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mixermarkb

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Everything posted by mixermarkb

  1. Hey guys- My friends and I fished Monday and Tuesday, Theodosia to the Gully Creek area. We had 20+ fish to the boat each day, with a couple LMB in the 3.5-4 range, and several keeper SMB, and some very nice Kentuckies. Best 5 both days would have been 13ish pounds. Jerkbait in the wind, Ned and a few grub fish with less wind, and the wart still catching most of the bigger LMB for me. Transition banks and secondary points in the creeks, mostly 20' of water or less, as of yet they were not all the way in the backs for us. 2 really nice crappie on the Ned tho, they may be getting close to going in to the banks.
  2. Nice job figuring something out!
  3. Praying.
  4. GYCB for me, with superglue. I'll still lose a tail or three, but since I started flying them ala Ned, I use half the grubs I used to.
  5. The only time I get really nervous is when I'm landing a fish. I hate seeing that leader knot hanging around out there. I'm much more comfortable having a long enough leader that it's all the way on the spool when I'm ready to grab the line to land the fish if I need to. I'll try and learn the Alberto. I've been using uni-uni. I really do like the nanofil, it does cast amazingly well, and no twist ever is great.
  6. I'm kind of the same way Vernon. I have a high skies color, and a cloudy color on each bait, with maybe a couple wildcard colors for colored water or my own mood. After that, I'm just on to find different fish that are hungry, or a different bait to trigger bites. I used to keep a lot more colors in the boat, but I've been doing pretty well on keeping it simple the past few years.
  7. Ham, what leader to line knot are you using? Maybe it's just my fat fingers and lack of knot tying skill, but I haven't found one I trust with an angry 3-4 pound smallie with 6 pound line.
  8. Yeah, I could see a No8 working well. I bought one last year, can't remember if it was a M or a MH, for the wife/kiddo to drag tubes and centipedes with. It's a nice rod for the $$.
  9. Hey Dave, what was the cheaper lews rod that you liked?
  10. Seating for 4, 5 with the optional rear bench. 82mph with a 200, 90's with a 250. Front deck width at the pedestal the same as a Legend LE-21.
  11. Yep. It's at least a foot wider, really cool family friendly layout, but still plenty of deck.
  12. The XB21 has me totally sold. I really think it will fish and ride very well, as well as go fast. It's a different sort of beast than the old XB-2002 and 2003, which were race boats with trolling motors. I'm convinced that the ally XB21 pro sport is the boat for me and the family, should I win the lottery or otherwise become wealthy, because I won't be getting any loans for new toys anytime soon.
  13. Ok, I like going fast. If I ever get out of the champions I have now, I will own an Allison XB21, or possibly a kittykat eyra. It's fun to crack open the throttle on the 225 and let it eat, but having said that, I do it a lot less than I used to. Im plenty happy putting around in the 40-50 range, and enjoying the fuel economy of the Opti. Gas prices and having kids sure change a lot of life.. LOL
  14. You guys are gonna call total BS on this, but I promise it is a true story. My wife, is from the bootheel, and grew up fishing with her dad. Fishing for her, is sitting on the bank, dunking something stinky for catfish, and maybe cracking open a cold adult beverage or two. I don't remember if we were married or still dating, but on one of her first trips to Bull Shoals with me, she was getting pretty frustrated. I had her throwing a shakyhead, and she wasn't getting any bites. I wasn't getting many either, and was running around, trying different things, trying to get a pattern going. She was getting aggravated because I kept moving the boat, and she just wanted to sit somewhere, relax, and let the fish come to her. I was trying to explain to her, that wasn't how bass fishing worked, that part of the fun was the mental challenge of finding the fish, etc etc. She, being a southern redhead of Irish lineage, wasn't buying what I was selling. In her mind, I was using the wrong bait, Fish only bite something stinky or alive, and I was moving around way too much, and I was a city boy who couldn't catch fish. Soo- she set out to prove me wrong. She dug out a hotdog out of the cooler, bit a chunk off, and proceeded to thread that chunk of mixed meat onto the hook, ending up with it in the bend of the hook and then putting the point back in her shakyhead worm. I then, proceeded to tell her how that was all wrong, it was gonna mess up the balance of the bait, and that she wouldn't get any bites, or be able to hook a bite if she got one because the hotdog was filling up the hook gap. She just said she's gonna show her city boy what really catches fish, and chunked that hotdog shakyhead out there. As God is my witness, on the first cast with that darn hotdog worm, she caught a 16" spotted bass. Then a couple casts later, still with the hotdog worm, she caught another fat K, maybe 13". I did get on a pattern, and ended the day somewhat convincing her that I did in fact know how to fish, but for a few minutes at least, she wore my posterior out with that hotdog shakyhead.
