Sam

Having no idea what an Alabama Rig is, I just looked it up. Good golly - one guy says he's using it on a 7'10" flipping rod with 65 lb. Spiderwire, and "chunking and winding" it all day long. That sounds like as much work as spoonbilling! I'd get all five hooks wound up in the brush, and that'd be the end of it. I'd pay money to watch someone drag a five-lure Alabama Rig through a school of BIG white bass. LOL Sorry to read here that Tablerock bass fishing has been so slow. I went out of Bridgeport yesterday and went up and down James, and there's nothing at all wrong with the crappie fishing. Water temp was 63, windy as all get-out, and we were drifting and slow-trolling swimming minnows along chunk rocks banks that had stumps. Seems like the "Arkansas Blacknose" crappie are getting dominant in that part of the lake, and I sure like those. We caught several short bass, the biggest being 14 7/8" (of course), and I counted FOUR hook-holes in his lips besides mine. You're wearing 'em out, boys!

I fish for other species and don't keep bass when I catch them. Quite a few times, though, coming in at night in the summertime, I've scooped up a limit of barely-twitching, floating belly-up, big bass after tournament weigh-ins. I figure my family might as well eat 'em as the turtles. I've never seen that other times of year, but tournaments kill a lot of bass in Tablerock and Bull Shoals when the water's hot. Now we've just finished a long, hot summer and there are more bass tournaments and fishermen than ever before - no wonder you guys are having a hard time.

Makes sense to me. Several years back I rigged up a 5' length of PVC pipe with an elbow on the end. It fits on the intake pipe of my live well, and I can lean over the back of my boat, attach the PVC "snorkel", and draw water from 5+ feet down into the livewell. In the summer, that water is generally cooler than water at the surface by 10 degrees or more! I'm trying to keep crappie and other panfish alive and in good shape for eating, not bass, but the idea is the same - and drawing cooler water from a few feet down really helps. I haven't taken this rig along for a couple of years though, because it's a pain to use. You have to take it off before running anywhere with the main motor, and it would get knocked off and broken or lost by bumping into stumps or a shallow bottom. I think this would be a money-making rig for some inventor who could figure out how to make the "snorkel" out of a length of garden hose or something that wouldn't break - and could figure out how to make it retract easily for running. Anyway, point is - for keeping fish alive in a livewell in the summer, the lake water's a LOT cooler just a few feet down and it seems like we ought to be able to use that somehow instead of drawing the hottest water in the lake right off the surface.

I'm older than many here, so I'll share something my grandpa taught me about catching crawdads in this area back in the early 1950's. His method is probably illegal, for all I know. Long before Tablerock Dam was built we'd fish James, Finley, and sometimes Beaver Creek. Grandpa lived in Springfield and he grew a big garden and raised chickens. He'd kill a couple of chickens for Sunday dinner and put the guts, heads, feet, and feathers in a burlap gunny sack along with a big rock. He'd tie the sack shut and bury it in his garden. A week or so later he'd dig up the sack and we'd go fishing - it'd be dripping and it smelled so horrible we couldn't stand to be around it. He'd tie it to the back bumper of his '49 Plymouth and we'd head for the creek. At the river, he'd tie a length of rope to that sack and throw the sack in the head of a "hole" of water just below where the current ran in. The big rock he'd put inside made it sink. Then we'd leave it alone while we went fishing up and down the creek. Coming back, we'd fish for catfish all around that sack, and the smell would have attracted a bunch of them trying to get at that rotten chicken. We usually did real good, though we only had cane poles and little-bitty steel rods with black braided line and reels you had to "thumb" the spool or get a bad backlash. The bonus - when we were done fishing, grandpa would pull the gunny sack in by the rope real fast, up onto the bank. Crawdads would be hanging all over it, maybe 25 or 30 of them. With all those legs and claws, they couldn't let go of the burlap very quick so we had a bucket ready and we'd catch them before they could get back in the water.

My partner and I went out of Bridgeport yesterday. We worked chunk-rock banks we know from past trips, throwing little 1/16 oz. tubes and swimming minnows, and sometimes trolling Roostertails along the edges of flats. We got almost up to Ashercane, and down as far as Virgin Bluff. There was enough action to keep us entertained but it was pretty slow. We brought home 5 crappie and 11 big black perch (green sunfish). We threw back 6 or 7 short crappie, lots of short perch (of course), and about a dozen fat 12"-13" bass. The weather was great, water temp was 70, and it was a pretty good trip overall though we were surprised that we couldn't find any white bass.

