pm.

We bought one of the inflatable 2 person kayaks, and i honestly can't recommend it for any serious floating. It's just kinda meh as a spare yak for kids. Hard to paddle, doesn't track worth a flip, and hangs up on everything. Seats are way uncomfortable. It floats, and i think is plenty durable, but i think i'd look at craigslist, ebay, used, whatever for a real kayak even if i had to store it outside.

Well, I don't have ANY lucky craft baits. I've bought most of my rods and reels here and there, most used, and most.. along with my boat, pre-divorce. I could spend the money on flouro to line the reels i need once a year, or i can buy something a little less cheaper, perhaps less effective, i think some would argue not. If there was money on the line, I would be fishing flouro for some applications. I'm not talking about using junk line that breaks. I'm just going with what i can afford, have confidence in, and still put gas in the boat and truck every now and then and go fishing. I can respool with copolymer several times thru the year with what i'd spend one time using invisx. I'm good enough i know I'm going to catch a few fish. Maybe a few less, but it's worth it to me. The people i take with me, won't know the difference. And if they throw a bunch of back lashes or knots in it, it's a heck of a lot cheaper to just cut it off and put some new on. And i take someone that isn't much of a fisherman with me virtually every trip. I will say, spending a bit more on braided line on a spinning reel and using a leader is a cheaper long term solution than putting flouro or copoly on that same reel. It just lasts so much longer and doesn't get the line twist. And about landing that big fish... Flouro takes much more care in tying knots. Mono/Copolymer are much more forgiving in holding IMO. I've lost many more fish on flouro than i have on copoly, and that's totally my fault for a bad knot. I've learned better now, but if one of my guests ties a knot in flouro, there is actually a lot more of a chance of losing that fish. If you are fishing seriously/tournament fishing, by all means i recommend some brand of flouro line for those applications where you are fishing the bottom and need all the sensitivity you can get.

I like flouro for jig/texas rig type applications. Hate the price of it. Invisx is nice, but i've used BPS and Vanish due to cost. I know Vanish has a bad rep, but it's been ok for me. Both of those tho, get line memory pretty fast. You need to change line probably once a month, and that's pretty steep for a casual angler. Knots are very important on flouro line.... I've used Silver Thread for years, and it's good tough line. Doesn't have the sensitivity of flouro, but is nice price. I've tried green, and i know guys love it, but I have a hard time seeing it unless the light is just right. I prefer clear line for this reason. The gold color of vanish is ok.

For those of us without a nice boat mounted gps enabled chart, the Navionics iphone app is pretty darned good for $5 as a replacement.

We were in kayaks, and had quite a few places to drag. There's also some real skinny water just below blue hole where the river splits. I'd think v-bottom would be big drag fest. Although there are a lot of long still pools that it would be nice to have a trolling motor.... Ledge above the pool at shelvin is also just barely running water.

I did this float last sunday afternoon. Lots of moss, lots of carp & gar. Lots of long still pools full of carp and gar that i paddled thru. Bandit 100 pearl red eye caught some decent smallies though. Most came from the top of pools with water running into them. Small watermelon/red tube and a watermelon candy baby brushhog caught a few fish as well. I actually caught my first gar on the crankbait, and had several other gar strikes on it. That was a first. The best fishing was the upper end. I caught a nice largemouth in the log jams at the 14 bridge, and my best smallie came at the top of ?blue hole?. If you could find some running clean water, the fish were there. There is just not a lot of that. I tied on a pop-r for a little while, and got a lot of small strikes, and caught 1 or 2 little smallies. I think a walk the dog in the right hands might be a ton of fun. We got on the water late. I think we got started at 3pm. Paddled the last mile or so pretty steady without fishing, and got to the truck about 8:45. River needs rain badly. Lots of smelly stretches, and there's a warning posted at Shelvin access about high coliform bacteria levels. Plenty of cows along that stretch. Goodluck.

I got off the water at the west ramp at Cape Fair this evening a little about 8pm. We found a tag laying on the ramp that was broken off of a boat trailer. I didn't even think to write down the tag number, but i took it to Koppies, and left it at the counter. That ramp is pretty flat right now with the lower water... pretty easy to do.

I think the Falcon rods are the right combination of performance and price. I've managed to wrangle a couple of Cara's, and i love those rods. But for the money.... The Bucco is darned good rod.. Especially if you catch them at the Academy rod riot for $80.

Stockton is fishing pretty tough right now. I didn't fish super hard, but 6am-1pm sat, and then sat eve, and about 9am until 2pm on sunday. I caught 5 bass and 2 drum total in that time. 1 Bass came on a football jig and the rest all on a carolina rig. Go buy one of the Stockton lake maps and if you have a smart phone, get the navionics lake map if you don't have a fancy map/graph. Tapering points with a channel nearby was as much of a pattern as i could find. I think if you can find some brush piles in the right depth and areas you might catch a few there. The jig fish was fairly deep on the channel side of a point, the rest were surprisingly shallow.. 5-15 feet... I usually put in at Mutton creek and fish the Sac arm. If you fish the little Sac side, i'd suggest one of the areas on that side, as it saves a pretty long run. South wind on Saturday made the lake pretty brutal... Sunday was nice.

