Topwater TRL

I agree on the time delay if ordering directly from gycb. Also, you are stuck with a minimum shipping charge of $14.95! I called in my order in hopes of having them put my order in a Postal Service "if it fits it ships for $4.95" envelop. No luck on that one as the order taker explained their little town's USPS office does not have the ability to handle the number of packages they ship on a daily basis. So... Gycb makes a two hr drive to the nearest UPS hub a couple of times a week, maybe more if they have a full truck! Too bad for the customer their company chose to set up shop in such a secluded town. Anyway, I ordered way more pumpkin with black flake and pond scum perch 5" kut tail worms than I really wanted just to lower the average cost per worm. No wonder the postal service is broke. That's another story. I will also drop gycb an email to reconsider bringing back the clear with silver flake grubs. Sounds like a great color for super clear water.

I hear you on the 3/16 and staying in contact when there is wind. The wind would kind of come and go but when it came up I would turn the nose into the wind and hold it there, fishing over my shoulder. Not an easy task but us Kansas boys learned to manage that wind at a young age. Ha ha. Of course "sliding" the boat that way would let the wife fish off the back of the boat facing downwind and have an easier cast and better feel. Well after all.... It was Mothers Day! If we went to a heavier shaky head we had fewer bites and pulled more moss balls.

Thanks! I think the pond scum is a new color for them this year. The pumpkin with black flake is my bread and butter color and has caught more TRL bass day in day out but the pond scum with its green color and copper, gold and red flake is moving to the top drawer as of this weekend! Great for clear and slight stained water.

Wife and I had a great couple of fishing days with numbers and fair amount of released keepers. Put in at H and fished Little Indian, cove at 17 marker, and Wolf Pen. Caught a few both mornings on top water before the sun got very high. All over by 8 a.m. Best top water bait was Baby Spook in bone or chrome. Had to be way out on point in 60+ fow. When top water was done we hit 45 degree banks near spawning areas using 5" gy Kut Tail worms in pumpkin black flake or pond scum on a 3/16 shaky head. Best depth was just deeper than the moss, usually 15' and down to 22'. We had over 50 total Saturday with 8 keepers and 32 today with 7 keepers. 2 of the keepers were smallies, 3 blacks and the rest K's. They wanted it slow falling with not much shakin. Many were next to or in wood. Doodle socked several out straight down inside the tree. Most if not all keepers seemed to have been spawned out. Water temp ranged from 63 to 68. The moss seems to be breaking lose thank goodness! If a guy throws that shaky up in shallow water and let's it hit bottom, you are gifted with a 1 pound snot ball. A great fishing outing on Mothers Day weekend!

Nice report! Thanks! I'll be out this weekend taking the wife out for Mother's Day. Yes, her choice.

Nice report with details galore! Congrats on finding what they wanted then staying on them.

An easy way to tell if your hub is slipping is to clean off any black soot off the end of the prop shaft. Take a framing square and place the point of the square on the center of your prop shaft. Hold the square so it touches both inside edges of the prop. You are dividing the prop in half so to speak. Using a sharpie along the framing square, mark a straight line on top of your prop shaft and also mark your prop where the framing square touches the prop edges. Now go run your boat through the paces up to full throttle. After u load your boat out, place the framing square back on the end of the prop shaft and align it with the line you made. If your framing square also lines up with the marks you made on the prop edges, your hub is not slipping. This takes more time to describe than it takes to do. Hope that helps. Also, important to use a torque wrench and get your Merc prop nut to 100 ft. pounds as Merc flo torque hubs require.

Nice smallie! Thanks for the report. Did u have to dodge much floating junk?

I agree with Champ188. Some of the finest small mouth fishing areas in the dam area have been made almost impossible to drag lures on bottom on expansive gravel flats and points because of the man made habitat they placed. Rock piles would be better in that application IMO for those areas if they just have to add something to what nature has provided. Sometimes less is more. I do appreciate their asking and I gave them my thoughts.

Things change almost daily this time of yr so just keep watching this great fishing forum for current reports at various locations around the Rock. Good luck and tight lines!

Yes, nothing to see there yesterday as well! Especially using a double fluke rig. A guy doesn't want to waste his time on that old school fish catcher!

I did feel sorry for this One Eyed Jack. I'm a total catch and release guy and when I sent this one off to swim away, I gave him an extra best wish knowing he would continue to struggle to survive. The will to live in nature is amazing!

Put in at H around 8 expecting to get rained on all day. Was actually a fairly nice day until late afternoon. Was really slow first thing with only a few shorts and a keeper black on a wart. Once the wind came up after lunch, things started to come alive. Moved to the windiest points and windiest 45 degree banks and started chunking the 1 oz spinnerbait, scrubbing the bottom in 7-10 fow. Had more than a dozen shorts and 4 keeper LM. The picture is of the nicest one, a one eyed half blind 5.2 pounder who had the body of a 6 pounder. Poor girl was long and skinny with a big head! I guess when you only have one eye you have a harder time putting on weight! About 4, just before the real bad stuff blew in, I went out and fished a couple of close main lake bluff ends with the jerk. Maybe should have been doing that all along with the wind blowing white caps into them like nobody's business. No joke caught 7 in a row, maybe a dozen total with 3 of them being keepers, 2 LM and 1 K. Nothing big, just 15-17". What a blast! My portable NOAA radio went off and so I headed in.

