Johnsfolly

I seem to recall a giant fisherman caught blue catfish (100 +lbs) in a Texas aquarium died due to an infection in its jaw. Can't help but wonder if a boga was responsible for the initial injury. The way fish trash around when they are landed with those devices always made me wonder about injury.

I would hate to accidentally dig up an endangered freshwater mussel. I wonder if clam meat would work as well. Might be a good use of the oversized tough as rubber boot clams they sell here☺.

I Think those are great looking fish! The second one is just playing peek-a-boo!

Looks like I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue☺!

Now here I was thinking that you guys were going to talk about James Stewart and his rabbit drinking buddy Harvey. Looks pretty serious down there.

I've heard about it's musky fishing. That is intriguing to me. Also about bowfin below the dam. I would love to catch a big male bowfin during it's spawn. Pretty cool looking fish that time of year.

Thank you sir! I appreciate the compliment! I'm glad that you have enjoyed these posts.

He's the guy that I would to want meet up with to chase suckers☺!

If you are able to put in an area to catch these guys, I may consider it. Got to catch one first! Maybe catch a gar, but that one will not go down easy.

RPS are these oysters? Are they wild mushrooms?

There have been a few gold fish that have been still wiggling as they were swallowed with a fair amount of beer , but that was many moons ago. Never swallowed any streamside !

Great looking scenery and fish photos. Looks like you had a great time.

Gratuitous plug for your own posts !

Ham I am certain that you can get to 52 this year. There are lots of species all around you. A trip to the south will build your numbers as well, especially if you get in the brine down In LA. Same techniques we used on your creeks work in the tidal creeks as well. I'll let you know how I do going out after dark for madtoms.

As Ham mentioned after we finished up with Olivia's Dry Creek Run trout fishing we had lunch by the creek and watched a woman and her little Chihuahua pull away on her motorcycle. Both the rider and the dog had matching flame motif outfits including black helmets with fake yarn ponytails. They made an interesting pair. We left the hatchery and headed to a creek access to finally get to an area for Ham and I fish as well. The access is located near the confluence of two creeks. The one creek was where Ham has caught carp previously. A quick check by the boat ramp confirmed that there were plenty of fish options, including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, longear sunfish, whitetail shiners (seem to be everywhere in Mountain Home creeks), carmine shiners, northern hogsuckers, etc. So we got our gear together and headed down to fish. Since many of the possible fish species in this creek have been caught by us previously I didn't take a lot of photos. In fact Livie's carmine shiner was the only one that made it past the editing. Sorry about the lack of pictures. Anyway, we all ended up catching the regular cast of characters. Lots of Whitetail shiners were caught. In the shallows we caught Northern studfish and blackspotted topminnows. Though each of us caught several species, there just was a level of frustration building. I know personally I was sitting one fish shy of a milestone number of different species for the year. Because of that I really was more focused on trying to catch one of the four or five species swimming in these two creeks that I have not caught yet this year. Ham was fishing in the midst of a couple of schools of duskystripe shiners and stonerollers that would not bite. Olivia was somewhat done fishing after her trout trip in the morning and she had more fun donning her dive mask and swimming in the creek. At one point to beat the heat, all of us we in the water. A prevailing cry of disgust was frequently heard for the rest of the day..”Caught another longear sunfish!!!” With micros a lot of the fishing is getting a tiny hook and bait into the strike zone of the target fish. So you are intent on getting that just right, then trying to get the fish interested to bite and then out of nowhere ..POW! you caught yet another longear sunfish! Often depending upon its size that sunfish may have just swallowed your tiny hook. Then it’s pass the hemostat forceps to get the hook out. At the confluence of the two creeks was a deeper hole that had several redhorse suckers, striped shiners, and at least two carp. At this point I was determined to try for a northern hogsucker or one of those redhorse suckers. I pitched my bait into that hole repeatedly. All I caught was a smallmouth bass and a couple of larger longear sunfish. We headed upstream. I kept on the bigger bait looking for a new species. Ham and Livie were catching more whitetails, longears, topminnows and studfish. Ham fished a small school of mosquitofish with one large female. The smaller fish would hold onto the bait but not get hooked with the #20 hook Ham was using. They would drop off once they were lifted out of the water. The larger female would be able to hooked, but she kept moving into spots that Ham could not get the bait to her. I caught one or two more longears and only saw one more redhorse sucker that spooked once I cast near it. Live caught more longears, a bluegill and a couple of green sunfish in the last upstream pool that we all fished. Finally, we headed back downstream. Ham fished the confluence pool and caught at least one striped shiner. My fishing was still futile. I even had cast my worm to within 2-3 inches of a feeding hogsucker, the bait got swarmed by whitetail shiners and they spooked the sucker! At the end of the day Livie had her mask back on, Ham was up at his truck, and I was crossing back across the creek when I came upon a couple of greenside darters that were in a position that I could get a bait to them. I called for Olivia to bring me a #20 hook, but I ended up putting on my #26 hooks and a bit of worm. It took several minutes to get the bait near these fish. One of them would spook every time my sinkers would get within a foot of this fish. The other was catchable, but would not stay in one place very long. When I am fishing darters in water deeper than 10 inches and with a good flow, I will put a couple of split shot along the line. The split shot pieces provide a good anchor as well as give me a point of reference if I lose sight of the tiny bait. I had several attempts at getting the bait in front of the second fish. Finally, I got the bait to sit on top of the rock that the fish was resting on. It moved slightly and I knew that it was responding to the bait. Then it took the bait, I lifted and it dropped off back into the water. Game over. I never really got a second chance on that fish. My milestone fish is still swimming around somewhere. it may be caught some evening in the very near future . Ham ended the day catching northern studfish, blackspotted topminnows, whitetail shiners, a striped shiner, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, longear sunfish, and possibly a duskystripe shiner. Livie caught the carmine shiner, whitetail shiners, longear sunfish, green sunfish, and bluegill. She had at least 10 longears and she swam most of the afternoon. I caught only 8 longears as well as studfish, whitetail shiners, and a couple of smallmouth bass. I want to thank Ham again for taking the two of us out to these creeks. We enjoyed our time in Arkansas. I know that he has got the micro bug since he has already sent me pictures of a bigeye shiner and a rainbow darter he caught with his son yesterday.

I'll take that kind of practice any time !

JHK - So am I. I caught one trout the whole time in AR and have not yet caught a brook trout out of the Norfork let alone 7 in one pool!

This post did make me laugh out loud. Hopefully I didn't hurt your feelings ! That top fish is one butt ugly fish!

Very nice bass. Not sure you'll get much better largemouth s than those.

QB I will as well and probably some highlights.

$2.93 that's a great price! I've had them for dim sum at a local Asian restaurant. Not bad but not the best eating experience. Flavor is fine its the texture that I didn't like.

Anybody actually going to pay to see this fight? I won't be watching. I am going to be watching the Indycar race at Gateway speedway. Looking forward to a great race and missing a potentially mediocre fight.

Been watching an old movie this evening. Has the line "They call me Mr. Tibbs!!" Any thoughts!

Mitch just can't like that last post. Almost reminiscent of the woman with the playoff beard shirt. I still shudder thinking of that photo.

BH do you think that this recipe would be online as well or just in your cookbook? I would like to try that one. Sounds like a recipe that would work for bushytails or cottontails☺!