MarkG52

Amen to what Quillback said in his last post. He has taught me a bunch about fishing the clear end of the lake!!!

I have mine on trolling motor shaft, Ultrex, installed myself. Several guys that frequent the tackle store have them on Rite Hite Turrets that have foot control switches. Rite Hite manufacturing is in Purdy so most of the guys have just gone to their shop to look at/buy/installation.

Launched at LBS Wednesday morning around 900. Putzed around the ramp area till it warmed up a bit and then ran towards Starkey area. Caught a 21" wally on a Keitech and then moved on. Pretty much blanked everywhere else we went in that area until we saw some gulls feeding like crazy in the mouth of a big cove. Idled back until we found the bait ball and dropped the trolling motor. Wolf packs of fish showing up on Livescope under the bait balls in 50+FOW. Switched over to vertical jigging a Jigging Rap and caught a decent little striper, another keeper wally, several big white bass, and some real nice Kentucky's. Water temp 49. Only took a picture of the first walleye and I'm posting this from computer at work, so, no picture to post. Snowing pretty good right now in Rogers. Not a single customer in the tackle store yet!

I used to float it a lot when I was kayak fishing. Always caught fish and had some epic days catching smallies. It's probably been 4 years since I fished it though. There is wading/launching access at Deep Ford, and a low water bridge a little downstream with wading access. Best day ever was in the pool just above Sugar Island campground.

We call Wednesday "Glide Bait Wednesday" at the shop (Hook, Line in Rogers). We get the KGB's in mid-afternoon. Got 10 in yesterday and by closing at 6 we had 3 left. Chad Shads are sold pretty much as soon as enter the door. I think the SPRO glide baits must be on back order for us.

I'm kicking myself for letting the rain possibilities scare me off Monday as well! Had a trip scheduled for today but my friend backed out to go chase potential 'naders out west. So been out all morning catching up on yard work. Took some guys out Tuesday to bream fish and they caught several and 5 or 6 catfish on night crawlers. I picked up a big black crappie and a few white bass (had 1 green fish come unpinned) throwing jerkbait or Keitech across the pockets I set up in for them to fish the bank. We had a fun afternoon.

It's been a minute since I've posted a fishing report. Started working at HLS in Rogers a couple weeks ago and if weather has permitted I've been on the water. April saw some stinker days and some epic days. I've launched out of Hickory, Prairie Creek, Horseshoe Bend, Rocky Branch, and Indian Creek since I last reported. The most epic day numbers wise was April 21st out of Hickory, Caught 48 bass, 1 walleye, and 1 crappie on a mix of Keitech 2.8, jerkbait, and Whopper Plopper. April 28th had a great trip out of Indian. Ran to Clifty arm and got on a good smallmouth bite on jerkbait. They were pretty much all caught around big logs or docks. One log produced a 2.5 and 3.2 in back-to-back casts and the dock just past brought another 2.5 pounder. Fished with @Quillback and @Dutch on May 2 out of Indian. Wind drove us off a little early but still a decent morning. I ended up with 8 brown fish and 3 chunky spots. The spots and a few smallies came off jerkbaits near docks but the two best brown ones came on Keitech 3.3. Both in the 2.5# range. To get things a little more current, last Sunday, 7th, my wife and I went to Indian after church. Got on the water about 2:00 and fished till 6:00. I boated 14 smallies and 1 green fish. Two smallies and the largemouth were in the 3 pound class, several solid 2 pounders, and no real dinks. The LM and biggest SM came on jerkbait. All were on either jerkbait or 3.3 Keitech. Water temps had soared into the mid 60's up there. Best fish once again related to wood or docks. Went to Hickory Tuesday morning, 9th, and water there was in lower 70's! All sorts of fish were busting the top out in the main lake early. Caught two whites and a decent LM on jerk then I moved in closer and was pretty much catching fish in the dirt. Plopper right on the bank and jig in the bushes produced a few. Quit about midday, it got stinkin hot early! April and early May have produced a lot of spots and smallies, a few LM, a 5.5 drum, a handful of walleye, several crappie, white bass, and a bream or two. Best baits have been Keitechs, jerkbaits, Whopper Plopper, jigs, and Flukes (and even a couple on scallywag!). Here's a few pictures. I'll be working at HLS-Rogers Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday this week. If you're in the area drop in and buy some tackle and tell some tales!

@breeves2245 I was planning to fish up that way tomorrow but it's looking like the air may be as damp as the water.

I enjoyed meeting you as well @Dutch. Y'all quit a little too soon. After y'all loaded up I went a ran a short distance and caught a couple of 2.5# brown fish. I certainly don't blame y'all for leaving though, wind was not fun! Here's one y'all missed out on.