Definitely catch more and bigger bass on conventional gear. But, there is just something fun about catching fish on a fly rod. I'd say the low water right now is perfect time to get out and try some flies tho. It's just hard to get the action and fall on fly gear that you can on other tackle.

I think i get out maybe 30 times a year? It kinda depends on how much shoulder season fishing i can get in. Seems like i always have some big projects going in feb/mar/apr when i should be fishing. School & related activities get going in august... so mostly between apr & sep.

Decided to try and float my favorite section of the James on Sat 6/30... McCall Bridge to Kerr Access. It's a really long stretch for one day, and wow... with the low water, it's a tremendously long stretch! My fiance caught a very nice smallmouth at the back of a pool at the upper end. Of course, this would be the one trip we don't take a camera... I'd guess about a 3lber, but very long. Easily over 20". Beautiful fish, and with the heat, i decided not to chance holding the fish long enough to get my cellphone out and fired up. I took my fly rod, and tried a slider, and a craw pattern with very little luck. However, once i tied on an olive wooly booger, it was ON! I didn't catch any big fish, but I think i almost caught all the species i could.. Several nice smallies in the 12-14" range, several nice spotted bass, a bunch of sunfish, a rock bass, a carp, and a catfish. Couldn't manage any of the suckers, crappie or walleye... I always spend way too much time fishing the upper end, and I don't think i've ever fished the lower couple of miles of this stretch, and saturday was no different. It was hot, tube and wooly booger caught quite a few fish where there was some water & shade, and then about a 2 hour paddle to hit the Kerr ramp at 9:30pm made for some good exercise. Really need some rain as the water is pretty skinny. Quite a few places to get out and drag. This would be an ideal 2 day float.

I switched to the braid + flouro leader a while back, and I spend a lot less time respooling or fighting twisted line. I'm a fan. I will say, you can't throw unweighted stuff on it unless you want it to float. I tried a senko without a jig, and it just wouldn't sink right with the floaty braid. I watched Stacy King tie the braid to flouro knot at a BPS deal once, and saw how easy it was, and i switched. Tied correctly, i haven't had knot failure at the connection. When you do get hung up, you can break the light weight flouro, retie in a short amount of time and be back fishing. Braid scared me off for a while, just not understanding it. Also, the braid lasts a long time. I'm on my second year of braid on my spinning reel, and it's fading in color a bit, but still strong.

I like a 1/4oz shaky head or stand up jig + a green pumpkin/red trick worm most of the time. Gravel and chunk rock, shore to 30'+ deep, depending on season. I'm a sucky deep water fisherman, but that will usually catch something......

Hey, i can dream right? lol.. I have an ascend that doesn't have the scupper hole in the seat... It's cheap, and it does what i want. I agree on the dry thing.. i can paddle flat and stay pretty dry.. even in it. It's harder to do on the lake, than on a river where you have some current to help. Those $1k kayaks are out of my price range... so.. as nice as a coosa looks, i won't have one of those either.

I think for lake kayak fishing, one of the Hobie kayaks with the pedal drive would be awesome. I've ridden in one once, and it would flat scoot on open water. It also had a keel. I don't know that it would be good at all for our rivers. I'd like to know that. SOT kayaks are not a dry ride at all. Especially on the lake. Paddle is going to throw water on you. Nice in the summer, not so much in cool weather.

If you live close to Table Rock Lake, you are lucky. I feel this way. It's a big sprawling, well used lake, and based on reports, is fishing as well as it ever has... especially when you consider the pressure it gets. Yep, we have a bunch of tournaments, and vacation folks, and all those folks are spending money HERE that makes it possible for a bunch of jobs, that some places would love to have. I know i complain about lake traffic as well, but it's time to get creative. We live in the middle of a TON of great lakes and rivers. If you can't find a fishing hole, you aren't looking. The other lakes just don't have a Bill Babler hand feeding instructions on how to fish them. Thanks to Bill for tons of useful info, and y'all stay away from Stockton lake.. that's my own personal get away.. lol BTW, i grew up in the OK panhandle, and water was a foreign substance... This is heaven.

This is something I'm looking to do, so I'd be interested in your experience. I thought this series of articles was very informative: http://www.flwoutdoors.com/fishing-articles/co-angler-clinic/ I've done some tourney fishing from the back of the boat in a team, and I know that is quite a bit different. But, some things i learned: Take as few rods as possible, and this means finding dual purpose equipment rather than specialized. I'd try and get to 4-5 .. and always take a spinning rod just in case. You also have to strip down your baits. I think talking to your boater would be key, to find out if he has a plan, and try and tailor your packing toward that. One of the harder things is probably going to be matching the speed of your boater fishing. If he is fishing fast throwing crank baits and spinnerbaits or something, flinging a drop shot is probably going to be frustrating. I know, i would for plan on fishing a jig & a worm. I have confidence in those, and can fish them about any speed. Then add to that whatever your boater plan is. Good luck and let us know how you do, and what the experience is like.