MarkG52

I saw that in the paper yesterday. They certainly had better luck Saturday than we did Friday. I boated two big white bass and had three other bites from around 6:30 till about 12:30. My regular BOTB partner had a co-worker with him in his boat and they got a 3# wally and two green fish. My whites came on an underspin and a 110Jr. Lost a good fish on the jerkbait, missed one on a wobble head and had another one bite the wobble that I never touched. The other boat was mostly fishing RK's and jerks. I tried the vertical jigging the bait balls in front of PC marina on the way in for a few minutes with no success. Water temp was 53 give or take and clear around PC and very clear up towards Rocky Branch. With the wind predicted for this next Saturday I'm probably gonna stay off the big water and head to RR with the fly rod.

Nice job Jeff! At some point we need to fish together!

We saw a guy netting a fish right by the end of the floating jetty at PC last Saturday morning. Talking with the guys in that boat a little later found out it was a nice walleye. Seems like they said it hit a Kastmaster spoon that they were vertical jigging around bait balls. They were shocked it was a wally. There were huge bait balls all over that idle area.

Launched at Prairie Creek Saturday the 27th around 8:30 or so. I officiated a football game in Central Arkansas Friday night and got home real late again. Anyway, pretty quickly we noticed fish busting the top so I dropped the TM and grabbed a rod I had a MB 110 JR tied on, and immediately hooked in to a small spot. We chased the schoolies around for a couple of hours and I did real good. Got one LM keeper out of the bunch and a K that was in the 17-18" range. Only one real dink K, the first one. My BOTB buddy caught 1 fish while I was whackin em. Weird how that works sometime. We started running around down towards Ventris after the schoolies went down to check some areas but the wind was not in our favor. Went looking for some less windy areas and had no luck with the bites. Eased back towards PC area about 1:00-1:30 to see if we could find some bait balls. BOTB got a keeper brown fish and a small striper swimming a Keitech through the baits balls and I got another schoolie K or two. We pulled off the water around 2:30. WT was about 56. Viz of two to 4 feet. Pictured are one of the nice Spots and my BOTB buddy's SM.

It was my first time on the lake. I've fly fished below the dam for trout a gazillion times. Good lake. Potential to catch a bag of really nice brown fish. Not as easy to get to as Beaver or TR for us, but I'm sure we'll go back. Got a lot to learn about fishing it yet. Lots of flats, docks, good points, some bluff walls, and we didn't run too awful far from the ramp. I was going on about an hour and a half of sleep too. Officiated a High School playoff game in Central Arkansas Friday night. Never sleep good after games and that alarm going off at 3:45, yikes! Reading the regs I was shocked they have no limits on Spots, length or creel. I put one in the livewell with that crappie and turned em both loose. We would've kept a mess of spots if we had caught more than just one.

Fished Tenkiller Lake for the first time Saturday. Caught enough to keep it interesting. Got smallies, spots and largemouth, but the fish of the day was a crappie on a RK. Water temp was around 60 for the most part. Stayed windy all day. Fishing buddy and I caught fish on RK's, Jerk's, PopR, jig(brown/purple w/ mostly purple trailer), jointed Shad Rap, can't remember what else. RK was probably the lure of the day. Had a real nice brown bass and a real nice green one come unpinned. Pictured is the crappie that hit my RK.

Took the oldest grandson up there for his first fly fishing trip on Saturday the 12th. We let it warm up a bit before we got there and started fishing around 9:30 First picture is his very first trout, with a lot of assistance from his Pops, and second picture is his best fish of the day that the only thing I did was net for him. We had a blast! He caught 5 or 6 by his self and I even got a little fishing in too. I tied on a dry fly and caught one after another in the hole below the low water bridge.

Had a good chuckle over the video and Al's story! Thanks for sharing those!

Happy Birthday Jeff! My son shares your day!

Correction to my last post. I think the WT was actually 78. He fixed everything and went back out Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and told me WT was 78. He caught a bunch of shorts both afternoons. Launched from PC both days and ran towards Ventris. Best lure was Pop-R.

My regular fishing buddy went out of Hickory yesterday morning and water temps were around 73. He caught a few little uns on topwater then had a reel seat fall apart and TM pull cable broke. Called it quits at that point.

Been a while since I've made a Beaver report, honestly haven't been out much or done very well when we did go. Heat, Covid (yep, I got it, had been vaccinated so very mild case), and football all been getting in the way. On the water at Hickory by 6:00am. Put on a sweatshirt with the air temp 58 and a nice damp fog on the water. Had fair top water action early. I was throwing a popper and my buddy a walking bait. They seemed to like the popper a little better. Stuck a nice 3#'er about 7:00. That was the big fish of the day. Mostly LM, did catch a fat K on a stupid tube late morning. Water temp was pretty much 84. Saw some a little lower, and some a tad higher. We had made our way up into War Eagle and a sea plane made a couple of passes overhead. We pop out of the little pocket we were fishing and there it is cruising on the water. I hammered down to catch up to take some pictures. It cruised for a little bit then started turning around to get headed back into the wind, it's fixin to take back off! It was super cool to watch it take off. I ran along beside ( a relative term, I gave a real wide berth), my buddy got a good video. Not that much wake but plenty of spray. I looked up the tail # and it is a 1951 Grumman, I think Albatross. Registered out of Minnesota. Anyway, back to Hickory ramp by 12:30 or so and it was a zoo. Bobbed around for about 45 before my buddy got the trailer in the water.

It is! Myoutdoortv has a subscription service but you can watch MLF/BPT live for free.

Myoutdoortv app on the Roku device streams MLF and BPT events for free, start to finish. A little tricky to navigate to within the app, but I watched a little bit Saturday and after church yesterday.

Yep! That was probably me!

