Feathers and Fins

The A-rig really isnt the best. The fish i was catching last night wouldnt bite the dang thing, Live shad yes, Fly oh yes, Bucktail with a curlytail grub yes. A-rig NOPE.. I threw it several times into a wide open boil of stipers and bass and they turned their nose at it I could see the fish and the rig on their nose and not take. Next time they did it i flipped a fly out and was hooked up. Its like the newest must have toy for christmas every kid wants one untill they get bored with it and go back to legos. What is it about legos that even big kids still love them.

Wildeye, Dont waste your time in Horshoe the stripers ate loaded up thick in Prairie creek and Avoca. With some seriously large LMB and SMB. They are all full of eggs so my bet is they will gravitate more to PC in the next week or two to the running water comming in from the creek. Everyone thinks of War Eagle and the River as to where they spawn but PC has possibly even more fish with its cleaner water.

It is good eats but striper nuggets arnt on the menu yet lol.

If the lap top battery would hold out I would but it wasnt doing so well. Maybe next time i can get some live shots of the stripers chasing the shad up on shore.

Ok so it was getting to dark to take pictures Im flat lining the shad behind the boat about 50 feet. I wasnt bothered by the boats i was further out from them.

And the target was aquired 4 of them actually pssst BILL note the fly in its mouth

its getting crowded in here

lets here it for 24'' of temper

And we have bait

pulling up to the ramp now ... stay tuned for live action reports if i have service.

Stump the only law would be that no tournaments be held durring the spawn. I have watched way to many human fish seine nets sit on bed after bed after bed, you cant tell me thats good for the fish with all the stress they are already under. Other times of year just simply have the anglers pull up to the dock or beach have the fish weighed right out of the boat then immidiately released back in the water. Simple and conservation minded. Im not against tourneys but beleive spawn tournaments are bad for the fish as are long waits in line at the weigh in and a few simple changes could protect the fish. 1 guy may well be conservation minded and put the interest of the fish first but there are 200 more boats who may not care as much. I dont fish for bass durring the spawn anymore, I had an old guy once tell me take the protector kill a thousand babies, leave the protector insure future generations to catch. It made me think and decide not to target them at their most vulnerable time.

Oh no Gator we wouldnt want that to happen, I mean those misssouri does are so elusive and hard to find it may take an entire 10 minutes of their day from a trophy buck hunt.

Do away with the muzzle season and just increase the firearms season. Seriously I can reach out 200 yrds with my TC with confidance and accuracy and most my deer shot heck all have been under that range anyway. Make it 1 deer firearms tag and 1 buck archery and put a restriction you must harvest a doe before before you can use the buck firearm and then give a county by county doe tag limit or something like that. I also think Youth season should be 1 week long with a anydeer tag.

Trophy hunt, unless kids are present or someone new then numbers to get them hooked on fishing. But I will pull a 14 inch shad all day for the trophy if im by myself.

Spahog, That is the biggest line of horse manure I have heard in a long time. I know this may catch flack but { in the name of conservation ) is a load! I cannot think of one other species where it is legal to take a game animal durring the breeding / nesting time, not deer, not waterfowl, not upland birds and the list goes on. I agree with why you believe they are banning it, but to use conservation as a an excuse shows just how much bull it really is. If they are so concerned about "conservation" then ban tournaments durring the spawn. Durring summer have the weigh in scale on the dock or shore and weigh the fish as the boat comes in then immidiately release the fish. That is conservation while still allowing a tournament.

Bill, stripers tend to convert bass anglers to the dark side. If one was to scale down in line class it would convert even more. I seldom go over 12lbs mono or floro, it increases the fight and the amount of bites. I have even gone down as low as 4lbs. You want to talk about a fight and converting people that will do it in a hurry. Give the fish all the advantages and it really becomes addictive. When a fish can scream off 100 yards of line at a time and fight you for 20 to 30 minutes it quickly gets people hooked. I am sure they get alot of negative feedback its part myth part observations from reading magazines and articles on the net about Cali lakes. Im sorry but our lakes are far diffrent. Managing lakes for trophy stripers is unheard of in many places yet our lakes are healthy enough to do it and the benifits are seen daily.

