LittleRedFisherman

As far as bass and trout fishing, my story is similar to Justins, my dad was a very casual fisherman, bobber and a worm, sometimes a beetle spin down at the lake. Fishing to him was just rest and relaxation, as it was to me then. A switch clicked in my mid teens, where I started reading articles, watching shows. I'm pretty much a self taught bass angler, other than literature and trial and error. Now I take my dad smallmouth fishing from time to time, which he loves! Hopefully we get to do that for many years to come! Terrierman, I'm about the same way, I've got one buddy that likes to run lines like this on the Mississippi. Let me tell you, this is a lot of work, we didn't film the hard part of setting the lines, it takes some skill and safety concerns. Wes had a system that was the best I've seen, others use it now, but he figured it out before it was common. Those magic bait clip are awesome for setting lines in swift water, and we just coiled the lines up in ice cream buckets with nothing but the swivels attached, they would feed right out with rarely a snag. We used 50 plus pound rip rap rocks off the banks for weights. I think we used the boat live well for the bait cooler, but we used green sunfish, or what we call riceslicks here in the delta. You had to have one of those areators that sprayed in the water, riceslicks are tempermental, but seem to catch more flathead imo. That Mississippi River is a catfish factory, I've never seen anything like it, in the video we had a nice catch of flathead, but you could tell Wes was disappointed, we usually caught twice that, with a 30 plus pounder to boot. You need to go with me sometime, if you can run my boat, I can do the rest!! Keep um coming, good stuff!

I'm sure there several of you out there, that might of had a particular person, perhaps a family member, or an old man down by the river, that taught you a lot about the sport you love at an early age. Mine would have to be my late friend Wes. He passed from this world to early, but as a youngster, he taught me a lot about the sport he loved, catfishing. He was locally known for being one of if not the best catfisherman in the area around here. He friended my dad and I when he moved down the road from us where he farmed as we did. He took a liking to me, as I did him and started taking me fishing any time we got off from the farm. We caught thousands of pounds of flathead together from the St. Francis and Mississippi rivers. He passed away in 2004 from a heart condition, but before that, he left me a lifetime of memories from some of our fishing excursions. I talked him into going bass fishing with me once, but that wasn't for him..lol This video was given to me the other day by his daughter, it's the only time we ever videoed any of our fishing trips. This wasn't the best of our catches on the Mississippi, it's nothing to catch 200 pounds of flathead per night, but that's not the point here. Having this video is precious to me, and putting it together was fun, and also shed a couple tears along the way. If someone like this took you in as a young'un, and taught you how to fish or hunt, share your story here. Bret

1. Rebel Crawdad Crank 2. 4 or 5 inch texas rigged Senko 3. Tube or Worm 4. White or Chartruse buzzbait/ Pop R. (Sorry Al, big fan of topwater... 5. Suspending Jerkbait Not necessarily in that order, but I one of them usally tied to all my rods on a trip. If it's really cold and fish are lethargic, and I feel like using my flyrod, a marabou jig dead drifted will surprise you on what it can do..

There's a lot of articles and posts on fishing jerkbaits in the cooler water of winter, fall and early spring. I was wondering how many of you use one this time of year. When I went fishing the other day, I was catching some fish on several different things I was trying, I joked to my buddy that I had a 30 dollar lure in my tackle bag, I might as well try it a few times, so I pulled out my Megabass. I caught some smallmouth pretty consistently on it, be it around woody cover, or the steep shady banks which they seemed to like that day. I seems to me there a use for these in the summer as well? Just wondered how many of you guys use these baits in the summer and not just in cold water?

Sounds like a great time, hard to beat the tried and true tube. Although I tried one on the 11 point Tuesday and didn't have much luck, they were wanting crankbaits. There's a creek in my part of the Ozarks I've waded from time to time, that is always a great experience, just something about it!!

25 jet

SOLD..

Wow, congrats!! That's a Dandy!!

In a perfect world, you would the supreme to fish out of, and the aluminum boat to duck hunt out of. I love my supreme, I actually just posted a video of it running some river. Where I duck hunt on black river, I wouldn't want to use my supreme there. I do have an old war eagle I've had for almost 15 years, so I used that when I duck hunt. If you have to pick one boat, guess you'd have to decide which is more important, the hunting aspect or the fishing.

I've had this boat a year and a half, and it has been just awesome. Went fishing yesterday, it was pretty hot, and didn't really wanna mess with wearing my Gopro on my head I guess. I did get this footage of boating back up after a few hours of fishing. This section of the EP has it's own beauty to it, it's different from up in Missouri. I call it a hybrid river, it's got many characteristics of a typical Ozark stream, but has sections like the last part of the video, that resemble a delta river, very good fishing however!! Anyhow, guess this is a product review of a river boat i'd recommend to anybody!!

I agree that the majority of walleye anglers are catch and keep for sure, I've never met one yet that wasn't. Here in Arkansas, they are stocked pretty regularly in the Spring river, that river is well known for being a good walleye river these days. The lower Current River is also a hot spot for them, not sure on the stockings in the Current, the may migrate up from the Black in the winter. There's just a mindset I guess when it comes to walleye, I find many anglers like the rest of us here, that treat the Ozark smallmouth like the treasured fish that they are, but when it comes to walleye, they will keep them in a heartbeat, guess it's just a mindset. Those mindsets can be changed, but it takes time, and sometimes generations. I was watching a show on ESPN years ago, were Jerry Mckinnis was showing old clips of his show from the 60's and 70's the fishing hole. In the show, he was fishing Crooked Creek, and catching 20 plus inch smallies like they were going out of style. Every one of them was being put on a stringer. He kept apologizing to the audience, and said "folks, we just didnt' know better back in them days." I know smallies are still kept by some, but I'd bet the majority of anglers release most of them now, where 40 years ago, it was just common to keep a fish. Mindsets change, but it takes time. I"ll say this, contrary to what some believe, that walleye I caught yesterday was a fighter, I thought I had hooked into a dandy smallmouth, he attacked that spinnerbait from under a log. They would make a great gamefish to protect and produce a trophy for sure!

