MarkG52

Atta kid!

Belated Happy Birthday Jeff!

Me too! That is one creepy lookin bait!

Wowzers!!!

I have never been over there. Google maps looks like a single lane ramp with a courtesy dock at Big Clifty Park. One of my bosses has a lake house on the North Fork of North Big Clifty. He said this past weekend it was like 4th of July out there. He uses ramp at Starkey Marina when he needs to launch. It is a COE single lane with courtesy dock. Lost Bridge South could potentially be closer by water but probably won't be by land. Rocky Branch could be an option as well. COE ramp with courtesy dock. Drop a pin on Google maps of the location of your rental and reference the ramps me and Quillback mentioned.

A friend of mine started a company that made hitch accessories and now has ventured into trailer accessories. He had a customer wanting to order a step system for his Vexus so we used my trailer as a guinea pig since they hadn't done a Vexus trailer before. We got the steps mounted on the tongue and he ended up sending me some more parts(he's in Little Rock) for the swing-out first step. Last night I made a few rough drafts and took pictures to send to him. Figured I might as well share them with y'all as well! The first 3 pictures are with the swing-out step mounted on a extender from the receiver, and the last two are after I mover the swing-out to tongue. The last picture is the swing-out in the stowed/travel position. As you can see, there are multiple configurations of each of the steps placement. Once I settle on a configuration I will tighten everything up and lock it in. For more info his websites are duraduty.com and hitchirific.com

Thanks for sharing! That place looks awesome!

Called an audible last Saturday morning and went fly fishing below Beaver Dam. Looked at the gen schedule and low water until maybe 10:00. Parked by the restrooms by first campground and on the water by 6:00am. Lots of fog on the cool water. Man that cold water sure felt good! In fact got to shivering a bit a one point. Headed downstream into the old C&R section and quickly had a two fly breakoff(and indicator too). Mighta shoulda put on a new leader when I rigged up! Experimented with different flies for a bit and had no action. Went back to the original setup, Blue Dun Midge under a Y2K and started hooking up. Picture is the first fish landed. Action was pretty hot for a while and helped cut the chill of the foggy water. Went to the bank about 8:30 too well, you know.... Got the waders back up and took a few pictures of the fog still on the water. Worked my way down to the Turn-around area and was hooked up almost every cast for a while. Then about 9:54 they blew the horn. Caught a couple more and eased towards the bank as the good drift I had had was now zipping right on down the river. Headed back upstream on the gravel bar to the truck and called it a good morning! Except for a few kayaks early, pretty much had the areas I was at to myself. Of course the canoe hatch came off about 9:00 and was really heavy as I was walking to the truck.

Thanks for all the info and prayers for y'all going through this right now!

I was going to make the same comment on the cutt Jeff. So I did! Is that one of the Bonnie's netboy? They seem to be really thriving over there.

Hammer time!

Excellent report Jeff! I've got a football clinic this weekend so another fishless weekend for me. : (

I'm not allowed to leave a blank post but that pretty much described the morning of the 4th at HC for me.

Had a great trip to Pensacola Beach last week. Got to fly fish the surf and caught a ton of Ladyfish, a few Bluefish, and a fish I have no clue what is. Mostly used a 7wt except used an 8 last Friday. They were eager to eat shrimp patterns I tied from previous trips to Belize for Bonefish and Clousers as well. Saw a bunch of sharks, mostly small, but a 6 foot Bull followed a Ladyfish a new buddy had hooked right up onto the sand! The June grass and seaweed gets pretty bad in the afternoons. Most days I fished, or tried to fish the beach at our condo, the last two mornings fished the National Seashore between P'cola and Navarre. Highlights of the the trip were, SRX racing at Five Flags Speedway (won by Helio Castroneves), watching the Blue Angels practice from Ft. Pickens, my son taking wife on a helicopter tour for her birthday present, and best of all, quality time with my family!

Nice job Jeff! I'll be MIA for a bit. Scheduled some maintenance on the Tundra tomorrow and we head to Fla on vacation next Friday. I will be packing a couple of fly rods, so maybe I'll have a salt water report in a couple of weeks!

Hit it early at Hickory Saturday. First fish in the boat by 5:49, 3 by 6:12, all on topwater and hadn't even started the big motor except to back it off the trailer. WT was 74. Hit a dry spell and moved over to the mouth of HC hoping to find bait balls and schoolers. No luck. Moved to a main lake point and put 3 in the boat dragging "Stupid" tube on the bottom. So far they were all in the 2 pound range, 16-17 inchers. Noticed much more floating debris than Monday, but visibility was approaching 3 feet or so, with a more olive green tint than brown. Moved on from the point into the buckbrush. Missed a couple on spinnerbait and decided to move on. Went up a creek arm and in the back third, huge bait balls. Whacked em pretty good on 3.75 Rage Swimmer on both underspin and 1/4 ounce head. White bass, K's, and LM all mixed in. Even brought in a keeper crappie. I was hitting the spot lock sitting in 19-20 fow and would alternate throwing from to the front or to the back. Most times I was letting it sink to a 10 count and starting a slow retrieve. But, some times they wanted it almost burned in and sometimes hitting on the drop after a pause. Missed quite a few and also had two or three chasing the hooked up fish to the boat a few times, especially on the whites. A water moccasin was none to happy about me being back there, he kept his distance but swam circles around my boat. Trying to keep an eye on him kept me from keeping track of how many I actually caught back there, but they were good feisty fish. WT was 76 when I called it a day about 12:30ish. Weather was nice. Low 50's to start and dead calm. Warmed up nice with a little breeze. Lots of fishing boats out early and pleasure boats hatch started around 9:00 but weren't a nuisance at all.

Hickory was fairly clean Monday so I was shocked to see quite a few floaters Saturday. I'll give more info in a separate report.

