riverfish

throw the five inch model in the "lake fork tackle" in chrome it works pretty good in the summer as a switch to something different. yet to catch a bigun but have caught good numbers. this summer was my first season trying it but i cannot complain about my results so far.

the actual guy that designed the alpha jig lives in cassville i believe his name is bo and he droped the perfect strike guys because he didnt like the way they were building his jig and he is now building and packaging them himself again i know you can buy them at sportsmans corner in cassville. myself personally, im not so sure that you actually get a better hookup percentage but, they are stuck in the roof of the mouth nearly every time. none of that little bit of skin or in the cheek nonsense. its a quality product made with good componets such as a mustad hook. no ewg hooks. i have fished them and they come through the cover pretty well no alot of hangups and they do get bit. im just waiting on a little heavier jig from him for deeper water. oh, and on the matter of the weed guard the way he makes them is one solid piece of bristle for each one. not several pieces and i think thats his problem with the manufacturer. they dont want to build it the way he designed it. supossedly the double weed gaurd acts as a saftey clip or somethning so that when you hook a fish its supposed to help keep the jig pinned to the fishes mouth making it harder to throw.

pretty sure i read it perfectly in a book as a young child it goes "do unto others as you would have done to you" if everyone done this it would solve all our problems as far as "fishing ettiquite" goes maybe even more

i personally use white most of the time with a white 3 to 4 in grub in 1/4, 3/8, wheight just depends on conditions also whether i just slowly real it or pump it i don't do it alot but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures a larger grub will slow the fall and when the water is colder that will help too. just experiment with it find what you like and what works for you

theres always the good ole swim jig as well i like the all terrain swim jig myself

just a simple hook through the nose nothing fancy, i think thats why theyre so expensive rarely do you hook more that two fish with the same worm and you go through alot of them

i have had three of the bucoo rods and they have all broke on me within six months now one rod i could see as maluse but to continously replace it with the same rod and they break too i think its the rod. if you ever get to look inside a broken one you can see the problem they are just trying to build them too fast alot of them are oval or egg shaped inside caused i think from not giving them the proper amount of time for the blank to cure and the thickness of the graphite walls are thiner or thicker all throught the blank and i think thats why the rod is also really inconsistent in feel from one rod to the next.

me and bill are on the same page with that one i personally use the old 6 1/2 falcon original in a med. hvy. ive tried the longer rod and it just seems to be more work in it than with the shorter rod. i also use the same rod for jerkbaits on occasion AND... you can still buy them at academy for about 85 or 90 bucks. im too cheap to pay all that money for the cara when i don't really need all the sensitivity in the world you could also go with the low rider and be in the mid level price range for about 130 bucks give or take

up mostly but i did try some slow rolling through some timber along with keeping it up but not much interst there yet, most fish would just crush the second i started my retrieve and i was layin that bait right up on the bank heck i had one that actually surfaced to get the bait as it hit the water like i was throwin him a pass or something it was pretty good day really for me i just couldnt get that quality bite i had nine keepers and several shorts in all

the way the weekend weather looks with the front coming through i would recomend that good ole spinnerbait, might not catch you any giant fish quite yet but you could have a lot of fun with the "just keepers" and probably several short fish. i have not been as far down as kc but i do know that four out of the top six in the homer sloan derby this past weekend caught their 12 and 13 pound limits on a spinnerbait and most of us were in the baxter area. cant say about anybody else but my fish came from the transition banks from big rock to small rock in both the pockets and on the points. i chucked a white spinnerbait ALL DAY LONG and came up with 12.25 lb for my efforts

there going to smash em during the classic that i promise

i had my best day for quality fish on march 1st of 2010 i believe and it was during a cold front and it was snowing like a mother it was a little slow but it was worth it for me the only thing that pushed me off the lake was when i almost slipped on my snow and ice covered deck i decided it was time to go in. one thing i can give you a heads up on is that the homer sloan derby will be on saturday that usually draws 60 to 90 boats range. and also there is a derby out of indian so there is a good possibility of a busy boat traffic day in the shell knob area good luck on whatever you decide

you may want to reconsider for the following week because the annual homer sloan tourney out of shell knob will be held that same day and it always draws 60 to 80 boats.... you may get a better turn out that way

the table rock tackle shop just on the other side of the kimberling city bridge did have boxes and boxes of used reels for sale at one time don't know if they still do or not some were older than others but it never hurts to try