I use the Sta-Bil for marine (colored blue instead of red) which stabilizes the gas and treats the ethanol in my 09 merc 225. I use it at every fill up. I've also been told by my merc mechanic to not use 90+ octane. 87 oct is just fine. The ethanol, just as in your car, does hurt your mpg. But we got to keep those Iowa corn growers in business

Since the ownership change, Jug & Plug in Shell Knob has been carrying a better selection of soft plastics, terminal stuff and cranks. Actually, they have a nice selection of what the local guy wants with the exception of line, rods or reels. The liquor and beer selections are also premo fyi.

I fell for the Banjo Minnows sorry to say. I'm still trying to get rid of them by using as spinnerbait trailers. A fool and his money........

Well, I did a little map work on Google Earth and found that from the Kings River Marina south to the 86 Bridge is 11.45 miles if you follow the center line of the Kings River. Going north following the river center line, it is 4.33 miles to the intersection of the Kings River and the White River at Lost Hill. That gives a guy almost 16 miles of Kings River fishing! Of course, you need to take into account the lake level could possibly be up 10' or more or possibly down 10' or more which would either limit or extend your boat travel length. Google Earth is amazing! Check out a satellite view of the entire area. Also, if you go to the home page of this site, Ozark Anglers, you will find a MAP link taking you to many usable contour maps broken up in sections of the Kings and many sections of TRL. Hope that helps.

Thanks! This was my first fishing report post and I hope to be a regular contributor. I fish TRL lots as I am self employed and semi retired. The Ozark Anglers forum has provided me with tons of quality fishing info and tips over the years and I don't know why I haven't given back except for being lazy. The stained water in the Viola/Kings area is a real treat for me as I like to get up close and personal with the fish. Did go back out Sunday in the same general area (within 2 miles both ways from Kings River Marina) and had much worse luck. Blue bird day is what I'm contributing my poor results. Caught maybe 6 shorts in 4 hours of fishing, all LM, but did manage a 20" walleye on a wart in 4' of water next to a laydown! Took a picture and release her. She appeared to have eggs so I wanted to let her be a mother this year. Catch and release is my thing anyway. Good luck to all.

Wife and I put in at Viola at 7 am before the rain hit. Fished main river 45 degree banks with gravel and small chunk rock mixed. For the day we had 25 total with 6 keepers, all LM excecpt 2 14 inch Ks. The wart was the deal. Slow bumping the bottom in 6-8'. The wife likes the blade and caught a fee but not as good as the wart. Wind helped and staying within say 100 yrd of small cuts seemed better. Water was 52 first thing and got to 54 late afternoon. We did take a 2 hr rain brake but the rain didn't seem to turn them on or turn them off. Had to make lots of casts as they were very scattered. Water clarity was 3' to 5'. Had only one fish on the A rig but I'm a rookie at it. A wet but productive day.

What a great couple of fishing days you've had Bill! Of course hind sight is 20/20 as they say but I did notice that 3/26 was rated a 4 Star "Best" day, 3/27 was rated a 4 Star "Seasons Best" day and 3/28 rated 3 Star Better++ day on the old Solunar Calendar. I know some folks don't believe in the Solunar periods but I am a follower and have been for years. Even to the point of scheduling my fishing trips around the best days of the month. More than not it has proven true as long as the weather cooperates and the lake is not turning chocolate color. Just wanted to add this comment and see if others follow the solunar calendar including minor and major periods. Keep up the great reports Bill, they are very much appreciated.

A couple of things I do on my Warts which improves them whether new out of the box or the old, pre-Rapala favorites.. 1) I spray them with flat clear coat. This takes all the shine off and gives them a dull finish. Always seems to outfish those with a shiny finish. 2) You can significantly change the action of your Wart by changing out the back treble hook, replacing with one from another brand, say Gama, etc but don't change the size of hook. The alternate brand hook has just enough weight variance to make the butt end of your Wart wiggle wider or tighter. Lighter wire treble hook will swing wider and vise versa. A salt water heavy duty hook will give the tightest wobble if that's what you want. Some days it makes a big difference. Probably not surprising, I think a wider wobble works best in colder water. Yes, I spend too much time with my Warts!

Here's a nice article on Stacey King using the jika and pictures of various ways to make your own. http://www.in-fisherman.com/2012/10/08/stacey-the-jika-rig-king/

I know its not sexy but I use a line counter reel with 8# fc. If you see a fish at 27', you can be absolutely sure with the line counter reel you are putting that bait at their exact depth without having to actually see your bait on the graph. Easy to move bait up and down to match depth of new fish you spot on the graph. Have put a ton of ds fish in the boat using a line counter reel and medium light 6' bait casting rod. Heck, with a little practice, you can even make a toss cast to active surface fish. Another advantage, you can call out the depth to the wife and she can reel her bait up or down to the preferred depth without having to be right next to you with her line in the graph cone. Give it a try. I use the smallest DepthMaster II reel.