I switched from mostly bass fishing over to other species years ago for the same reasons. I like to bring supper home plus some for the freezer, and bass aren't the best for that. I don't like to kill bass anyway, as so many fishermen are devoted to outsmarting them and then releasing them - why mess up their fun? So for me that leaves crappie, white bass, walleyes, and the "perch" family (big bluegills, green sunfish, rock bass). Not so much catfish, as I usually don't have the patience to fish with bait and wait for a bite. We have a lot of fun with all these, and I generally have filets in the freezer. I catch/release quite a few bass too while fishing for these others, so I'm not missing out on anything. To locate crappie, we cast and slow-troll swimming minnows around brushy banks until we locate some, then concentrate on specific cover. To locate white bass we'll troll Roostertails in the mouths of big coves and where flats drop off into a main channel - always watching and listening for the "waterfall" sound of whites boiling on top so we can run over there and cast to them. Walleyes - deep-running plugs or Roadrunners tipped with a half-nightcrawler, fished around rocky channels, drop-offs from flats, and over the top of flooded cedars. "Perch" - that's tiny Gitzit tubes on 1/16 oz. jigheads cast to chunk-rock banks. I've got a 8" mark on the handle of my lightest spinning rod, and any black perch (green sunfish), bluegill, or goggleye (rock bass) that measures up goes in the live well for some tasty little filets.

Makes me wonder how the fat, slow, baby crappies will do next spring in that lake with a hungry bass about every two feet. It seems to me that having so many dinky bass might affect other species in a real bad way.

Yep, and we found those little bass just as thick in Beaver Creek, around the mouth of Beaver, below Barker Hole, and around Shadow Rock and up to the Pothole - there must be millions of 'em in the upper lake. The two I checked (sandpaper tongue) were Kentuckies. Since you can keep Kentucky (spotted) bass over 12" out of Bull Shoals, at some point there's going to be a whole lot of keeping to thin that bunch out. They're 5" to 6" now, in September. I wonder how long it'll take them to grow to 12" - late next year or not until the year after?

We came up from Beaver Creek in a boat, and when we got around Shadow Rock we got excited about the same thing - we thought they were white bass boiling on top. Nope, it's schools of little 5"-6" black bass feeding on 1" shad, I've never seen them so thick and the boils are constant. Fortunately we found some good-size white bass hanging out near the bottom underneath all that carnage. Anything we threw anywhere near the surface caught a little bass, so you'd get a lot of action on a fly rod anyway.

I've got several big sandy points and coves that I make a couple of goggleye trips to every year in May. They nest at about 18' depth, and I slow troll a big swimming minnow on a 1/4 oz. jighead. They're fun and great eating! The first time I got into this deal I was so surprised I called the Conservation office in Springfield from my boat to find out what the limit is. It's 15. They said the season on them in the streams is the same as for bass, but you can keep them year-round out of the lakes.

If it's still like it was two weeks ago, you'll catch a little 6" bass on every cast with a fly rod. It must have been a great spring hatch in the land bushes because there are millions of them in there working on top and chasing 1" shad. We found some white bass under where the bass were feeding on top, but the whites were near the bottom in 20+ feet of water around the Hwy. 76 bridge.

We went today, Thursday, and had a real good trip. Good weather and enough fish biting to keep us interested. We put in at Beaver Creek. The single ramp on the creek side is OK. The big ramps on the lake side are underwater, as are the parking lot and some of the camp sites, so they're not charging any access fee. The restroom doors are locked, though, so I guess you get what you pay for. Upper Bull Shoals is going to be a heckuva bass lake in a couple of years. Everywhere we went there were 5, 6, 7-inch bass biting on everything we threw. Millions of 'em - they sure had a great hatch in the land bushes this spring. We fished around the mouth of Beaver Creek, up to Barker Hole and Swan, and finally to the dam. Nothing going on except loads of 1' shad and us catching double-hookups of tiny bass everywhere we went. Then we figured something out! In the area of the Hwy. 76 bridge just below Swan, the little bass and shad were going at it continuously - top water boils that we thought at first were white bass. Nope, the whites weren't boiling on top - but we found out they were hanging underneath all the carnage. We put on little chrome spoons and jigged them near the 24-foot bottom under the little-bass boils on top, and caught a bunch of white bass. The whites were all different sizes, from small to real big. Fun! I think the difference is that they were generating quite a bit of water today and there was a current. The water's cooled off too - 72 in the morning and 75 in the afternoon.