I'm pretty much Palomar or San Diego Jam Knot. Palomar I always have a very long tag end but I always use it with braid. Fly tippet I use clinch knot or no-slip loop.

Launched at Hickory. On the water by 5:30am Saturday morning and was shocked at the water temp, 82-83! It was right around 70 two weeks ago. Knew it was gonna be a sweat box outside but sure didn't expect that big of a water temp rise. Fishing was pretty slow for me. Two keeper LM on 3.8 and one tiny one on a Rapala OG. Had a few misses on top, Sexy Dog and Plopper. Had several eats but no pins on a hollow body popper tossed into pockets in the buck brush. I whacked about half the length of the rubber legs off to no avail. Ran around a bit to stay cool. None of the folks I talked to were having much luck but I'm sure some did very well. Lots of bass boats out. Trailered up and off the water about 11:30. Here are a couple of pictures. Sunrise was incredible and a pic of first fish of the day.

That is one wonky looking wally! No report from me this week. Went up to Cassville to Fishers of Men Resort for BBQ and Gospel sing. Some friends of ours just recently bought the resort and gave it a big overhaul. They had a friends and family event Saturday so took the day off from fishing. They were sure packed in at RR.

You beat me to it Jeff. I heard em say it was a 6.x:1, couldn't remember the x part. It looked to me like Saturday morning he was using one of his signature Lew's rods.

They were from hand size to smaller than hula grub or tube jig. we caught them in shallow water out to about 12 feet of water. It was sorta crazy. Told my wife if we had crickets or worms we could've filled the boat. Any of the hollers up Indian Creek should be good.

Fished Beaver Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Launched out of Hickory Saturday and Monday, Lost Bridge North on Sunday. Took the boss lady out Sat and Sun, fishing buddy Mon. On the water around 6:30 Sat morning, cool and windy start(all day for that matter). Hoping to get some topwater action, had one blow up on walking bait on like 2nd cast, that was it for TW. Moved on and hit some of my regular spots trying to get the wife on some fish and out of the wind. She had a few hookups but didn't put anything in the boat. I caught several LM, all on a stupid tube. Back holler bluff walls with rock(chunk/ledges, not smooth), wood, or where bank cut in. They were all pretty tight to the bank or hit on the fall when it dropped off of rock/ledge. Boat was in 12-19 FOW. Even got one female with a bloodied up tail. Got off the water around 2pm. Sunday morning we skipped church and went to Lost Bridge. Didn't get on the water until about 9:00. Went exploring a new area. Tied her on a GY Hula Grub. She catches a big ole bream, her first fish in the Vexus, and then catches a smallmouth. I was so excited for her! So, I tied on a hula grub as well and we could've filled the boat up with bream. Sun finally popped out and we did more running around than fishing. Water on the north end was quite a bit clearer than at Hickory and super clear up by the dam. With the sun coming out there was an enormous pleasure boat hatch. We decide to call it a day and head home to watch the rest of the Razorbacks baseball game. Monday me and my buddy on the water around 5:45. Idled past HC marina to hopefully get some TW action over by the campground. That didn't happen but there was a huge shad spawn going on around the flooded trees in that area. Moved out from there and found fish busting the top near the main lake channel. Chasing shad like crazy. No joy on TW, so tossed a Keitech and got a really nice white bass, and another, and another, etc. Buddy gets a small LM and a spot in the mix. I'm sitting in 50+ FOW but there's a ledge there that's about 12FOW. I start throwing and letting bait sink to the bottom in that shallow water and just scrounged it back until it fell off the ledge, if it made it that far before hooking up. Almost all LM, but fairly short. This action went on for a good while. We hit a few more spots, my friend gets a really short walleye on jerk bait and a LM on purple worm way back in the brush. I stick with swim baits and get one here and there. We move on to a regular spot and its one here one there. As we go around a point I ask him why we never fish this flat, it should be a good spawning flat?? A minute later I've got a biggun on. Decide to BASS/BPT/MLF it instead of grabbing the net, and I failed at getting it in the boat. Lesson learned, got net, use net! We moved back into another holler and I got pretty hot on them again. I think I actually had a Rage Tail on now instead of Keitech. Back of the boat buddy still had Keitech and got a few as well. We them got here in water that was 4 feet deep to 9-12 feet deep. We got off the water around 2pm again and had a really good day. Majority of the bass we caught were LM, maybe half a dozen spots, and maybe 6-8 of the LM would've measured(Not including one that should be pictured in this post!). Several line burner shorts. Wind was not bad at all Monday. Water temp seemed to have dropped a degree or two.

Water is real nice around Hickory right now. Probably 3 feet of visibility. Temps were around 72 Saturday but closer to 70 on Monday. There is a big log or two still floating around though, so be on the watch for them.

Corps opened 7 gates on Beaver at noon today. From their Facebook page: "At noon today we will be opening all seven spillway gates at Beaver Dam. Releases through the spillway will be around 3,700 cubic feet per second. The total combined release will be around 7,500 c.f.s."

I took my niece's husband out for a few hours Saturday afternoon. We launched at Indian as well. Saw maybe three fish bust the top. I have a fly rod ready to go too if a shot appears. I caught a few short brown fish and a 2.77# green one. My nephew(?) got a short LM/K to the boat and it came unpinned. I got SM on jerkbait and the LM on a Plum Zoom Lizard. David got his on a lizard as well. We had lots of follows and short strikes on numerous different baits. They were pretty non-committal. Tons of minners jumping around. WT was 69, one of my bosses said it was up to 72 in that area Sunday. Water was gin clear and absolutely beautiful.

Red's Guide Service, also on Facebook, or redsguideservice.net. Clayton focuses a little more on the river below Beaver Dam and the upper Table Rock(Arkansas) area. Good kid.