aroun three to five oclock they are still pretty deep about thirty to thirty five feet is where i been marking the schools in as deep as forty to forty five fow and once i get one fired up i can kinda stay with them on and off until later in the evening maybe and hour and a half to two hours before the sun gets behind the trees and thats when they start to move up in the water column and the walleye follow mixed in i guess i just noticed thats when i always hook one is when they start to come up in the column. ive been catching lots of spots and some lm, the eyes seem to be right at the twenty inch mark although the first one i caught would have went maybe 24,25 inches oh by the way i can't really tell what kind of fish the schools are on my graph i just got a new one and havent quite got it totally figured out yet i just know that i can drop on some schools and get them going and others i can't even get a sniff don't really know if its different type of fish or just picky eaters

rps, have been drop shotting and spooning in the late afternoon and evenings in the eagle rock area and have caught at least one keeper size walleye each of the last three times i have been out most have been vertically jigging the spoon but have had several break offs/cut offs on the six lb drop shot line that could very well have been eyes as well. all were schools of fish that i have found in the channel and decided to just drop on em and see what i can come up with and they seem to really be intermingled?... aka mixed schools

actually abkeenan you can find the strike king kvd sexy frog at your local wal mart if nowhere else and it takes some tweaking but its a pretty good little frog almost identical to the spro and its only like six bucks believe me them frogs will take a beating too i have caught countless fish on the one that i bought and it still keeps on going the legs just wont fall off, well worth the money

im not a hundred percent sure that i haven't been getting the sk 6xd as deep if not a little depper than the dd22 for me... the colors i been throwing are gizzard shad and of course the citrus shad my all time favorite hot weather bait

wait till this fall and you can and will catch sea monsters in the backs of the creek arms. if you throw it that is

no i just know his name it took me a month to learn that but its more of a combined effort he just owns the scales the name is gary . not much help but its what i know

i know the saturday night thing is just kind of a show up and go fishing thing fee is 25 dollars start at 7pm weigh in at 1am it pretty fun it averages about fifteen boats although there has been several night this year there was twenty or more which is a step up from last year only about ten on average. i like to go when i can, win lose or draw its only 25 bucks and i live close so its affordable way to kill a sat nite come on out everybody is really friendly anyone is welcome oh and there is no dues or fees to fish and also no fish off at the year end. but dues and fees are involved with the wed. nighter and it does have a year end fish off both launch out of the sk bridge free ramp. wed nite is 7 to 11 i believe but not 100% about that with what was 35 dollar entry but its been a whiole since i fished that whole deal

i would say that "pleasure boaters" on the lake that doesnt "know" any better is total bs my personal observations see that those are people from out of town, and most likely out of state and they just don't care the way they see it this is "their lake" and they can do whatever they want i say that because i am very local living in eagle rock and spending lots of time around shell knob because of my grand mother i see it at work on the highways at the grocery store its every where you look this time of year they come down here with there money and untouchable attitudes and just flat out don't care about anybody else. heck if you stop ant any store you can see them go to the beer cooler get some refreshments and then go get in their boats and have a blast.i do agree alot of the money they bring to the area is helpful and needed but im affraid that one pro is not worth the other con for me. there not all bd apples i guess. just the ones we all like to gripe about i mean after all you will never hear a fisherman say how nice and curtious the ONE guy,or family in that 30 ft blue cobalt was to fish near on the lake today. i guess what im trying to say is that some things you just learn to live with

i don' know about the cows but i have heard that if the deer are moving the fish are biting and i kinda tend to lean toward believing that it is an interesting concept i know a few weeks ago i was night fishing and catching them pretty good and it got late so i went home and i probably saw ten deer along the way grazing and crossing the road so.... ya never know

in bills original post he said he caught his drop shot fish on a 4 in cinnamon purple chompers drop shot worm. they are good ones too. i also use the kinami kut tail worms in 4 or 5 inch and i found some purple with silver glitter sliders at academy a year or two ago i bought all they had and i am really starting to like those as well

if im in no hurry which i usually am i will stand there smile real big act interested let them do all the work of talking me into doing something that i am never going to go for, let them make their pitch even make them think im going to go for it like they have one hooked or something when you see their eyes start lighting up AND THEN i tell them no. and walk away laughing but thats just me.