This part of the Eleven Point is different from a typical Ozark stream, at this point in it's journey, it's in the foothills of the Ozarks in Northeastern Arkansas, kinda on the fringe of were the Delta starts. We do target smallies on the edges of current, we did that at first. Even though the water has slower areas, there are still many shoals that step down and have nice current as it levels off into another run and hole. The largest smallmouth today came off steep banks that had some shade in the heat of the day, many hit really close to the bank, and also around all the woody cover. We did fish a stretch of really deep slow water and didn't have much luck, but it was full of nice feisty bluegill, and spotted bass.

My friend Jody, who is kinda new to bass fishing, went with me to try our hand on some smallmouth on the EP. We decided to head to Randolph county to try the smallmouth down there. Needless to say, it didn't disappoint. It did start off slow this morning, but as the heat warmed up, so did the smallies. We tried all kinds of different lures today. My first one was a 15 incher that came on the Senko, I thought this was gonna be the ticket, but as the day wore one, the old tried and true Rebel Craw turned out to be the go to lure. As the sun got up and hot, the shady areas were key, they produced fish. Also, Jody had pretty good luck today throwing a buzzbait, I also knabbed a couple on a Pop R. I also tried a spinner bait, all I caught on that was a nice, and my first ever Walleye, which was really cool! All and all, we had a great day, and probably boated between 20 and 25 Smallies, not counting some Goggleeye we also caught. The largest one was 16 inches, but was still a load of fun. Only caught 2 spotted bass, the rest were Smallies!! You had to watch where you were boating, not from debris or shoals, but from Cows. This stretch of river in Randolph country AR, is heavy in cattle production, cows where everywhere, on the sides and in the river. At one point, had a big old cow play chicken with me as we were heading up the river, it finally moved, got that on the gopro if I every get time i'll show it. The river is different here than is it up in Missouri for sure, but it looks even more "fishy", as far as cover, tons of wood in the water, with nice stretches of water that makes boat handling nice.

Man, they are struggling for sure, lost again tonight, guess this is there slump for the year hopefully is all.. Was talking to Brian Sloss one time about the walleye, and it seems a lot of the Missouri stocked Walleye up there, migrate down to AR. I know a fellow that live south of were I was fishing today on the River, and they regularly target walleye and catch them all winter.

Was Smallmouth Fishing, Was A Total Surprise!!

White SPinner Bait.

My First Walleye On The Eleven Point In Arkansas

Would love to go, you coming down this way to Arkansas? Got family coming in to visit Thursday so that would put me out. The weather the past few days would be awesome to camp out on, in the Ozarks round the cool water a light jacket might feel good in the morning!!

If you ever wanna do it again, I got a place we could stay there near Hardy, that also has a place to fish as well....just sayin'... That's a neat region through there, a lot of diversity within a short distance on different things to fish for.

Was just thinking about the trip Mitch, Siusaluki, and Al took to my neck of the woods last year near Hardy. I really enjoyed the read and reports on that trip, when I floated the Southfork recently I went back to that and read it again, good stuff! Was wondering if anything like that was gonna be planned again. I couldn't leave the farm for that many days myself, but could join for possibly a night or two someday if that was to happen again. That was a neat idea you guys came up with there, hopefully something like that could happen again sometime! With everyday life, it's hard to get everybody on the same off schedule, kinda like the annual fishing trip me and my college buddies used to take, we all have jobs and families now, hard to get together...

Keep it up Smallie, I love your passion for river smallies, we all need to be more proactive on preserving this wonderful resource we have in the Ozarks! I was fixing to tell a buddy about your desert camo Coosa, but I knew you'd be back!!

Put together some footage from last weeks meeting with GotMuddy on the Southfork. Missed several fish catches from the battery dying, but did get some neat footage of the river, and few catches. Look forward to going back with Cody sometime when we have more time to fish! This was my first trip with the Coosa to an Ozark stream, and it certainly won't be the last hopefully!

Glad to hear action is being taken, this warms my soul for sure! It is imperative for folks like us that on on the water occasionally, or very frequently to report this kinda stuff. Cudoo's to Scott and the rest of you guys who are pursuing this! There was sort of a similar thing going on here about 3 winters ago, where people discovered a hole on the St. Francis (Delta version), that was absolutely full of Flathead. There's a 45 day snag season in AR, with a two fish limit, no throwbacks. There were a few clowns that was filling there boat full, of 30 and 40 pounders, if they snagged a little one they might throw it back wounded, and posted it on Facebook. Game Warden got wind of it, and pursued it, he caught several after that with camera and microphones where he staked the hole out. He pretty much put a stop to it as far I can tell, at least the majority of it, as this place was just a mile from my home! I commended the AGFC for there action, hopefully the MDC will do the same!!

Guess I Better Change My Username

Love it! There's nothing like spending time with your kids in the outdoors, especially when they love it as much as you do! Thanks for all the comments, he seems to have a love for fishing early on!