This was typical of the whites and the only picture I took of them. We were targeting the bait balls that were showing fish busting them on the Livescope.

😉😉

Here are the stripers of which @Quillback spoke. Also caught some big fat female white bass that were chasing the huge bait balls. 3.3 Keitech in Sight Flash on an underspin.

Nice job Ham!!!

Dutch, I know what you mean about getting your backside waxed by Jeff! He is a great stick with the Ned’s and Keitech's. Fishing with him helped me a lot on my last trip to Beaver.

Me and a buddy went to Indian Creek Monday afternoon. Got on the water about 1:00 trying to wait for the wind to die down. We first ran up IC hoping the wind wouldn't be to bad, it was tolerable, but had no luck. Tons of shad there and could see fish on the bottom with the Livescope, but they didn't seem interested in eating. We moved out to the main lake and found a relatively wind free pocket and I pulled a 3# LM, a dink, and two brown fish out of this pocket. We moved from there to a semi-sheltered point where my buddy caught a decent smallie. From there we finally found an area around a point that we could properly fish. We each caught 7 or 8 brown fish in this area with the biggest being a 2.5 pound smallie I got just before dark. We got off the water right at dark and it was slick smoothby this time, of course!Out of the 20 or so we caught, all but two were brown. WT was 46 to almost 48. Viz ranged from 10+ to chalky from wave action in the main lake pocket due to wave action. All fish were caught on Ned rig, and they destroyed the Zman that Jeff had given me Saturday.

Jeff put it on me pretty good but I sure had fun!

Met up with @Quillback Monday morning on one of the Bella Vista lakes. We had a great time! Jerkbait bite was pretty good for a while but we were catching mostly dinks. Jeff got a few on Ned rig and I had one for sure bite on the Ned. Lots of stories were told and for me, the catching was a bonus to the great time I had. Thanks Jeff! Hope to fish with you again soon.

You didn't miss anything this past Saturday. We launched at 412 and it was pretty sketchy in the parking lot and the ramp when we put the boat in around 9:30. The water had a good stain to it and we saw water temps from 37-40. Very few boats on the water. We didn't get a nibble. Oh by the way, I've stole a quote from you on a one of your Facebook posts, "It was white capping in the minner bucket"! It was certainly doing that mid-lake Monday!

Added some upgrades to my Vexus AVX1880 Sunday evening. Installed a Garmin UHD93 and Livescope. Installed my current Helix and the Garmin on the Vexus Dual Bow mount. Mounted the black box in the center rod box. Electrons coming from bus bar at the bow. Got to play with it a little bit Monday morning before I found out leaving too much slack in the Livescope transducer cable can be a very bad thing. Moved to another spot to get out of the wind and when I went to deploy the trolling motor it wouldn't go all the way into the cradle. When the installation guide says to use tape instead of wire ties, you can imagine what pinching the cable in the TM cradle does. Fortunately, the owner of a local tackle shop was able to hook me up with a basically brand new LVS 32 transducer. Also took pictures of how he had the 34 transducer cable ran on his Ultrex. Back in business just waiting for the next fishing trip. I was able to get one 2.1# spot in the boat and watch two more nibble on my swim bait. Also found a big pile of crappie but the wind had gotten pretty brutal, hence the move and the tragedy. Thanks to Aaron at HL&S for the transducer. Attached are a few pics of the final install.

Well today I hung up my screwdriver! After 38 years in the industry and 23 with my current company, it was time to retire, at least semi! Of course the weather next week is supposed to be awful but I plan to fish as much as possible the next few weeks. @QuillbackI’ll be ready anytime you want to go, shoot me a text or I’ll text you!!!

We had 4-5" in Cave Springs, a little bit south of Quillback but same county.

We got a good mess of them after we saw you @Lance34. I was just letting the wind drift us and we started catching them on our jigs in 8-10 FOW with jig 4-5 feet below bobber. I'm sure they were mostly roamers but action was pretty good from 3:00 till almost 5:00. We made about 3 drifts through the same general area. Wind died and it got slick smooth so we had to jiggle the rod a bit to imitate the action we had that the wind was providing to the jig. Best jig was 1/8oz with 2" Monkey Milk color BG baby shad.

I also wear Cabela's Guidewear bibs. Very comfortable.

My Saturday morning view! (and a bonus picture!)

I almost skipped out on church yesterday and was gonna call you and see if you wanted to go fish somewhere. I chose a beautiful day Saturday to not go fishing as well! Football officiating is catching up with me and I did a bunch of nothing this weekend since I didn't have a Saturday game. The Beav and TR should get real good pretty soon with this cold blast coming in.