Phil Lilley

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YES- 2 reports from 2 lakes in one day! Headed to K-dock, hot on the heals of a good crappie report. Inside K-Dock cove just up the cove from the ramp. But the wind was howling right up in the cove and water had risen. No crappie- only a few small whites and a 17.9 inch walleye. Pulled out and headed to River Run. Arrived at 6:30- pulled out at 7:30... one hour of boat ride and fishing time. We went to the place where I read on the forum today where someone had caught a bunch of whites on the river run side wading... I can't find the post now. We found some slack water and drop the anchor. It was every cast for 15 minutes, then nothing for 15... and so on. Mostly small males but ended up with one sow with eggs and 5 nice males. One 17 inch walleye, nice smallmouth and a trout. They were in the current though, not in the slack water. Caught them on blue/white swimming minnows, 1/4 oz jig head.

Guided today for BA Electric of Broken Arrow, OK- I was one of 10 guides. Most guides stayed down in the Landing area all day- it was tough and we earned every rainbow we boated. We caught our drifting and holding up behind docks, namely Fish House, Shorty Smalls and a couple of private docks. The trout seemed to be holding out of the current there. Jigs and Gulp Eggs- no minnows this time. Chuck Gries said he and his guy spent half the day throwing stick baits above Fall Creek on the bluff banks and catching a few short browns but losing a nice trophy at the boat. Said they had alot of follows too. 4 units blowing thru... we're looking at the eddies and creek mouths for trout right now.

I have magnetic bumper stickers in the office free... but to big to mail out. Had stickers but they are all gone. I may work on stickers again... I do have hats. $10 each. They're on http://lilleystacklestore.com but I see right now IT IS DOWN! Having lots of server issues right now!

Put in at Gages about 6 pm. Hit some of my spots heading up in the creek. Nothing on the banks. Did find a few on stickups out from the bank 15-20. Lost a big one and landed one. Several smaller ones and a couple of shorts. All on swimming minnows- smoke. I didn't clean these but they appeared to be spawned out. I find that hard to believe but .... I'll be looking again in the days to come. 16.5 inches... what a slab!!

"To me thats how utterly rediculous this discussion is." Some of this, most of it boils down to one thing- there are two schools of thought and some gray area inbetween. One- catch and release no matter what. Two- catch and keep a limit of bass to eat. Gray- catch and keep a few every once in a while; never keep bass with eggs (pro & con); never fish for bass on beds (pro & con)... Divide these groups into two forums and never shall one look at the other's forum BECAUSE the catch and release people don't want to give away any information to help the catch and keep people kill bass. That's a bit of the mindset of the guides, or most of them, on this forum. They cannot control who reads this but they can control what information they provide. When I say guides this includes other anglers who know and fish any lake as much as guides do. I'd say most are silent- some provide reports on their own sites and don't come on OAF. Some sell their reports to people who subscribe to their mailing lists. All is fine and good- to each his own. But EVERYONE needs to understand what is fact on any forum- and be smart. It would be really stupid for anyone to come on any forum and thank, say a guide, for the fishing information he provided and follow by saying... "those bass sure tasted good and we had fish eggs for breakfast!" Extreme example I know but it gets my point across.

It's a thought... but Trav would come back and protest big time! Better leave it alone and let it take its course.

Best response yet... thanks!!

Not much wading expect at the outlets. Water is really high right now. With all the great fly fishing in the creeks (Beaver or Swan) I'd head there and catch some nice whites.

They should be moving to the banks real soon, if not already. Anybody finding any? Don't give up spots but reports on areas would help those looking for crappie this weekend. I've heard good things from Cape Fair area. Not much from Kings or Long yet.

Nice.

As for suggesting additional rules here or anywhere else, it won't happen. As Bill says, even if it would help the bass population, it will not happen. Big bass tourneys and tourist dollars will not let it happen.

Not sure if you read all the posts on this topic. You're overreacting to what's been said IMO. You're also addressing the discussion itself and not really the topic or issues addressed here. Ridiculous? Then we shouldn't allow any topics that are remotely controversial IYO?

We did get to the dead sea. There in January, it was cool but not enough time to get in at that stop. Others went in though- pretty cool. I still have a bottle of dead sea water- it has crystals formed in the bottom of the bottle.

Server was down for about 12 hours.

Thought that was you... I had clients waiting for me up in the creek or I would have offered a seat in the boat. But it sounds like you had a better spot. We boated a ton of small male whites and maybe 12-15 decent ones we kept (I haven't cleaned them yet). Saw a few sows caught but not many. Water was 56 and good color. Beaver is in the same condition- I took a look at the 160 bridge. We caught most on small jerk baits- rebels and husky jerks. Others were catching on sliders and swimming minnows. Not crowded in the water but the banks were full of people catching whites.

Duane called and said at Blunk the river is 4 ft up from previous days and muddy. But tons of spoonbill there.

No stopping the water... 3 units 24/7. Lots of water, yes, but much less than a year ago. Beaver and Table Rock are holding just above power pool but with rains every 3 or 4 days apart, it's hard to say there will be any relenting of this flow. Catching has been fair. Not impossible but not the best. It's not really the water's fault, I think. We usually see a slow down in trout fishing in the spring for whatever reason. Weather has something to do with it. Wind, for one thing, makes catching pretty tough. Not being able to control your boat and not being able to feel the bite are two important factors in NOT being able to catch fish and we have lots of wind here in the spring. Multiply fronts is another factor not many people consider. For instance, yesterday we had several mini fronts move through the area. If you watched the radar all afternoon you'd see lines of pressure variants pushing rain through our area. The fish would bite for alittle while and then shut off completely. Fishing isn't necessarily catching... fishing is fishing. But I've been encouraged the last few days but reports on the forum that our trout aren't as cantankerous as I believed. Bman's report and pics showed there are some hungry rainbows willing to be fooled by scuds, san juans and egg flies below the dam, either drifted on a spin cast and drift rig on the bottom or using a fly rod with an indicator fishing the flies 9 to 12 feet deep with a couple very small split shots. We've also found some nice rainbows downlake, from Scotty's Marina down to the Landing and Bass Pro. Minnows seems to be the best for catching them, along with gulp power bait, using an orange and a chartreuse egg on a #8 hook.

Was there in '97. Beautiful place! There are fish there called Musht or Peter's fish they fish for and eat in the markets around the lake. We ate some in Tiberius- boney but not bad.

If it's anything like the feeder creeks on Taney, should be in great shape. A little color will make those crappie sing!

My boat only had 6 rainbows this afternoon. My guys couldn't get the bite and the bite was short to boot. Minnows from Scotty's down past Bus 65. Babler did better with his crew but it all died after 2 drifts. We headed to anchor in some eddies at Short Creek and several places above. They did better buy still missed more than they hooked. Mini fronts all afternoon didn't help at all. Wind and short bites... nothing worse.

Being poor.... bringing up a good point. When we bought the resort, my dad made a statement- if the economy goes totally south, we can always eat fish. I'm sure there are people right now supplementing their meals with fish. Can't fault anyone for that!

Earlier in Jan when we were catching those slabs at Snapp, we were throwing back 10-11 incher because we were catching 12-14 inchers. Don't you think the 12-14 inchers are in their last year or do you think they'd live another year? I'd rather catch and keep 8-10 12-14 inch crappie than 15 10-11 inchers. I would think water conditions during and just after spawn affect numbers more than harvest does. Course you could say the same thing about bass.

Following that thought... if you're recording the catches and releasing all fish at the boat, you could allow LIVE bait. How about that for a twist!

Found this in the archives... thought I'd bring it to the top.