Mike Worley

I knew Marty from the MWAA & MSW. I just heard the news about his passing from a client today. This is sad news indeed.

I did catch a alligator gar in the Barnes Bay area about 25 years ago that was 6 1/2 ' long on a red plastic worm while night fishing. Back before 9/11 when folks could still park their boats along the face of the dam it wasn't uncommon to see large alligator gar cruising along the dam while night fishing under lights for trout.

I Have fished in the Jimmie, Sister, Mountain, Tremble & Buck Creek areas in the past week with some days being very good and some not so much. The afternoon & nights seem to be better for walleyes on stickbaits while the white & black bass are biting thoughout the daytime on several baits and techinques. We have caught some pretty good size spotted bass on large minnows split shotted in 10-20 on rocky creek secondary points. Carolina rigs & jigheads tipped with 5" zoom lizards are catching lots of bass but most were smaller fish. We had a great day in the Buck creeks with bass up to 5 LBs on 1/16 white bucktail jigs on 4# line in the shallowest water you could keep the boat in with several fish over 4 LBs in about 2' fow. The main thing seems to be finding colored water which is pretty much the back end of the creeks. this colored water in the northern creeks is several degrees warmer. We found the water temp in Tremble creek to be 52-54 while both Buck & little Buck was 56-60 degrees. The white bass are biting great on some days and tougher on others. The day we caught the LMB we only managed to catch 1 big sow on a inline spinner. Other days I've found the whites biting well on small swimbaits, bucktail jigs & spinners in Jimmie, Sister & Mountain creeks mostly in 12-2 fow in the back of the creeks. We found even in the colored water where you could not see the bottom in 4' fow that the 4# line seemed to be the difference in catching or not. 6# mono & 6# braid just weren't getting bit intill you got out into about 10' fow. I did catch a few keeper spotted bass on stickbaits fished on 8# mono on the same type of rocky secondary creek points that produced on the minnows. There was a private bass tourny out of Little Buck creek that seemed to have 20-30 boats on Tuesday seems like they fished 2 days and caught lots of fish mostly on stickbaits. My fishing partner on Tuesday Bill Struthers told me that he went to west Sugarloaf creek last weekend there were thousands of dead & dying shad with hundreds of seagulls working on them. We decided to launch at Hwy 125 park and did see a lot of seagulls but no dead shad.

Phil, any chance of you posting a picture of that RC lure Buster gave you. I already know about the cheap hooks & split rings and have change several out also but I'm curious about changing the eyes.

I had a full day trip in the Jimmie creek area yesterday. We cast stickbaits for quite a while first thing in the morning trying to catch walleyes with no luck. We decided to work on catching some bass and we found them biting much better with live shiners & Hula grubs working the best. Couldn't get anything going with crankbaits or stickbaits all day but Hula grubs in less than 15 fow caught some nice 16"-17" LMB as well as keeper KY's and SMB. Later in the afternoon we decided to try the white bass bite and found them biting swimin' minnows in the back of the creek.

Seems like I heard this same rumor last year.

Tremble creek had good water color and was about 49 degrees. Onece the wind really kicked up the water temp got into the 50's and several points had mudlines that were holding fish. We got up lake as far as Shoal creek but by then it was hard to slow down enough to fish. Most every where we went seemed to have 2'-4' of visability.

Had a full day trip for bass in the Buck creek area with Scott & Bill from St. Louis. We started the morning out in Tremble creek jerkin' stickbaits on a dead calm lake till about 9:30 AM with no bites and hopeing the wind would blow a little and help the bite pick up. It did, up to about 30 mph+ so we put out 2 drift socks got out the Alabama rigs. Some banks we were still traveling too fast to really fish them but we managed to catch some pretty decent size bass of all 3 of the blacks. No walleyes & no whites, while we were tucked in a cove eating lunch we caught a nice keeper smallmouth on a minnow. We ended up with 7 good keepers.

