kjackson

Unfortunately, I left all my halibut leadheads and grubs with my boat mechanic buddy back in Washington. However, there are ways of getting around the lack of a leadhead... I'm thinking Thursday I'll head out and see if I can't find something to catch in Beaver. I'll probably run at least one downrigger with a flasher and spoon and then I dunno. I may also throw on the second rigger and run a big plug and follow all that with a leadcore rod. If I make a thermos of coffee and bake some cookies, I might be able to last the day. On the other hand, I may just throw in a spoon rod and chase bait balls and forget about food if trolling is too slow.

Thanks for the input, guys. Any and all help is appreciated. QB-- I have a bunch of salmon gear that didn't sell in the yard sale: flashers, dodgers, flies, hoochies, divers, Buzz Bombs and even a couple of J-Plugs. I've been thinking hard about the in-lines simply because they pull so easy. And I've been waiting for the fish to concentrate a bit more than I've seen around the dam to bring out the jigging spoons and really go after them. Yeah, I did see the article, and that is what got me thinking about using an attractor plus a grub or jig behind it. F&F--One reason I'm not that interested in live bait is that I'm too lazy to drive to Rogers to buy it. I have thought of trying a sabiki rig to catch larger shad and then using them as cut plugs. If I could get a fair bunch of them, I'm thinking they could be cured and frozen. I could get interested in that. In the meantime, I've got downriggers on my boat, a raft of different large (and not so large) lures and some time at the end of the week to see if I can find the buggers. I also appreciate the info you've posted on the site and the help you've given me an others. I'm starting to get my gear dialed in and arranged. I'm trying to avoid getting sucked into bass fishing until after I get some of the trolling stuff nailed down. I do love to chase bass, but stripers, whites and walleyes are the challenge right now. Being new to the area, it's hard to pick the where/when/what answer. I want to fish for everything everywhere, but I really need to be a bit more focussed.

I haven't done much fishing for stripers and have a couple of questions. I know that live shad are a preferred bait, but that seems like a lot of work if they can be caught some other way. I did a search and couldn't really find anything about scent being a plus and wondered if scented lures (like a big, white grub) might work better than those without scent. Has anyone tried adding scent to jigs or bucktails? The second thing I've been thinking about is using some of my salmon flashers as attractors ahead of a spoon or big, white grub. I've got more flashers than I should have moved last year, and have been thinking about running one off a downrigger. Has anyone done that and had success?

I just passed the Highway 23 end of 187, and there were no signs warning of the bridge being closed. With the water dropping (at least right now), I'm guessing that it's open, but that is all it is, a guess.

S& R found the woman alive, well and soaked. To see the pic of the bridge she was swept off of, go to lovely county citizen on facebook. It makes you wonder how anyone could survive in that creek now.

This morning, a woman was swept off a low-water bridge on Butler Creek--below Beaver. S & R is ongoing. Hope she is found soon.

Upper Table Rock should be popping then. Eureka Springs was pretty much flooded out this morning, and Leatherwood Creek (trib at Holiday Island) was up and over the road in a couple of places. Thankfully, the rain has slowed and should be stopping soon. That may mean I can get my boat out tomorrow if the culvert/road didn't disappear; it had a foot and a half of water over it a couple of hours ago.

I'm thinking that getting the blood work done will be part of my annual check-up, unless I start showing symptoms. I've pulled six ticks off me so far this year--the last one last night. When it gets a bit drier, I'm going on a massive leaf-burning program around the house as every time I do anything with the accumulated leaves, I find the little buggers hanging on somewhere. Spray sort of helps, but it doesn't always.

They've given up the search and called the dive teams off. I wish he would surface for the family's sake, but sounds like it might not happen. What surprises me is that the water is so "murky" that the divers couldn't see in 50 feet of water and had to search by feel. Of course, with this morning's rain and runoff, I would not be surprised if the entire lake turns brown.

Last I heard the searchers were going out again today. No further reports.

http://5newsonline.com/2013/07/27/searchers-suspend-efforts-to-find-spear-fisherman/ The guy was spear fishing alone off Starkey and didn't return. Today the S&R folks are using sonar.