All too often I hear from anglers how bad the stripers are in a lake on other fish specifically Bass anglers. I have read numerous studies related to this myth and suggest anyone who believes they are impacting the bass in the lake read the findings. You will quickly learn not only are they not having a negative impact on bass but a positive impact. Here is some literature you will want to read if you do not believe me. Bailey, W. M., 1976. An Evaluation of Striped Bass Introductions in the Southeastern United States. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Administrative Report. 21p Cheek, T. E., M. J. Van Den Avyle and C. C. Coutant. 1985. Influence of water quality on distribution of striped bass in a Tennessee River impoundment. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 114:76-76. Clawson, P. A., J. E. Derwort, W. F. Foris, T. J. Leonard and R. E. Lewis. 1989. Lake Norman maintenance monitoring program: 1988 summary (draft report). Duke Power Co., Huntsville, N. C. 156 pp. Duda, M. D., V. L. Wise, W. Testerman, S. J. Bissell, A. Lanier, T. Norford. 2000. Responsive Management – Arkansas Resident Anglers and Non-Resident Anglers Awareness of and Attitudes Toward Fishing in Arkansas. Responsive Management National Office, 130 Franklin Street, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22801 153pp. Fielder, Carolyn and Ron Moore 1995-1999. Arkansas Tournament Information Program – Annual Reports from Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. No. 2 Natural Resources Drive, Little Rock, AR 72205 Filipek, Steven P. (1985). Size and age structure of a single school of striped bass in Lake Greeson, Arkansas. Proc. Annu. Conf. Southeast. Assoc. Fish and Wildlife Agencies 39: 13-18. Gustaveson, Wayne A., B.L. Bonebrake, S.J. Scott, and J.E. Johnson 1985. Lake Powell Fisheries Investigations. Publication No. 86-8.Utah Dept. of Nat. Res. 1596 West North Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84116. Harper, Jack L. and H.E. Namminga (1986) Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Cons. P.O. Box 53465 Oklahoma City, OK 73152. Pages 156-165 in G.E. Hall and M.J. Van Den Avyle, editors. Reservoir Management Strategies for the 80’s. Reservoir Committee, Southern Division American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland 1986. Jenkins 1979. Pages 123-134 in Henry Clipper, editor. Predator-Prey Systems in Fisheries Management. Sport Fishing Institute, Washington, D.C. Messinger, Gary C. 1970. Observations on the Striped Bass in Keystone Reservoir, Oklahoma. Proc. Annu. Conf. Southeast. Assoc. fish and Wildl. Agencies 24:447-463. Persons, William R., and Richard Dreyer. (1987). Relationship between striped bass (morone saxatilits) and Threadfin shad (dorosoma petenense) in Lake Mead. Arizona Game and Fish Department, 2222 West Greenway Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85023 Silver, J.R. 1986. Comparison of Rotenone and Trawling Methodology for Estimating Threadfin Shad Populations. Pages 73-78 in G.E. Hall and M.J. Van Den Avyle editors. Reservoir Fisheries Management Strategies for the 80’s. Reservoir Committee, Southern Division American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland 1986. Stevens, R. E. 1984. Historical overview of striped bass culture and management. Pages 1-15 in J. P. McCraren, ed. The aquaculture of striped bass: a proceedings. Md. Sea Grant Publ. UM-SGMAP- Univ. of Md.,College Park. You will quickly learn that they have no negative impact on the bass but in fact are having a positive impact by controlling the population of Gizzard shad which in turn promotes the health of the Threadfin shad population that bass feed on. Stripers prefer soft finned fish as a forage base vs a stiff fin species. This fact has actually created a byproduct in some game and fish commissions recently to start stocking Striper in lakes with high populations of carp in order to help control the population. The benefits of stripers go even deeper then the benefits to a lakes ecology but also on the nearby communities. In one report by the AGFC it was shown stripers bring in 16 Million dollars in revenue to the state and communities surrounding those lakes. Unfortunately the hatred of Bass Anglers based on an unproven and in fact debunked Myth of them damaging bass populations has lead to them killing the Stripers at every chance. Also by spreading this myth it has created a hatred of a true sport fish and one that for many would be the fish of a lifetime. Part of the myth is generated from lakes with a constant influence of striped bass which does in time affect the quality of bass fishing in a lake, as stripers will when overpopulated eat out their natural prey the threadfin and gizzard shad. But this is not the case in most lakes. This fact actually originated from California lakes that are very small in size yet receive water from the Aqueduct system and the Colorado River. Both the two supply systems for those lakes have large striper population and in turn feed them into those lakes which then leave the stripers nowhere to go. A Two to Five thousand acre lake constantly being fed stripers will quickly find itself with predator fish needing to eat to live and they will then turn to eating whatever food source is available as anyone could determine on their own without need of five hundred studies. Not only is the Striped bass beneficial to the lakes they are in but also to the economy, they provide the opportunity for many to catch a fish of a lifetime. Luckily in the Ozarks our lakes stripers have yet to be proven to be breeding in the lakes, combined with careful management practices, very large lakes and healthy populations of shad we do not have this problem. Fact is we have the benefit of Stripers helping to keep our lakes healthy. So in closing when and if you hear this myth discussed point the people to the facts.

