Sam

Ha - well, different strokes for different folks! I've heard that a lot and it seems many people dislike, despise, etc. white bass fishing - especially, maybe, the big-tourney bass guys. That's fine with me, everyone should just do what they enjoy. I really like crappie and walleye fishing best. All this year my partner and I have fished Stockton once or twice a week. Sometimes we both get our limits, often not - but we do pretty good and we've both got lots of filets in our freezers. Thing is, I'll fish for most anything that's biting at the time and have fun doing it. White bass in particular are a LOT of fun, in my opinion. They fight like crazy on light to medium tackle, they run in big bunches, and they sometimes go on top-water "feeding frenzies". I think it's a blast to "chase the boils" when they're doing that and throw a Roostertail or Rattletrap into all that surface action before they quit and submerge, then they come up in another spot. Unhooking and throwing fish in the bottom of the boat so fast it's hard to keep count and you don't have time to put them in the live well is my idea of a real good time. Then there's the eating. We like smoked fish, and I like to smoke white bass filets with green apple wood in our outdoor BBQ. Untreated white bass filets are oily and fishy like many ocean fish, and that's what's best for smoking - mild-tasting fish like crappie don't smoke nearly as well. Or, for breading and frying like crappie all you've got to do is soak white bass filets in Club Soda (carbonated water) in a bowl in the 'fridge for about two hours before frying, then rinse them off. I generally freeze fish filets in quart freezer bags containing five fish each - ten filets. Last night we had two of our grown grandkids over for supper, and we thawed, breaded, and fried three bags of filets - ten crappie and five white bass. I soaked the white bass filets in Club Soda for two hours before frying, and you honestly can't tell them from crappie side-by-side on the same plate. Real good eating! When it's large white bass, over 14" or so, I also trim the red meat off. But do what you want - leave those nasty white bass in the lake if you want, I'll take care of them. LOL

They're still around and not so rare. My partner and I have been fishing Stockton Lake brush piles all summer and we catch a black nose crappie or two on most of our outings. We limited out last Tuesday and caught one real nice black-nose that day, a 12.5" male. Those are about my favorite fish - as you say, they're aggressive and they put up a good fight. Also, they're built heavy for their length and make some real nice thick filets.

Last summer? Since the water level was 30 or 40 feet above normal all last summer, I wonder what depth they were putting those brush piles in. If they went according to the water level at the time, that brush must all be high and dry up on the bank now. If they tried to set them to work at a normal lake level, then they must have put them 50 or 60 feet deep at the time, which seems kind of unlikely.

Has anyone here ever launched from the next ramp "upstream" from K Dock that's on the west side of the lake almost up to, and within sight of, Snapp Holler? I haven't, but from the lake I saw it being built about 5 years ago and out of curiosity I have driven there and found it by land. It's made of rocks and not paved, so a 4WD launch point - but for what it is it looks like a good one. Thing is, at a normal water level of 653' or so, there's only about 3 feet of water in the area of that ramp - at the time I assumed it was being built on such a shallow flat because plans were to bring the 'normal' lake level up to 660' or so, putting the K Dock parking lot under water. This new ramp should be usable at ANY level of high water, though - as it goes straight up a high point, higher even than the water is now. There are some houses in that area, so maybe it's a community ramp - I don't know. Shouldn't matter, it's my understanding that on Corps lakes all launch ramps have to be open to the public and I've never seen more than one rig parked there. To get to it, turn east on Hwy. MM off of Hwy. 76 a mile or more north of Hwy. K. There's a big convenience store at the corner of Hwy. 76 and Hwy. MM. Go east on MM and follow it as it turns to the south, then turn left on "Mission Ave." and follow Mission to the south until it ends at the launch ramp.