Interesting that the fish are not where they are supposed to be. #2 Son and I fished the Dam Site area on Thursday, saw a few stripers, had one blow up on a frog (dull story there but had no other topwater baits with us), looked for crappies back in Indian Creek (didn't find them) and ended up catching a bunch of small spots. Saw fairly consistent topwater action until noon, which made me think it was worth another shot. Given the number of stripers (or whatever they were) we saw on top, I went out the next day; Boy had to work. Got up at zero dark and hit the Dam Site launch just as it got light enough to run the lake. A striper guy was at the launch, pulling his boat out. Saw another back in the creek. Only three fish came up when I was back in the same area we were in the day before. Worked a Spook for a while as well as a Rapala clone and had nothing of interest happen. It started to sprinkle about then, so I picked up the frog (no cause-and-effect rationale), threw it and had a bass come up, and say hello but it was another drive by. I gave up on those fish and headed out to the main lake to our spot spot only to have the buggers show no interest in topwater or spoons. The day before the dropshot did nothing, but a spoon lit up a school of decent-sized fish. This day the spots were not interested in anything. I decided to head for a timbered bluff bank and try the big spoon for whatever. As I ran by the park, I heard the first clap of thunder, so I put the boat on the trailer just in time to get it pressure-washed by the storm. I was hoping by this time that the stripers and whites would be down in my end of the lake, but apparently they aren't yet. I do know the striper guys have been working this end a bit, but it sounds like a run further up lake would be a better idea. One of these days, I'm going to get with the program, and I hope it happens before Boy goes back to university in Wales.

So the 90hp ETEC is a good one? I may have the boat if it is... I decided against the Lund with the 175hp. It is an 1890 Pro V at Bill Vance Marine in Cassville. It's a really good deal, but it ain't for me.

RPS has a couple of good threads on crawler harnesses. I tried to find them on the Table Rock site, but got lazy before I did. His tips on floating harnesses are good because they tell you how to deal with wood. They'll give you the local background you need. I've fished harnesses a lot in the Columbia when I lived in Washington and up north in Minnesota as well. While the basics are the same, things are different down here. RPS's threads are must-reads. The only down side I've found with using a crawler harness is that it's difficult to keep the spots off.

Thanks, Wrench. I don't have a problem going to too fast on the water, and I don't want to fish tournaments, so all I want is reliability and a boat that does what it's supposed to do. A buddy had the same hull as the one that's a good deal, and I drove it a lot. It had an 85-hp or 90 Johnson tiller, and it was a great combination as far as fishability. I'm guessing that just because there's a 175 on the back doesn't mean I have to open it all the way. Outboards can run at half throttle, right? Thanks again, all, for the advice. I'm still looking and thinking about the good deal and other boats...

So any issues with the 175 Mercury--probably 10 years old or so? Ran across a good deal on a larger boat than I want, but...it's a really good deal. The outboards have been gone through by a mechanic, FWIW.

I'm starting to get serious about picking up a newish boat, and I realized that I no longer know much about the various outboards around, having run Yamahas for the past 15 years. Every brand, to my knowledge, has problem models--those where the engineers didn't get it quite right. For instance, I once owned a 45hp Mariner four-cylinder that would troll very, very slowly (which was good) but was a gas hog. The old Johnson 40 was another one that made you wished you owned your own gas station. I had a Chrysler once that gave me a bad taste for anything of the same name after leaving me adrift in the saltwater in a 10-foot boat. I've been looking at a lot of boats with Mercury and Mariner OBs as well as older Johnson/Evinrudes. Is there a lemon list of motors that should be avoided? I've been looking at a couple of boats with 115 hp and 125 hp Mercs. Any problems there? I should say that the boats I'm looking at are multi-species boats and not bass boats, if that makes a difference. Thanks.

Love that...and I have to work this week. Sigh.

ICAST is one of those shows that has to be seen to be believed. This year's show was one of the biggest in recent history. There were approximately 9500 attendees, 458 exhibitors and 700+ media. There also was a waiting list of companies that wanted in, but booth space was sold out. When I started the thread, I expected to go to the show and in the course of covering it, pick maybe three or four things I thought would be of interest, take pix of the gear and then post them here each day. However, when I got the hotel, I found that there was a $14 a day charge for internet access. Well, I have to admit I'm cheap. Given that my standard show day started at 7:00 in the morning and saw me returning to the room around 10:00 at night, I decided to not do the internet thing as I could do email off my phone, and I wouldn't be using the net enough to justify the cost. As I get into my assignments, I'll post some items that I think would be of interest--like the four-armed spinnerbait from Z-Man (it's on the Tackle Warehouse site already, though) or the dropshot hook from Mustad. However, there are some things I've got to finish first.

