bfishn

What's a Ned?

When they're moving water (at either end) treat it like a river. Cut mouths and the points near them.

That sounds like a problem that will solve itself if left alone. :-)

Go Spring Peepers!

Yep

That should be one from the earliest stockings in the '90s. They were protected the first several years, and relatively ignored ever since. There should be a buttload more in the 100lb range out there.

I can't say if there's still any 20+ eyes around, but I have doubts. I can say for sure I saw one once though. It was on my annual prespawn rendezvous, over 15 years ago. I was on them at night and trying to go every night. A guy I worked with wanted to come, so we met at the ramp at dusk. The deal that year involved really shallow fish that spooked easier than the neighborhood cat. You had to approach quietly with a paddle, it could take 20 minutes to get in position. Bump the boat or light a smoke and they were gone. All of this was wasted on my partner, who made enough racket to wake the dead. Before midnight he wussed out and asked for a ride to his truck and I readily obliged. Thick fog had formed, so it was idle only to the ramp. After dropping him I headed to the only other spot we hadn't disturbed, still foggy and idle only. Dropped a couple longlines and settled in for the trip. A good 10 minutes of driving by graph and stern light put me around a bend. When I glanced at the rod on the stbd gunnel, I saw it. Suspended just under the surface in 14ft of water, motionless, just a foot off, and parallel to my gunnel. As I glided past at ~1mph, it just turned and vanished. I had handled 12 & 13 pounders before, and this one was twice that size. My heart missed several beats before I grabbed the helm to kill everything and crank into a circling return. I cast that area till the sun rose.... nothin'. That fish haunted me for the next few years while it was possible it was still alive. It was the motivation for an aging goofus to keep doing stupid stuff on cold winter nights. Now I know that fish can be no more. Surprisingly, I'm good with that.

Like the 400 lb gorilla... anywhere and anything she wants.

Of my last 25 yrs of monster quest, I think my summed average falls in a bit below Buster's. As I recall, at least one of 3 trips were biteless skunks, and another third with one lone walleye to show. Dozens of icy all-nighters. One has to question the motive on the way home from a frostbiting skunk. But I'm really glad I did it. I figured out a successful strategy the hard way (after years wasted trying what the magazines touted). Eight biguns from 10-15, and many 5-10s. About half on creek baits and half on sticks. I can sit for hours with some big chubs towing their bobbers around, but my head would explode if I had to let a piece of plastic just sit still...

It works great (relative to target species and water temp). Works even better drifting 3 or 4 on slip floats and leaving the stick for what it's best at... night trolling. :-)

I've seen 'em do just that, but those fish were actually in the spawn and interested in one thing only (and it wasn't eating). The ones you want are the pre-spawn fish a little further downstream.

Darters are cool, kinda like miniature tye-dyed walleye. Caught lots of darters over the years while catching bait, but never an Arkie. Good stuff.

What does it say about us when we're determined to buy the cheapest stuff, yet are always surprised when we get it.

Boss said stay home today. Who am I to argue? I can't decide if I've just become an old wuss, or if I just used to be a little nuts. This one time... ...I was determined to fish an icy NYE day, and hauled my 12' jon around the "left" side of the Beaver Lake hitting every access from 412 bridge to Beaver Dam. Lake was froze over at every stop until I got to the dam, where there was some open water, but 1/2" of ice on the ramp at DS North. I bucketed water up the ramp to melt out a pair of tracks for an hour. Floated the jon just before dark, and drug a 1oz jig around the entire perimeter of open water while hunched over the heater. Wasn't really fishing as much as just being there. By the time I loaded out I knew for a fact that I was the only guy on Beaver Lake at that moment. Going to the mailbox today was more than I wanted. Guess I'll have to start answering to 'old wuss'.

What are us poor Arkies supposed to do, with our snowblower loaned out and weather coming in?

My fishin' buddy's son recently started a 2+ year sentence from train tagging charges brought by the Boston Transit Athority. Buddy took a 2nd mortgage on his modest shack to pay a lawyer $30K... for nothing. Kid had just bought a defunct bait shop/boat service building on the Detroit River for pennies on the dollar and was working on getting it going again. That's gone. He's already been assulted in the yard twice because "you're a liar. Nobody goes down for painting trains". Real waste of a bright, talented kid.

Just enough to impress the ladies... I seem to remember writing a couple lines to a drinking song once referring to notropis boops, needing a rhyme for 'jumps thru hoops'.

Welcome! Any relation to Notropis zonatus? If so, you should be readily accepted by the local walleye, they love 'em.

Good on you DD! Whether it mattered much this time or not, be assured that at times it does, sometimes in a big way. Some years ago a couple guys stumbled onto the real deal that I was already on, and they had an unnamed newspaper hack go with them the next time. The night (and week) after the resulting article that tailwater turned into a freakin' zoo.. Where there had been 5-6 boats quietly sneaking around and respecting each other, there were a couple dozen waking around with their spotlights and beer, and that was the end of it for everybody. The Eagles sang the lesson pretty good in a song about California; They called it Paradise I don't know why Call someplace Paradise Kiss it goodbye

Cool! If you can't beat 'em, enjoy 'em. :-)

I'm guilty of heading for springs under changing frontal conditions. And yeah, some are consistently better. Since Ozark springs at the proper elevation to feed a lake instead of drain it are relatively "fresh" water, (having recently fallen as precipitation), they're subject to local near-surface chemical inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus. The recharge area for each spring can be a mile or more away though, so the fertility source(s) aren't always obvious from a boat. A similar but less desirable event occurs after the first flushing of calcium or whatever deicer your road crews use into the aquifers. If a large area of road runoff concentrates in a small recharge area, it can run everything off in a hurry. As for fronts, they're like an old girlfriend you only thought you missed... glad to see them arrive, and quick to wish they'd leave. :-)

I've caught walleye in July below both Carpenter (lake Hamilton) and Remmel (Lake Catherine) dams. It all depends on stable generation. Otherwise, the lake's a good all around multi species destination. I think you'll enjoy it.

Thanks for the tip. I've never stayed there, but those dadgum roosters have signaled the end of many long cold nights for me there on the river. That stretch of water has a special spot on the hearth of my heart. Slip back down there in March for a shot at a trophy 'eye.

Quote of the (new) year!

I enjoy the forum much the same way I enjoy the comic section of the Sunday paper... pure entertainment. I don't fish the posted spots or use the advertised baits any more than I'd Charlie Brown a Lucy football, or repeat one of Dilbert's thinly veiled insults to his boss. Heck, I'd rather count crickets on a cold winter night than fish for bass. The only time I've actually used any of the information posted here is to know where not to go. When my "name" is listed as viewing a post, it just means my computer is displaying that page, not that I'm frantically copying down details for tomorrow. It's just as likely that I left it there while taking a dump or gone to work.