Well, it's a credit to you bass fishermen that nearly every bass I catch accidentally from Tablerock while fishing for other species has hook-holes in its lips. Not just the short ones either, I've caught 18-19 inchers that were obviously caught and released recently. So, good for ya - lots of folks are giving back to the fishery. If you're gonna catch the same fish over and over, you might as well name them. I generally only see my non-bass catches once, on their way to the frying pan!

My fishing partner took a drive with his wife today. We haven't gone to B.S. all year because of high water, but now it's down to 666' or so and the weather has cooled off. He said K Dock is impossible - the water's too low to launch in the dip where the low and high roads split, shallow water is standing on the low road, and the high road goes straight into the lake with no place to turn around. They saw some boats fishing between Swan and the dam, and someone caught a white bass while he was watching. He said River Run is closed off, and it's been a long time since I launched from that little ramp at the park by the old Swan bridge across from River Run - I don't know about using that one. Where is everybody putting in - Beaver Creek? I'm thinking the ramp that goes into the creek side there might be OK, but the main ramps at Beaver are so flat they must be 'way underwater. Somebody let me know, please - we'd like to make a trip this week. Thanks!

OK, I've fished both the flats you're talking about - just never knew any names. BTW, have you ever launched from the ramp at AB Fine? I have, several times. Good golly, that thing's like looking down an Olympic ski jump!

I'm in no danger of breaking the TR nighttime speed limit. My 50 hp four-stroke's top speed is 30 mph, flat-out. I like it for the good mileage, quiet running, and smooth trolling. Besides, IMO, 30 mph is plenty fast enough on a public lake with all kinds of boats, swimmers, and obstacles - and I mean in broad daylight. At night I stick to maybe 15-20 mph, and that's if I'm out in the channel and know where I'm going. These things don't have headlights, you know. When I can, I like to find a reflection stripe in the water from a shore light and follow that to know the water's clear in front of me. Just sayin'. I don't mean any criticism of the OP who came across the folks in the unlighted canoe - but that's an example of how we can't see very well at night and we can't count on others to always show a light.

We do about the same thing then. I leave the fish swimming in my live well when the weather and the lake water are cool. My driveway is pretty steep so if it's not too warm I drive home from fishing, park with the back of the boat downhill, drain the livewell, and put the fish in plastic bags for the 'fridge. When it's hot and the lake water is warm I stop at a convenience store and get a bag of ice. In warm weather I take along an old ice chest, put the fish in there in the store parking lot, and ice 'em down. In that case I don't use the refrigerator when I get home, there's always still ice on the fish the next morning when I clean them. I did that once north of Springfield coming back from Stockton. I parked the boat out in a far corner of a convenience store parking lot, bought a bag of ice, pulled the live well pipe, and was moving my fish into the ice chest. The guy from the store came out yelling at me "Hey, you can't dump that in my parking lot!". I told him "It's WATER. Doesn't it ever rain on your parking lot?". Boy - people, sometimes.

I've known them as Black Perch all my life - I only found out they're "Green Sunfish" a few years ago. They're one of my favorite fish too, especially for sight fishing. If you see one, you can catch it. They do cross with other species - I took this picture a few years ago after a trip to Bull Shoals. The fish at the bottom is a Black Perch, and I'm pretty sure the one at top is a Black Perch/Bluegill cross - this one had orange-tipped fins like a Black Perch and a lot of blue around the gills. I also dislike cleaning a bunch of fish after a long day's fishing, but I found the cure for that several years ago. When we get home I take the fish out of my live well and put them in doubled plastic bags from the grocery store, then I tie a knot in the top of the bag and put it in my garage refrigerator. The fish are soon dead, and I guess dying from cold is more humane than most ways. Next morning when the fishing gear is put away and I'm rested, I clean fish. The meat sets up hard from the cold, they're not very slimy, and they're a whole lot easier to clean after spending a night in the 'fridge. The fish are just as good as far as we can tell - maybe even better because the filets are more solid and hold together better for frying.

