W. Heisenberg

Very nice, indeed! Thank you for sharing!

Great information, guys. Thank you. We're coming down to give it a shot tomorrow. Any last minute advice for us? I think we'll stop in Rogers for some brood minnows as insurance in case we can't get a hold of any shad.

Thanks for all the info Jeb and Feathers. Keep us updated on how it goes today, Feathers; we are planning to make the trip from Springfield tomorrow. Good luck!

Stump makes a great point, though. I only caught one striper last year, but buying the out of state license was the best $40 I ever spent. I can't wait to hear my drag sing again this weekend.

Haha, thank you; but I'd settle for just one if it were as nice as the ones you've been catching! Nice work!

That is so awesome. Thanks for sharing the report. It will be interesting to see how the weather affects the bite in the next few days.

Thank you very much for the information. It's extremely valuable to people like us who travel 2 hours to get down there and fish. With any luck the shad pattern won't change too much by next weekend, but we all know how that goes.

Let me get this straight... You caught 37 stripers yesterday?! That is incredible. I'll be heading down from Springfield, MO next weekend to striper fish. How big were the shad you found in PC? Were they on the surface? We usually fish around Horseshoe bend, and have been unsuccessful in finding shad in Monte Ne, so your post is getting my hopes up that we might fill our cast nets next weekend. Also, are you free-lining your shad and just tossing them up into shallow water? Thanks for the report!

Riverman and von: I appreciate the comments. They definitely are good eating, and that particular fish fed a lot of people. RS: The backlash comes with the shitty comment, not the strong opinion. As I stated when I posted the picture, I still (3 years later) regret keeping the fish. I knew then that I shouldn’t have kept it, but as you can imagine I was a bit excited about catching the biggest smallmouth of my life that day. Had I asked what kind of opinions there were about me keeping the fish, I would have understood your position on posting what you did; but the fact is I posted the picture to help a fellow angler because this forum has done so much to help me over the years. As for my language, I apologize if it did offend anyone. but I am sure there are rules regarding being disrespectful to other members. That’s one thing I love about OA, “folks” are generally pretty friendly to one another.

Thank you for such an insightful comment, RS. I've been reading this forum for years, and I have never seen a shitty comment toward someone until now. Thank you for telling me what I deserve. Thank you, Flysmallie, for pointing out that I was legal in taking the fish (I'm not being sarcastic now). And not that I have to justify it, but I guess I will note that I have been fishing since I was old enough to hold a pole, and that was the first and only fish I have ever kept.

I'm glad I found this post because I am thinking about taking my fly rod down south of the HWY M bridge tomorrow. I haven't fished that spot in a few years, but my last trip was promising: I caught that monster on a live crawdad in the middle of a pretty strong riffle area. Faught like a log. To this day I still regret taking it from the water, but I didn't have my camera down there with me, and my old man never would have believed me. To answer your Hootentown question, I love taking my yak to Hooten and paddling upstream. There is a nice hole where the river takes a strong right turn just beyond view of the bridge that has treated me well in the past. This was from my last trip there last summer: He was caught on a green tube jig drug along the bottom. Anyone have any advice on where the fish will be tomorrow, and what to throw at them? I'm addicted to poppers, of course. Will the fish be in the riffles or pools?

I have to agree with Martin; I love this forum. I don't post very often, but I have learned so much from you guys by just lurking around and reading your reports. My old man and I have been fishing TR together since we moved here over 15 years ago, and we share the same bozo (we call them something a little different) frustration every summer. Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the laugh and all of the helpful information you guys so generously share. We're heading down early tomorrow in hopes that we can have our fun and escape before the bozos take over. See you on the water! Eric

That's awesome! Thanks for the info. I definitely wouldn't mind finding a school of monster whites like that. Time is going to be of the essence for us since we're driving about two hours to get down there, so we may not have time to look up in the river. Are there any good places in the lake to look for shad in the Lost Bridge Area? I really appreciate the tips.

Hey Stump Bumper, Where is houseman's? My old man and I are considering making the trip down from Springfield again this weekend, but we'd really like to find some shad. Do you (or anyone!) have any other shad-wisdom you'd like to share with us? We'd really appreciate it. We called the only bait shop we could find near Lost Bridge and they want $9 a dozen for broods, or something outrageous like that, so we're trying to avoid that route. Any help you guys can give would be awesome! Eric

Nope, we didn't try any spoons that day. I'll definitely try it next time we're down there if we don't stumble on some shad.

Hey guys, Thank you for the replies. We're hoping to get back down to Beaver next weekend, so I'll let you know how it goes. Stump Bumper, we had the most luck fishing at about 30ft. We were following a suspended school of baifish around and dropping our shiners just below them. We're really hoping to run into some shad next time, because I'm confident that if we had shad, we would have limited that day. Yeah, I'm thankful to have an old man who is such a good fisherman; there's a lot to learn from that guy. He had me catching stripers that size when I was five years old in Georgia, so it was definitely a blast getting to catch them with him again. Bass Ivy, it took us all day to find the baitfish and stripers. We were actually getting ready to give up when we floated over the pile of baitfish. We caught those three fish in the same hour.

Hey guys, This is my first post on the forum, but I've been reading through your advice recently as my dad and I planned a trip to Beaver to do some striper fishing. I grew up striper fishing with him on Lake Lanier in Georgia, and we've stuck to bass fishing Table Rock since we moved to Nixa, MO about fifteen years ago. Anyway, we made the trip down today with my uncle to see if we could catch a striper or two. We brought our cast nets and looked for shad in Monte Ne as per the advice from Stump Bumper, but didn't have any luck finding them today. Fortunately, we bought some shiners for insurance, and fared pretty well fishing the rocky bluffs across from the Horseshoe Bend access. Just wanted to say thank you guys for posting the advice, it helped us immensely with fishing Beaver for the first time. I look forward to getting more tips from you all in the future. Eric