Are even Tracker owners welcome? We're an abused lot. LOL

Others here can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that there are no private ramps on Tablerock. That is, it's a C.O.E. lake and every ramp is on public offset land, going into public water. As a practical matter though, I don't want to get into a situation where there'd be a conflict and an argument with someone. I go fishing to have fun, not to fight. Also, the ramp you're looking at seems awfully tight with that house. If the road leading down to the ramp is a public (maybe named?) road, well, OK then. It looks like maybe it's a private driveway though, going right between a guy's house and workshop or maybe boat garage. If that's the case, even though you might technically have a right to use the ramp, you wouldn't have the right to use the private drive to cross private property and get to it. Just my opinion. If I really wanted to use that ramp, I'd just knock on the door of that house and ask - then go by what the homeowner says. Whatever the answer is, I think doing that could avoid some problems.

Me too! When it's raining sideways and I can't get back to my truck, I'm real thankful to take shelter in an empty stall of someone's dock. I always respect their property, and the dock owners I've met have always been great about it (even marinas). I hope this new law won't do anything to change that.

AUCTIONThursday, February 25, 10:00 AM3302 Winged Foot Dr., Nixa, MO(in Fremont Hills Subdivision) I'm just passing this info along. A friend forwarded an email to me today (apparently he's on the auction company's email list) advertising this auction of a "2003 Lowe 170W bass boat w/50hp Honda 4 stroke engine, Minnkota trolling motor, ProAngler dual beam fish finder & Lowe trailer (boat like new)! (Sells subject to approval). TERMS: CASH, Credit Card, personal or company checks accepted only if known by us or w/a bank letter made to RLK, Inc. No Exceptions! All items paid for day of Auction! All items sold As Is Where Is. Absentee/phone bids accepted w/10% buyer’s fee. For bid info call Chelsey 417-425-5599". The email included photos, and this rig looks real, REAL nice. I'd love to have it but can't spend the money right now so I'll have to stick with what I've got. It might be a real good deal for someone here, though. I know the Honda 50hp 4-stroke is similar to my Suzuki 50hp 4-stroke, and I really like those motors. Here's the link to the auction website, and I bet as the date gets closer they'll post pictures on this site too. http://bobkauctions.com/calendar/hutsell-personal-property-auction-3302-winged-foot-dr-nixa-mo

I'm in the same situation. Ideal trolling speed for me (by GPS) is about 1.9 mph for most walleye crankbaits and Rattletraps or Roostertails for white bass, and my main motor won't quite get down to that speed. I've thought quite a bit about investing in a trolling plate like Happy Troller, but I've always backed off. If I'm not mistaken, mounting it would involve drilling holes in the lower end of my fairly-new 50 hp Suzuki 4-stroke outboard, and I just can't bring myself to do that. I think one of these days I may "Ozark Engineer" a similar homemade device that fastens with straps instead around the lower end, which shouldn't be too difficult. Anyway, most of the trolling I do is "slow-trolling" jigs for crappie. The ideal speed for that is .9 mph and my trolling motor does that easily on a speed setting of "2" or "3" out of 5, depending on the wind.

Hey, some good came of this thread - I'm going to get a rubber landing net. Just something I've never thought about, and I need one of those. Besides it being kinder to the fish, I bet a rubber net wouldn't tangle so when I net a flopping, toothy walleye that's waving a two-treble-hook plug around. Untangling such a mess in my string net usually keeps me out of action for awhile and sometimes I lose blood. Also, now I'm thinking about starting a new account here and doing my posts on that. User name: Tom Foolery.

I sure wish Yellow Perch would get well-established and grow to some size in Bull Shoals. I sometimes catch one, very rarely, while crappie fishing - and they've all been real small. Several years ago I caught my biggest one ever at 11" and kept it. It wasn't really big enough but having read how good Yellow Perch are up north, I wanted to try one. Yep, they're everything I'd heard - real good little filets, at least as tasty as walleye.