Will do. Just got back from ICAST and am now facing deadlines. However, I'll do some checking during a break later today.

That looks like a Crazy Charlie from here.

I am pretty sure I have the larger size in that color and the black back; I'll have to check and see if I also have the smaller.

At the airport in Las Vegas, heading for Branson. First, about attending...this is a trade show, so the people who can go are manufacturers, reps, retailers, media (me), and those who are invited by the manufacturers and reps--guys like pro staff who work with the exhibitors or dealers. It isn't open to the public, so it is kinda "invitation only." However, that doesn't make it terribly exclusive--there were 9500 attendees and something like 700 exhibitors. It lasts three days with the pre-game show starting the Tuesday before. This year for the first time, the trade fly show co-located with ICAST (not Icast as the autospell headline says). I've been covering ICAST and its predecessor for over 30 years or so, and this may well be the largest in that time. At least after the size the last few years, it seems the largest. I wish I could say that there were some fantastic things in store, but that isn't really the case. However, there was a lot of new gear that I can't wait to play with. One theme I saw this year was expansion of the A-rig category with a number of interesting spinoffs. Booyah has a few new rigs that look interesting, and if you go to the lurenet site, you'll probably see them there. One item that needs fishing is the fluorocarbon rig that is intended to be used in front of a single crankbait. As I remember, it has two spinner blades, fluorocarbon leader, and then the snap for the bait. You can fish it shallow or deep or even troll with it. It gives the impression of a fishing running under a pair of shad. Another from Strike King is one with titanium wires that are extremely flexible--it should allow more movement of the baits or spinners or whatever you're using. There also were a lot of soft baits introduced for both A-rig use and for dropshot. One of the most unique soft plastics I saw was a super skipper from lick-em lures. It basically looks like a tongue, but it can be rigged in a bunch of different ways and excels at skipping. There were a lot of new reels, of course, and Lew's is bringing out a deep line of spinning reels. Abu has a Revo with a retrieve ratio of 9.1 to 1. Mitchell introduced the 300 Pro that has what it calls a "bail halo" that looks to be good for keeping the line, especially loose braid, from sneaking under the spool. I didn't do much with the terminal tackle end of things as I was covering soft plastics and wire baits (spinner baits, A-rigs and so on). The jika rig and its spinoffs were everywhere with Mustad having some very interesting versions. Its new dropshot hook/swivel combo is on my list of must haves because it allows the bait to move around freely. There were a number of versions of the Biffle Hardhead from several companies. One of the best things for walleye guys was Northland's use of its new slow-death hook in combination with spinners and the little float. I think that will also work for crappie, but I could certainly be wrong. I didn't have time to look at rods, reels or line, but each category had a lot of new items. Overall, the show was busy for everybody with third day attendance strong, something that seldom happens. The industry seems to feel confident about business in general, so we should see even more products introduced during the course of the year. The plane is boarding in a few minutes, so I'll let the ICAST report end peacefully.

There are still a few perch-patterned baits in the lineup. but I was trying to cut back so that I only needed two boxes instead of three...or four.

Tomorrow, I fly to Las Vegas for the ICAST show--probably the 25th or so time for me. It will be interesting to see all the new fishing gear on display and talk to old friends. If I didn't have to work the shows, it would be a kid-in-a-candy-store event for me, but instead i'll be rushing to get things done before the close of business on Friday. Not that I won't be looking at some cool stuff, mind you. This year, the big tackle show is joining with the annual fly show; the two trade shows will be side by side, and that will be an interesting mix. I'm also seeing a big PR push from a lot of companies, and that speaks well for the fiscal health in the industry. I do know that there is a bunch of pretty trick gear coming out this year, a lot of which will be oriented toward the Alabama-rig category. But there will be bunches of new hard baits, soft baits, rods, reels, lines--you name it. There are even two inflatable, stand-up paddle boards. If anyone else from here is going, perhaps we can meet up. I'll be flying out of Branson.