This motor is no longer being offered for sale.

This a almost new powerdrive trolling motor. 12 volt 55 pound thrust. Also included is a Co-pilot remote control with the control hand held unit and a wired foot control. I bought it to use on my river boat and only used a few times. Retail on a TM like this is over $600 I am asking $450..............870-321-3705

the striper fishing is still pretty hit or miss. Had a half day trip Friday the wind was flat and the stripers did not bite for us. The stripers & walleyes only seem to be biting for me right now when there is a pretty good chop on the water. I plan to get out and try the shallow water trolling bite this coming week. Water temp on Friday was still 57-59 degrees but it looks like a strong cold front is moving in so that might change.

Water temp is 59 degrees, lake level is 646.5 (7.5' below power pool) Be very careful when boating as the lower water level has exposed hazards that we haven't seen for several years. Walleye are starting to bite in shallow water (<10') and biting on suspending stick baits like Rogues & Lucky Craft pointers and on Alabama rigs. Smallmouth bass are also biting on this pattern. Large striped bass are biting on these baits also. Trolling Alabama rigs in 20' produced 6 hooked stripers in the 30#+ range with 3 boated & released and some much larger fish that got off. Crappie are suspended over brushpiles and in the standing timber along bluff banks and are biting on jigs & minnows and 1/4 OZ jigging spoons. White bass & spotted bass are biting on jigging spoons in 30'-60'

I have a lightly used Horton Yukon SL 150 LB crossbow with a Simmons 2.5 scope & Limb saver silencers. Included will be a 4 bolt quiver, six bolts with field tips. $225. (870)321-3705.

Thanks for the recomendations. My area for guide trips is the lower end of Bull Shoals Lake from Tucker Hollow down to the Bull Shoals Dam. If this works into your plans my phone number is (870) 321-3705. You can click on my website banner on the Lower Bull Shoals forum for details.

I use med heavy baitcaster rods with a fast action tip 5 1/2'- 6'. I mostly use a reel with a flipping switch spooled with 8/2 to 15/4 high visibility braid. I tie on a #12 barrel swivel and about 18" of 12# fluorocarbon and a Berkley cross lock snap. I mostly only fish my own handmade jigging spoons with a 2X-4X barbless treble hook in a 1/2 - 1 1/2 OZ. When fishing lighter spoons of 1/8 - 1/4 OZ. I use the same tackle I use for jigs & grubs 6'-7' med action spinning rod with 6# Stealth braid and 8# floro leader with the same swivel and snap set up.

I had a half day trip Thursday fishing the Diamond City area. Early morning we tried the bass bite with no luck but we really got soaked in a series of thunder storms. judging by how much water I had to pump out of the boat I would guess we got about 2" in about 2 hours. We switched over to bottom bouncers about 9:30 and caught 6 walleyes with 4 being nice keepers 20"-22". We went in at 12:30 and from what I saw on the sonar the walleyes were really just starting to move in. What we have been finding about the bite the past couple of weeks is that PD is right about the termocline setting up at different levels I think this maybe due to the lake level dropping with both Table Rock & Bull Shoals dams running water. The walleyes & bass seem to be suspending above the 20' thermocline in about 30'-40' and fishing deeper than that isn't catching much of anything except small bass. The better bite seems to be mid-day which may be due to the full moon phase or when the generation starts at the dams or both. Surface temp was 90 degrees so the temperature at the bite level must have been in the mid 80's and the fish felt very warm to the touch when we netted them. One other surprising observation is that the walleyes were doing quite well in the live well even with 90 degree water pumping in, some of the walleyes lived several hours in the live well with no additional air being pumped in. I think this means that the O2 content of that shallow water must be good.

