bfishn

No leaves on the trees in August? :-) Nice fish. I got a 14.98 somewhere in that general vicinity a few years back.

You bet they will.

Wheel chocks aren't a for-sure prevention either. It happened to me while my little 4 speed Datsun was resting on a 6x6 block. Someone had removed 4 lug nuts on my right front wheel and loosened the 5th one while I was out fishing. That wheel stayed in place just long enough for me to back down the ramp. As soon as I got out, that wheel went thunk and all but fell off, letting the other wheel that was blocked turn and spit out the block (no steering lock on a '79 Datsun). :-(

My feelings exactly Wrench. It's not too unlike rounding up the kids to see who can beat the neighborhood stray dog the hardest (without killing it). Winner gets an Xbox.

Yeah, we could all hang up our rods if there weren't at least a little poop washing into our lakes & streams. Pleasant to ponder or not, it's a necessary link in the circle of life.

Thanks for the clarification Phil, I thought it was a moustache riding a Polish sausage... :-)

Yep, Plenty of channel cats. If you have access to a well-lit dock sitting over 25' or deeper water you might find some crappie, but they'll be pretty hard to come by from the bank.

You'll be 2-3 weeks early for a really good flathead bite as surface temps start cooling more, but don't let that stop you. On the Branson end I'd recommend trying the back half of timbered creek arms (like Jaques). Spend about an hour before dark catching green sunfish on worm bits. Change the water on your baits a couple times the first hour or two to clear out the waste. You don't have to put your baits on the bottom or in the midst of a tree, suspended at 5-10 feet near cover works well at night. If you're rod-n-reelin', big slip bobbers or barely inflated balloons are the ticket with a very slow moving presentation. Stay off the trolling motor as much as you can, drifting or sculling won't spook them near as bad.

Your buddy has a good point. Our AC grid is based on potential-to-ground (earth ground). Any unintended alternate path to ground will conduct, and if water is the path, you can have a fairly large field of area affected. Inverter AC isn't referenced to earth ground, merely potential between conductors . This is good in theory, but in reality our docks are wired like a house, with the neutral conductor bonded to earth ground. Output from an inverter to standard wiring puts you back into the same potential-to-ground scenario.

Solar can shine (pun intended) for lots of reasons, but as soon as you put an inverter in the mix, you're synthesizing AC again at the end use (and most hazardous) points on a dock. No safety factor gained. As long as we demand AC with our gadgets it'll be there ready to bite us. We need stuff that runs on 6-12VDC to have safe solar docks. But...the wiring needed to satisfy our contemporary needs on 6-12V is the size of the wire that feeds our houses...

They poke them with sharp sticks until they're in a foaming-at-the-mouth, wild-eyed rage, then they rent them to the Trump campaign as temporary staffers.

Several of the main arms on the lower half have active submerged springs near the "back end", Some are better than others. Other than that, rain runoff is pretty much it.

Last time that bar was completely exposed the skeg marks on it looked like Twiggy's ribcage... all the way from 100 feet off the shore to the island.

Inline spinners with a keel (like the Erie Dearie) solve the line twist problem.

There used to be a couple of small trout farms in the Shoal Creek watershed west of Neosho, but I haven't seen either of those guys since I got out of the business, so I can't say if they're still operating. Even if they're not there anymore, somebody's likely still using the facilities to produce a few fish, and when it floods, inevitably some fish wash out.

Nice flattie! That IS an ugly bass. So is this one, caught while dredging the gut of a creek channel with a DD22 in search of walleye;

An Erie Dearie is what I pull when they're deeper than any of my cranks will go. 1 oz with a half a crawler and a treble stinger. Best when the fish are suspended off the breaks and you're dragging open water.

Lotsa folks trying to outdo each other in the stupidity aspect of the game. Here's my favorites so far; "On Wednesday, firefighters rescued two men who fell several stories off the crumbling sandstone bluff in Encinitas, according to authorities. The men, who were in their early 20s, were playing “Pokemon Go” at the time and likely were led to the cliff when they were trying to catch characters, said Sgt. Rich Eaton of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. One man fell 75 to 100 feet. As firefighters rescued the man, they found the second man unconscious 50 feet down the bluff, said Battalion Chief Robbie Ford of the Encinitas Fire Department. Both were taken to area trauma centers and suffered moderate injuries, he said. The men, according to firefighters, had crossed a fenced area to get to the bluff"

Table Rock & Beaver are lousy with them. They likely fall right behind shad in the mini-forage dept there.

Wow, a silverside on hook & line! You are definitely the mini-hook man!

Hmmm... sounds like a case for the Whopper Plopper Hopper Stopper Copper.

...and this time of year you can have current below the thermocline while surface waters sit still. Just trying to put your mind at ease... :-)

Yes (personal observation).

I've lived in Bella Vista for ~35 years, so it has its' merits. If I'm ever able to retire I'll be seriously looking at the Diamond City option though. Fewer people, more fish. :-)

This is a great topic. For the 35 years that I've been fishing these deep Ozark reservoirs I've spent more than half my efforts trying to unlock the secret of deep fish. I still don't have a surefire method, but I'll share some observations that mostly apply to walleye & stripers, but enough bass show up 'accidentally' to suggest it may apply to them too. The biggest revelation is to understand (and be able to identify) the difference between deep fish that are relating to deep structure, from those that are just roaming deep, open water in search of food. The former can be much easier to catch because they stay in the same basic area for a period of time. I say 'can be' because your timing must coincide with an active feeding period or you're wasting your time. For roaming fish, your odds of being in the same place at the same time are pretty slim, but when you can do it you'll find fish that are willing to eat. Years ago I read some radio telemetry studies that charted schools of stripers daily movements in highland reservoirs. One in particular had the schools spending summer nights in the biggest gut of deep water near the dam. Shortly before dawn they moved out, reaching an area 35 miles uplake by midday, where they turned around and returned to the dam by shortly after dark. They did this daily until fall turnover. There were shad at the dam, but there were a lot more uplake. Let that soak in... My methods for deep fish are about 75% live bait and 25% jigging spoons or jigs with bait. Drifting or strolling slip bobbers set to put the bait 3-5 feet above the fish you're marking is my favorite simply because I never got over the childhood thrill of watching a bobber go under. I'm sure the artificial-only guys can figure out a way to adapt, Spend some time searching the lower 2/3 of your lake to find where the most shad are now. Then break down that area for deep structure that breaks at the thermocline. Active fish will just be near that structure, not necessarily on it. Deep fishing is often feast or famine. If you're the type that can endure the slow times by enjoying where you are, the feasting can be awesome. If you find yourself looking for a tree or bush to throw at, you might as well go do that.