JohnF52

Watch the bottom. Sequoyah is hard to navigate with a motor in upper end. Some wide areas are too shallow for most trolling motors. Poling works well.

In the nearly three years I have been back into fishing, after only fishing once in a great while for about 16 years, not once have I been on the water in my boat on a weekend or holiday. Week day evenings are bad enough. It is good to be retired and able to go on weekdays. Weekends were not so bad 20 years ago. Where do these folks get the money for the wakeboats and gas? Most of them must be deeply in debt.

Cloudiness and cool breeze likely kept them off.

Anybody still use the old type Bombers? Some of the bigger ones were like planer boards.

I have some Bee Ready holders. They work very well and can be made portable with the right brackets.

Live crawfish is the best bait for them imo.

You could provide details to the FAA. They would investigate and probably ground him.

Five dollar a gallon gasoline in a couple weeks will go a long way toward calming it down.

Just for information, the lake was a lot clearer back then. In summer 10 to 12 foot visibility at 12 bridge was not uncommon, and 20 feet near the dam. You could see the minnows and larger fish swimming way down below the lantern. I would get bored with catching for a while and just sit and look down. I was almost 14 when the lake first filled to near normal level.

Years ago, when the lake was new, we used a two mantle Coleman lantern hung off the boat on a stick. It attracted bugs, but that made for more minnows. We caught ice chests full of crappie nearly every time.

There ar so many gar on the upper river end that if you slip bobber a small perch bait, you will catch gar probably 3 to one over catfish. Hook set needs to be very firm with gar.

The expensive ones are not any better than the 150 dollar ones if you don't spend many many hours learning how to interpret the display. That's my situation. About all I can tell is depth, temp, and boat speed.

There are so many little 5 inch spots they will swarm a small lure thrown in the right spot. Hopefully the flathead catfish eat a lot of them.

The Corps would be heavily criticized for dropping the lake before a storm, as rainfall amounts are highly unpredictable in NWA, and the lake could get very low by the end of a summer. For example: Four inches of rain was predicted for the past four days, and I gauged a half inch or so at my place. What I was saying is they did not have to release 80,000 cfs or so for five hours in 2008. They then reduced it after the damage was done and someone grasped some sense. They could have released the same total amount over two or three days. Someone at the Corps office likely over reacted and in a knee jerk, they opened the gates nearly full and flooded and scoured everything down Past Houseman. This was 2008. Not even a 100 yr flood, but the lake was already high. On April 24, 2004 there was a 130 year flood on the upper white. 140,000 cfs at Wyman Bridge. Water lapping at the bottom of 45 Bridge. I was there at both sites when it happened. The road washed partly out on the east end at Wyman. The bridge was nearly new. The flood gates at Beaver were not opened excessively and all was fine. Btw, the floods of 2008 and 2011 on the upper white each registered about 53,000 cfs peak at Wyman Bridge.

The flood gate openings of (I think) 2008 released much more water at once than that one in 1990. A house was badly flooded downstream. The gates have been opened several times in the last decade: 2002, 2004, 2008, twice in 2011. I don't recall a 1130 elevation level event between 1990 and 2002. The Corps don't seem to care if they damage the river or property that the dam is there to protect. The gates have been open too wide for too short a period looking at it historically. The same total volume releases could have been accomplished with longer gate openings at less flow rates with minimal damage.

Is it not possible that natural striper reproduction is occurring in Beaver and in the tailwater? AGFC does not want them in there and has made some effort in past to remove them. If they really want to remove them, then no release and no limit. Treat them like invasive snakeheads.

They will likely be in the areas where there are the most trout, above Houseman access. If stripers become established in sufficient numbers in TR, the trout fishery in the Beaver tailwaters will be decimated.

Is this meeting still on for sometime this summer?

Same old drivel over and over. Based on history like said above.

Coppermine is a resort on the south side of the lake about halfway between 12 Bridge and Rocky Branch. There is a large dock there that is hard to miss. To the west of the dock, there is a large tailings pile from an old mine. The tailings form a large underwater hump that fish tend to gather around sometimes. It is straight west of point number 9.

Baits?

Why I have not been to Beaver on a weekend since I started back fishing three years ago. Don't let them cut you off. Get really close.

GW on jet ski has been going on for several years.

Great whites would keep the wake boats and jet skiis away. Start a rumor?

I caught a 23 inch LM Bass in Lincoln lake a couple years ago that only weighed 3.75 pounds. I kept it as it would not have survived much longer. Probably plastics, but I did not think of that at the time. Soft plastics might be off the market or illegal soon, who knows? I wonder if the Maine bill passed last year?