We fished Thursday again in the Diamond City area starting early morning fishing for bass. As soon as we got to the "Honey Hole" the thunderstorm blew in and poured down rain for a good hour. The bass were there we could see them on the sonar but they would not bite. About 9:30 we ran a few miles down the lake to a flat and started trolling with bottom boucners, we found the walleyes & KY's were again suspended about 20' down over about 30 fow. Fishing the bottom did not get a bite but 18'-20' down we caught 6 walleyes with 4 being nice keepers in the 20"-22" range for a good sack of fish for a half day trip.

We fished out the Diamond City, the weather while quite warm wasn't as bad as it had been due to cloud cover most of the day and we found plently of fish willing to bite in the 15'-30' depth range. We started out casting 4" smoke & silver flake swimmin' minnows on 1/4oz jigs to rocky main lake points and caught several bass with the best one being about a 5# LMB. About 10 AM we finally started to get a light wind blowing so we switched over to bottom bouncer & crawler rigs and caught about 10 walleyes (3 keepers) a dozen or so spotted bass (5 keepers) a large crappie a 17" SMB and quite a few large bluegills . The bottom bouncer fish were out on the gravel flats with most of them suspended about 20' down over about 30 FOW.

Yes, Zebra mussels are in Bull Shoals lake. It seems like every time we snag up a limb or rock from about HWY 125 (Peel) up past Tucker Hollow its got Zebra mussels attached to it. Not so much on the lower end of the lake but i'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Thanks for looking, but I bought a new one today.

We finally got some rain and cooler weather in the past few days. Walleye & white bass fishing has improved with some good catches in the 25'-40' range on jigging spoons, trolling crank baits or stick baits on lead core line and night crawler rigs fished on bottom bouncers. Black bass have been active at night & early morning biting on tube jigs, jig & trailer, plastic worms and spinner baits in 5'-25' FOW. Catfish are biting on night crawlers & cut bait in 5'-25'. .................Mike Worley (www.bullshoalsfishing.com)

It was pretty easy to make the mustard sauce just thin with water any kind of prepared mustard (I used brown spicy Cajun) till it's thin enough to pour out of a spoon. Then dip the fish pieces ( cut the striped bass filets into about 1" thick portions and remove all of the red meat) in the mustard sauce and shake them in a zip lock bag containing a mixture of 3 parts white corn meal mix 1 part self rising white flour and 1 part plain bread crumbs and some white corn starch. I like to add spices to the mix like parsley flakes, garlic powder, onion powder, Cavenders, a little salt and some ground red pepper & paprika. Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 350 degrees and add one piece of fish at a time, fry till the fish starts to float. Drain on a steamer rack and serve. This recipe will work on any of the stronger flavored fish like White bass or LMB or drum.

I cleaned a 35# striped bass a couple of years ago and used a mustard sauce recipe to fry it. Just make sure that you trim off the red meat and cut the pieces of meat pretty thin like 1" thick and it is pretty good (not as good as walleye). But you get a lot of meat out of one fish.

Lake level is 653.3 just a little under normal power pool (654) water surface temperature is 83.7 degrees. The walleye bite has been a little slower this past week but most days we are still catching them in 22'-28' on jigging spoons and crawler rigs fished on bottom bouncers. Crank baits like Shad Raps or or Flicker Shads trolled on lead core line or flat line trolling deep diving crank baits like Tail Dancers or Reef Runners are also working. Black Bass are shallower and biting on soft plastics, crank baits & live crayfish. Some crappies are also being caught on the lead core / crank baits trolled over brush piles. The weather is very hot so be sure to drink lots of water and use sun screen.

The walleye bite has been slow in the early morning and picking up mid morning and though the day. Jigging spoons have been working most days on point drop offs and around brush piles. Best bite for me has still been the bottom bouncer with a slow death / spinner and a pinched off night crawler. Yesterday about 21'-28' was the depth with several good sized keepers caught on a dead sticked rod running about 15'-20' down over deeper water out from the points in the middle of the coves. The water is getting pretty clear now so you might want to extend your leaders out to about 5' and drop down to lighter fluorocarbon for your leaders.