  15. good luck! Last bit of advice, don't cut too close to the points, and keep an eye on your GPS for humps and islands. There are a couple, notably right around the confluence of the little north fork and white river arms, that are real lower unit eaters at current lake levels. Couple of the flat runout points go waaaaaaaay out there too.
  16. If it was me, on Bull, I'd use the bass spinning rod, and get a spool of 6# fluorocarbon, and use that for a long leader at the very least, or preferbably wind a couple casts worth of that on. Water is clear, and with line that light I'm not a big fan of extra knots in the mix. I'm sure you will probably end up buying a dedicated Ned rod, because it's a bait that works that well, but the medium spinning rods will get ya through the weekend.
  17. I'd fish whichever one has more wind blowing in on it. What I like about Gooley is that it gives you a little more variety in a smaller area than most creeks. It will probably have more color in the back than sister, etc. I'm also guessing it's going to have fewer boats in it, but I could be wrong on that. Seriously, if I was fishing Saturday, I'd look at the forecast wind direction, and pick a creek that has the most channel swing banks laying in direct line of that wind.
  18. I use the pole type. It just seems easier to me than the cord type, even on the dog leash
  19. I throw warts and rock crawlers on two Falcon Cara Reaction 7' "medium crankers", with lews BB-1reels, in 5:1 gearing, and Sunline Sniper green 12 pound test. The Sunline 12 pound is the diameter of most other 10 pound fluorocarbon, and I found I get better hooksets with 12 vs 10 pound. The Falcons also have a little more backbone than the Loomis crankbait rods they replaced. Part of it was gear, more of it was my crappy skills, but I was having a hard time keeping fish buttoned up when the water got up into the mid/upper 50's. The loomis cranking rods were just too soft to control a solid keeper once the water was warm enough for them to move with some speed. I still sometimes have to crank like a madman with the 5:1 reel to catch up to a fish if they charge for deep water, but moving up to 12 pound line and a cranking rod with a little more backbone has really helped me get the fish stuck and landed. I have a Loomis IMX PR-845, which is a 7' Medium/Heavy saltwater popping rod. It's got a pretty soft action, but decent backbone. This gets a Lews SS-1 speed spool in 6.4:1, with either 12 pound Sunline or 12 pound Yozuri Hybrid, and throws Square bills and Traps. For summer deep cranks at LOZ and Mark Twain I have two setups, a St. Croix legend tournament "magnum cranker" 7'10" heavy moderate, with a Lews BB-1 in 5:1, with the 12 pound Sunline, and a Falcon Cara Reaction 7'3" "deep runner" with the same BB-1 and line. I'd actually like to have a second one of the St. Croix rods, because it does launch the deep cranks a little farther, but I'd have to sell the Falcon Deep Runner to buy it, and I can't quite bring myself to do that yet, because I really like that rod for a couple of other things. I just wish it had a few more inches of length on it, because I do think it's a little more sensitive than the St. Croix. For what it's worth, a really great all around cranking rod that can be found pretty cheap used on eBay or the BBC classifieds, is the St. Croix mojo 7' MH moderate graphite rod. It's a great squarebill and wart rod, and with an old used shimano curado 5:1 or a lews 5:1 is a great combo. A buddy wound up for a long cast, and threw mine right into Norfork, with a pre-rap green craw wart for added insult to injury, during a winter bass-o-thon a couple years back.
  20. I don't think Gooley would be over a 10 minute run from the dam. Someone else might correct me, I'm always fishing from Theodosia toward the dam and usually run up the white river instead of down when I come out of the Theodosia arm, so it's hard to remember how long it takes. Either way, it's not a whole lot farther than Sister. We aren't talking running to Sugarloaf or even Big Creek.. lol
  21. Full face motorcycle helmets. $20 each on Amazon. Wouldn't fish in the winter without one, even with a dual console boat.
  22. And for what it's worth, listen to Don (bullshoalscat). He's a hell of a good fisherman, nice guy, and fishes more than any other married man I know.. LOL
  23. It's a bit of a run from the dam, but Gooley/Mountian is a really good creek. Big enough to have some color in the back, and lots of channel swings and transistion banks, and some good smallmouth pea gravel flats in the coves around its mouth. It's a good taste of what Bull Shoals has to offer, without running all over the place. Yes, it's a bit of a run to it, but not that far, and once you are there you have a lot of options in that one creek arm. just my $.02
  24. It was tough for me and the boy today. We only fished from 11 til 2, had three bass in three different baits. Didn't really have a pattern established befor his fingers went numb, lol. Good luck!
  25. Sunline sniper is the best Fluoro I've ever used on spinning tackle. Invizx is good, but sniper is less stretchy, as managable if not more, and is very abrasion resistant and has great knot strength. I know, I'm a broken record, but I love that stuff.
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