I've got upright roller guides on my trailer, sticking up on each side of the boat by the trailer fenders. Those each have a white PVC extension for better visibility when backing the empty trailer. If wind should cause my empty boat to drift sideways, as often happens, a long rope or strap running from the trailer winch to the front of the boat would tangle with those uprights or other trailer parts, causing all kinds of trouble.

I've used the rope method, but instead I generally just unhook the rear tie-downs, back in and get the boat floating, leave the driver's door open and climb up over my truck toolbox and bed to unhook the front of the boat and get in, then start the motor and run the boat to the bank or a courtesy dock. Then I climb up over the front of my truck, drop down into the driver's seat, and go park. This goes almost as quick as launching with a partner - I don't block a ramp for long. My grandkids are impressed that grandpa can still do this, but I've launched this way so many hundreds of times it's no big deal. You can tell if I've gone fishing by myself since the last rain by the dried muddy footprints on top of the left front fender of my truck.

I got to K Dock once just in time to watch a guy launch by himself in front of me. He unhooked everything, tied a rope from the front of his boat to the back of his trailer, backed down the ramp real fast, stepped on the brakes, then watched his boat shoot backwards out across the lake as one of his knots came untied. Not a bad method at all, but it's kinda important to make sure those knots will hold. I gave him a ride out to his boat.

I've got a Kubota tractor with front-end loader that I trailer all over the place. I bet others here have similar rigs, including many who live closer to the lake. It wouldn't take long to move that mess aside enough to make the ramp usable, then the Corps could haul the debris off and do a full cleanup whenever they finally get around to it. But boy, I'd be afraid to do it. Bureaucracy, rules and regs - I betcha they'd have a hissy fit, claim you caused some kind of damage, and find some violation to cite you for. That's government - they've got good jobs, won't get the work done when it should be done to keep up services to the public, but won't let anybody else do it either. Just sayin'.

I'll put my $.02 worth in about the growing number of bass derbies in this limited resource, because I've been thinking about that for a long time. I'm commenting as an outsider because I never fish tournaments, and other than doing a little C/R bass fishing for fun when the pickings are easy (Ned!), I go strictly for crappie, white bass, black perch, and walleye, stay within all laws and limits - and then we eat em! Seems to me that with so many cell-phone "apps" available now and more invented every day, someone could come up with a device that would record all information about each tournament bass caught (time, date, fisherman who caught it, length, weight, etc.) and attach that info to a photo of each fish, right on each boat. Then all the fish could be released immediately right when and where they were caught. Weigh-ins could still be suspenseful and real fun, because the "weigh-in" could be a viewing, on a projector screen, of those fish photos and info brought in by each boat. Everybody could probably see better that way anyhow - and a computer would total the results up and determine winners after all the boats' fish pictures and info get "weighed" and the information gets sorted. I'm thinking it would be an electronic gadget that works in conjunction with smart phones, coded to each boat, to be placed in each boat by the tournament organizer at the start of the tourney. No, I don't have details figured out about foolproof security by which those devices could prevent cheating, but there are bound to be ways to do that. It would do the fishery a lot of good, make some inventor a lot of money, and make tourneys even more fair and more fun if they could switch over to such a system, in my opinion.

I've got a habit of saying what I think, so here goes. Live fish out of water generally keep their mouths shut tight except when they're gasping, trying to breathe with their gills flared - but all six of those fish have their mouths slightly open in the same way, relaxed in death, and their gill covers are closed. The fish in that photo have non-circulating blood pooling around their lips and gills, showing some pink. Not one dorsal fin is sticking up as you'd expect live bass to do when they're being messed with. The colors of most of the fish in the photo have even faded from their live colors and they're getting pale around the mouths, gills, tails, and fins, especially #5. Those bass have been dead for a while. If they're all at least 15" then that's a legal limit and I'm not criticizing. Just saying that I think your friend's pulling your leg about releasing those.