On the food for thought subject here is some more. When I started bow hunting it was with a long bow, I progressed from it to a recurved and then compound. I wanted to see how it was in the past. But what i learned was even though I had the skills to harvest game with the older gear the kills were not always or near the percentage they were with more modern weapons ( compoound ) It is the duty IMO of the hunter to harvest the game in a manner that creates the least amount of suffering to the animal. Thus technology is not a bad thing for hunting. Fishing I often have thought about this same subject. Before the circle hook most hokings were deep in the fish from the gut to the gills almost surely a mortal wound. Now almost 100% of the hooking when a circle hook is used is in the lips of the mouth asurring a live release if that is what the angler wants to do. I see far more fish deep hooked on lure then by circle hook and more mortal wounds to them from lures. So by the reasoning of some of live bait isnt fishing sporting or harmful to the fish I will argue that point with todays circle hooks. Today I beleive it is the lure that is more damaging to a fish for catch and release unless its a tournament which I beleive is even more damaging. Tournaments durring hot months and durring the spawn im certain do far more to fish stocks then anything else. People think of it as just a few fish off the beds or a few die off durring the summer. But I ask you if one is taken from a bed how many eggs or fry wont survive? 1 fish could be hundreds if not thousands from a bed, and those durring summer tournaments that die will not breed again ever. Im certainly not against C&R, but is there really a need for it when the fish are at there most vulnerable or at their most valueable time?

its raining right now, how will it affect the lake only the amount will determine. If it causes a mudline then fish the clean side of the line.

Stump I have to agree with you. Though all my fish came on shad or fly yesterday most of what was being spit up by the walleye and bass were 2.5 to 3'' craws. The stripers were full of shad however. I still wish AGFC would stock trout in beaver

The fish is the record not the angler, However there have been trophy bucks taken by illegal means that did not make the record books. The "books" are for legally harvested animals there is deferance. Think about it, Would you really want a high fenced or genetically altered deer or fish to be in the same class as a true free range animal? Is the fish a record? Yes! Should it be in the books? NO, as those places are reserved for legal harvest fish and game and this one was not. What has bothered me most about this is the claims of the line and lure originally " by accounts " of the line and lure involved had it not been discovered or "accounted" then this guy could have been defrauding those companies potentially millions. Im not saying it was his intent at but just pointing out the potential and the reasoning behind legal fish for record books as the money involved could be alot.

Stump its post like yours of things that happen to guys that are law abiding and honest, that support the reason for lifetime license's. They never expire so unless you forget it its always good and even if you do the GW can easily verify you have it.

Duane, The white fly I showed you was working great one of that double header i sent you was with the fly. I had to do it the devil made me lol.

Hog, I do not guide, I just live close to the lake and love to fish, I handed off bait to several people yesterday I didnt even know so they could catch them. I post these reports in the hopes others will learn how to catch them and where they are in almost "reel" time. To me its all about having fun and if i can help other have fun then even better. As to the restraunt WC " Wilson" owns a Restraunt in downtown Rogers area and we make jokes with eachother about adding striper and other stuff to the menu. Just friends teasing with eachother. Though striper nuggets are dam good. and even good cold.

My guess as to why he said trilene is the high dollar pay out for a record fish on it. Alot of fishyness in this story and this guy.