Nice job Devan! Your smallie looks like it tussled with the walleye I caught last Saturday. it had a couple of open wounds.

Not a drop here at my office off of Pleasant Grove in Rogers yet.

Fished Beaver Saturday and Memorial Day. Launched from Prairie Creek a little before 0500 Saturday and closer to 1000 at Hickory Creek yesterday. My have the water temps fallen! Two weeks ago saw temps in upper 70's and never cracked 70 on Saturday in the PC area. Temps at Hickory were around 69 and up to around 72 by the time we got off the water. Lots of floaters in the water around Prairie, Coose, Ventris, etc., and hardly any floaters in the Hickory area. Water was quite a bit clearer out of Prairie. Still pretty brown around Hickory but the visibility was was 1.5-2 feet, maybe?? Boat traffic after about 1000 Saturday had the open water between PC and Ventris really churned up, wind wasn't too bad though. Yesterday the wind was way worse, but boat wakes were not a huge issue, most of the time. Top water bite was pretty slow Saturday, managed a few keepers early, lost a "giant". Later in the day got a couple on swim baits and an 18.5 walleye (on MB110+1) off a main lake point. A buddy and his brother were having about the same luck. His brother did catch a few on white fluke fished weightless, right on the bank. Yesterday my wife and I headed straight to a main lake flat that was somewhat wind protected. I pulled 5 keepers out of the buck brush on spinner bait pretty quick. Biggest was almost 3 pounds. The wife got one on spinner bait that I had to go MLF/BPT/BASS, and dig out of the bush it had wrapped her up in. Moved out to a main lake point for a bit and caught quite a few on a stupid tube. Kept boat in 10-11 fow of water, cast to the bank, drag along the bottom back to boat. We decided to run to the back of a holler to get out of the wind and had no luck. Went back out to main lake point and picked up a few more on tube. I was getting wore out on TM and the boss lady had enough fun so we headed back to the ramp about 2:30.

Well done!

Walked out of the house to hookup the boat about 4:30am Saturday morning and noticed lightning to the south. Pulled up the radar and it showed a storm around West Fork. Called an audible and decided to head to PC instead of Indian, which was my original plan. Also sense I was gonna launch at PC I was gonna commit to top water, much like I sometimes will commit to only dry flies at Roaring River sometimes during winter C&R. Launched around 5:15 and noticed quite a few bass rigs prepping to launch. Didn't see a weigh-in trailer set up. Hummm... Anyway, I dilly-dallied around at a few spots near the ramp and figured I better head to my intended location. Made a run to the back of a holler and started throwing an X-Rap Pop. Got 11 L's and K's and countless swipes at it. If I threw near any sort of wood in the water something would swipe at it. I was fishing real skinny water here. Had a bunch of carp getting frisky way back there too. Saw one active bed off of a deeper pocket off this holler. Decent size fish guarding the tiny fry swimming around. Of these first 11, 4 were dinks and the others ranged from 13 to about 16". Moved to the back of another holler and picked up a keeper size off a lay down in about 9' of water right after I dropped the TM. It was around 11:00 by this time and the wind came up just a little but it seemed to kill my top water bite. I decided to move out to a main lake point that has a nice long stretch of pea gravel. It was a washing machine on the point from the boat traffic. I was done with the TW so picked up MB110+1 and got one first cast, had one come unpinned 2nd cast, and clean missed one 3rd cast. I was bouncing around so much it was tough to get a rhythm with the jerker. Picked up a Rage Tail swimmer on 1/4oz head and picked up 3 more bass and 1 short wally. My bite to hookup ratio was still pretty poor. had a couple come unpinned and just flat swung and missed on a bunch. I was keeping the boat about a long cast from the edge of the buck brush and using a retrieve Quillback style, let it drop, reel a little, let it drop, etc. Most of the hits were on the fall. Speaking of the boat traffic there, I hear a breaking wave coming towards me, look out towards open water and here it comes. Point the TM towards it and got in a good defensive position(Butt seat was on back deck), up/down/up/down, then stuffed the bow! Water temps ranged from 74.x to 78.x when I quit about 2:30. Color ranged from a dark olive to a coffee with cream. When I got back to PC ramp it was bonkers. Pleasure boats all over the place and yep, there was a tourney. I had beached since the courtesy docks were full of pleasure boaters and talking to the other bass boats beached by me, their weigh in was at 3:00. I pushed off the bank and putzed around to give the tourney guys a chance to get in, get out, and get weighed. I attached a few pics, the short wally and average size I was getting minus the 4 dinks. Had good day, it got really hot. Remember to stay hydrated!

Nice job Jeff! Hoping I can duplicate that tomorrow!

Jeff, I almost texted you Sunday as we were heading out from Cave towards Indian, didn't know if you might be there. I was shocked that there was parking available. I figured we would end up at Dam Site and wasn't looking forward to the ride across open water! (I really didn't mind, but the boss lady is not a fan of jumping waves!) Probably headed to that end of the lake early Saturday morning to get serious about fishing. This past Sunday was more about making momma happy!

My wife and I launched at Indian after church yesterday. Water is beautiful. Super clear in main lake areas and a nice tint back in the creek arms. We saw no floaters but lots of stuff choking backs of pockets. Temps were 65-67. Very windy yesterday. Some fish were right on the bank like still guarding beds. Saw a monster SM cruising parallel about 20-25 feet off the bank, couldn't get him to eat anything. We spent about 3 hours or so and stayed in the IC/Lost Bridge area. Not much traffic at all. A few pleasure boats. Not sure if Mother's Day or the wind kept people away??? I was shocked that there were only 4 trailers in the parking area, oh, and one Suburban parked in trailer spot. My regular BOTB buddy drove over to Hickory Saturday and said no way he would launch there with all the debris.