I don't really fish high-end stuff. I like Daiwa and Pflueger reels, and I've got a couple of Lew's reels that I think are great - but most of my "fishing poles" are BPS Bionic Blade series rods, dating from (I guess) 'way back when The Bionic Man show was popular on TV. I used to wonder if attaching a Lew's reel to a BPS rod would cause some kind of explosion or something - but since Bass Pro is now carrying Lew's products, I guess not. Didn't expect to ever see that happen.

A guy I fish with uses a couple of Mitchell 300 spinning reels that date from the 1960's, attached to cheap, old, limp-noodle rods. His reels are spooled with Shakespeare 6 lb. mono that he last changed 4 or 5 years ago, and I don't think they've ever been cleaned or oiled - it sounds like he's grinding coffee when he turns the handles. When he gets even a good crappie on, those rods are so soft the tip bends over pretty near his hands and him fighting a bass or a white bass on one of those things is truly a sight to behold. He routinely out-fishes me.

You guys made me think of that old TV commercial where the player said "If it were not for foot-baw, I would not be playing foot-baw to-day!" For just a second, a fact in that zebra mussel article seemed encouraging - the part about ZM's suffering a 99% mortality rate in the larva stage. I liked that real well until I thought about it. If only one percent of one million eggs survive to adulthood, that's still 10,000 new zebra mussels from each female mussel, each season!

Thanks for posting that article, dtrs5kprs. So far as chances of keeping ZM's out of local lakes and rivers they're not already in, here's the part that makes me believe every body of water around here is going to get infested in time. As you say, there are lots of places for water to ride on a boat and trailer. "A fully mature female mussel is capable of producing up to one million eggs per season. After fertilization, pelagic microscopic larvae, or veligers, develop within a few days and these veligers soon acquire minute bivalve shells. Free-swimming veligers drift with the currents for three to four weeks feeding by their hair-like cilia while trying to locate suitable substrata to settle and secure byssal threads." And so far as cold maybe stopping them, well - they are from Russia. :>(

Alternate title: "A Bass or Trout Fisherman Talking To Three Crappie Fishermen". We had Tablerock crappie filets with fried 'taters and onions for supper - and I've got enough in the freezer to get us through the winter without forgetting what they taste like.. Mmmm!

They're bound to already be in Tablerock, just not in quantities to be noticed yet. Lots of boats are used in both Tablerock and Bull Shoals. I didn't realize that zebra mussels have been in Bull Shoals since 2007. Because of such high water in BS since last spring, I didn't go back and forth between Bull Shoals and other lakes like I usually do - I haven't fished Bull Shoals since last February. But I hate to say, if each zebra mussel produces 10,000 microscopic larvae that are suspended in the water - it seems almost impossible to fish between lakes from the same boat without spreading them. When I'm fishing a lot, my drained live well never dries out. There's a half inch of water in there, and probably some lake water stays in the bends and elbows of the PVC drain pipe that runs through the bilge and connects to the bottom of the live well, too. There's water in my bilge that I pump out occasionally (yes, I can pump that out on land) - I think it's mostly melted ice water from the icebox, but there's probably some lake water mixed in from wakes and spray that come aboard while I'm running. There's even a small amount of lake water riding in the cooling system of my 4-stroke outboard - not much I can do about that. Normally, I fish 2 or 3 times a week from March on, Bull Shoals, Tablerock, Stockton, Pomme de Terre, etc. Now I'm thinking about just not putting my boat on Bull Shoals at all until zebra mussels show up in the other lakes too. (Not a big sacrifice with the Bull Shoals water level so unfishably high again.) I think all our area lakes are going to get invaded by zebra mussels in time whatever we do, but I don't want to spread them if I can help it.

If the biologists would whip up, say, a Frankenstein-BLUEGILL strain that reproduces prolifically and grows to weigh about 7 lbs. in 5 years, we'd all be buying heavier tackle just to handle 'em and we'd maybe forget all about bass fishing. Good eating, too. Just kidding.