This doesn't help the situation, but I'm old enough to know that morality and behavior have REALLY gone downhill in this country in my lifetime. I hate that. One of my first jobs back in the 1960's was at a big steel mill with over 7000 employees. It was a rough, dirty job - and there were a bunch of rough, tough guys working there, lots of them WWII and Korea veterans. A feller dropped a $5 bill on the floor of our locker room once while changing. That was over an hour's pay at the time. Some of the other workers saw him drop it, but the guy got out the door and left for home before they could catch him. They stuck the $5 bill on the front of his locker with a note - "Hey Joe, you dropped this on Friday." It was still there on Monday, though hundreds of workers had come and gone over the weekend and lots of them on night shifts had been alone in the locker room. Of course in those days, if anyone had stolen from another employee he'd have been beat half to death and had to quit the job. No one would have had anything to do with him after that. I'm not saying there weren't bad people back then, but things have changed a lot, and for the worse.

I've never used a slip except for a few times we've stayed at resorts and a slip for my boat was part of the deal. After hearing about all the stealing going on, I may quit doing that. Also, I've run my boat in an empty dock slip on rare occasions when I get caught out in a dangerous thunderstorm. I've always hoped most dock owners would be understanding when you're taking shelter for a short time from a real frog-strangler. I've never had trouble with any dock owner so far, and I'm careful to respect their property. What surprises me in fishing around Tablerock docks is how many people leave their boats and motors in the water for a LONG time, just letting them ruin. There's lots of green moss and scum on the motors and around the waterlines of boats that haven't been moved in about forever. You'd think if the owners aren't using them, they'd take them out of the water and get them under a roof somewhere.

Retired l.e. supervisor here. In your son's situation (and assuming it hasn't already been done) I'd be SURE to ask those agencies to have an investigator try to lift fingerprints off the motor and the boat near the motor. He might have to insist and even threaten to file a complaint if they refuse. Outboard motors and fiberglass hulls have a smooth shiny finish, and I think it'd be about impossible to remove a lower unit without leaving some prints behind. Unfortunately, officers taking theft reports are often reluctant to lift prints at the scene. Fingerprints are only useful if you have a suspect to compare them with, and messing with prints takes extra time and impacts the department's budget - they'll avoid it if they can. But fingerprint files are computerized now, and if the people who did this get caught stealing again or if they're arrested for any other crime in this area, those prints might find an easy match, stop some criminals, and get your son's lower unit back. I'm real sorry to hear this happened.

I don't know about the spawning, because going up Bull Creek is a summertime thing for me. I like to take the grandkids up there, using ultralight spinning tackle and just a piece of nightcrawler on a gold minnow hook - no sinker, no bobber. We take the boat up as far as we can go, then work down the deeper bank. We cast the nightcrawlers under shade trees and watch the line on top of the water. When it twitches and starts to straighten out, set the hook. We get at least a little black perch, bluegill, goggleye, or bass every cast that way, of course. Lots of unhooking and throwing back, so the long-shank skinny minnow hooks help with that. I'll keep any panfish over 8", so we get to take some home too - it's a good kind of trip for kids. I was doing that one time and came across a deep hole by the bank with a log in the middle of it. I threw the nightcrawler in there a couple of times and didn't get a perch bite. Strange! It was such a good-looking spot I had an idea there was something in there that had the perch scared out, so I kept trying. After a half-dozen casts a 5 lb. channel cat came out from under the log and took the bait, and I got him in. That was fun!

It's 8:45 pm on Friday, and I'm in Ozark. I checked the garden rain gauge before dark, and we already had 1.5 inches of rain this afternoon. It's raining hard now, and radar shows a lot more rain coming tonight. That's going to get the Finley and the James up - big time, as the ground is already saturated. With more rain predicted off and on for the next week, I think Tablerock will be coming back up again real quick. I've got no opinion as to what the Corps should do about releasing water. They're the experts, I'm not. I know I'm wasting a lot of brain cells that hold information about Bull Shoals fishing structure that's now under 55' of water.

Got it. You mean the trout fishery in the White River below Bull Shoals Dam. I was thinking you meant trout that wash over Powersite Dam into Bull Shoals - a.k.a. "walleye food".

I didn't know it had anything to do with trout. I sure don't think of Bull Shoals as a trout lake, except between Swan and Powersite where there's always some stockers that have washed over the dam. After this flood, I bet there's a lot more Taneycomo trout in Bull Shoals now, huh? I've got mixed feelings about the permanent Bull Shoals water level being raised. It'll cover up a lot of good banks, brush, and flooded trees that I know now. On the other hand, upper B.S. has a lot of big flats that are normally too shallow to be much good for anything. 7 or 8 more feet of water could cause a whole lot of new territory to hold fish. It'd be nice to never again have to search for that channel going into K Dock in the middle of the night in low water. But if the water stays high, I guess we wouldn't be going to K Dock any more anyway.