Sam

White bass are 'way up in James River already - kinda surprising for this early in the year. I bank-fished Blunk Hole at Galena yesterday afternoon. A chartreuse swimming minnow on a 1/8 oz. jig head worked best. I ended up with 10 white bass and released a smallmouth, a largemouth, and a goggleye. The way it started out, I thought I was going to get a limit for sure - but being white bass they turn on and off and there are dry spells. What's also surprising is the size - they're running BIG. Not real good eating like crappie, but they're sure fun to catch. There were lots of fishermen, and I'm not going this weekend because of the crowds. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (if the weather allows) I'm gonna take my boat and go crappie fishing - the freezer is badly in need of filets. I'd say the white bass are just coming up - they're in there by the hundreds, not the thousands yet. But with no cold weather in the forecast, they'll probably just go ahead and spawn out in the next couple of weeks and then it'll be over. If there's heavy rain and the river gets up, it'll be over sooner. In a tree top by the water, just across from the bank fishermen above Blunk Hole, there are bald eagles on a nest. They've got babies they're bringing food (shad) to, and that's fun to watch. If you want your kids to feel what a fight a 3-pound white bass can put up in river current, the next week or two is the time to show 'em.

When I started this thread (complaint) I emailed a link to it to the owners of Hwy. 13 Marina. This morning I received the following reply from Kelly Swanson. I certainly understand the points made in the reply, and to be fair I'm posting it here for all to read. Because of the new high launch fee and congestion at Hwy. 13, though, I'll be launching elsewhere when I want to fish that part of the lake. It was nice of Kelly Swanson to write this long email, and I do appreciate their past hospitality when I've launched out of their park. --------------------------------- This is slightly unfair and one sided. I tried to respond on the sight and it wouldn’t allow me to; I guess it is easier to criticize than to find out the facts. This is not a Corps of Engineers Park and it hasn’t been since 1988. The Corps spends no money here and we have to maintain all the roads and launch ramps ourselves. The Corps charges for their launch ramps and says we should too. They have had their fees in place for years and we just started Memorial Day weekend 2006. They have just implemented a rate increase and actually charge if you walk into their day use area $1per person. We sell a season pass electronic card for $50 per year. We have spent over $25,000 to improve our launch ramp and we have added bleachers @ a cost of $1000 for tournaments we expanded our tournament hosting site and added lots of truck and trailer parking which also cost thousands. Our trash service is around $8600 a year. Joe Bald Park is 6 miles from Kimberling City . They don’t have restrooms or lights or dumpsters to throw your trash in. But they are free because the Corps closed that park they couldn’t afford to keep it open. We provide clean restrooms, dumpsters for trash a 3 lane launch ramp that was extend last year during low water for those low water periods. We repave roads and have tripled parking. NO it isn’t right on the ramp but it is close by. As for how this affects the businesses inside the Port of Kimberling last year all of our businesses were actually up in sales after the gate went in. What’s Up Dock doesn’t own Port of Kimberling they are a sub lease just like the other retail businesses. There is a restaurant next to What’s Up Dock that is open in season. Honestly most bass boaters and fishermen fuel on shore which is fine. If you are upset about the fee we regret we can not afford to maintain these areas so people can use them for free. Lakes across the country charge to come in to launch and to use day use areas. The Corps found out they couldn’t afford to do it for nothing and neither can we. We regret anyone had a bad experience or had difficulty using the facility. There are signs every where to direct you. I’m not sure what else we do. During season we man a booth at the fee gate but in off season when we have 5-20 launchers a day $5.00 per launch doesn’t pay the help. This is purely a matter of economics and feasibility certainly reasonable people can understand that. I have to question why no one contacted us directly by e-mail or phone. We serve thousands of people annually and we try to do what is in our best interest and that of the public we serve. We regret some don’t agree. As for the Waters Edge Campground, they don’t have a public launch ramp. The ramp on their side of the park is for campers only. I’m sorry if someone was mistreated by them but we don’t operate the campground it is leased. We can only control what is in our power to control. Sincerely, Kelly Swanson, Port of Kimberling Marina

Thanks. I'll start using Mill Creek - I've launched there before, but it's been a while. It's probably better to leave the Hwy. 13 ramp to ski boats, jet skis, and yachts anyway. Like you guys, I should have been staying away from there already because of the congestion. Two years ago I was onto big bass off those points across from the bridge, and I was putting in at Hwy. 13. I'd done real good on two mornings the week before Memorial Day, and I had another day off on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. I knew I shouldn't go there then - but I figured if I went early and got off the lake early it would be OK. I got out there at the crack of dawn and I was catching and releasing big bass, having a great time. With the good fishing I overstayed of course, and about 9:30 a.m. the ski boats, party boats, and jet skis started coming out. With all the noise and wakes, the fish quit biting and I headed back. I didn't know if I was going to make it back. The wakes were so bad water was washing across the bow of my Tracker no matter how careful I was. I had the bilge pump on all the way across, and just about sunk the thing. I really don't understand why people want to run boats that could take you to Japan on a lake that's about 1/4 of a mile wide. At times like that, Hwy. 13 is a good place to stay away from, so switching to Mill Creek will be a good thing.

I just got back from Kimberling City, where I put in for a little while from the Highway 13 launch ramp. I didn't fish very hard or seriously, but I scoped some good banks and found a bunch of non-biting staging crappie for future reference. I had a real hard time getting my boat in the lake! They've closed off the "free" launch ramp between the docks at Hwy. 13 Marina, and they've closed off the road going around the point to the other ramp. After driving around in frustration for awhile I stopped at the campground office and asked if I could just pay a launch fee to use their ramp out on the campground point. "No", said the snotty lady, "We had to put a stop to that." After driving in circles a little more, I stopped in at the Marina office. I found that they've put an automatic gate across the only remaining road to the second ramp, and it costs $5 to get through! The gate takes cash and credit cards. Once you get to that ramp, there's NO parking - room for 5 or 6 trucks and trailers to park beside the little road only, so that place is going to be a mess later in the season when the ski boats and jet skis get going. Well - that outfit has got their last and only five bucks from me. I don't mind the usual $2 in-season fee for state park launch ramps, but this is different. My question is, where else can I launch to get to that water west of the bridge, Point 7, Schooner Creek, Cow Creek, and all that area? It's kind of a long run around from Indian Point. Thanks for any info.

I went out of Bridgeport with my partner yesterday, Wednesday. Female crappie are staging off the usual banks in bunches in 30-35 feet of water. There's lots of them on the scope, but they're suspended and hardly biting. Slow-trolling swimming minnows, we got five good keepers and no short ones. People fishing with minnows were catching more, but got mostly short crappie. Below Ashercane we scoped white bass, and got 5 big ones by trolling Roostertails. The whites are scattered and moving around. For the middle of March, that's a pretty good trip. There are lots of fish in the right places, and in about 10 more days I think there will be a lot of good panfishing around there.

Like every spring, I'll be crappie and white bass fishing on James amongst the spoonbillers. Nothing wrong with that, people are good and everybody gets along fine. I tried spoonbilling once and caught one. I found I just don't care anything about it, and it's a lot of work. For those who look forward to spoonbill season, hey, I'm glad to see you having a good time. It shakes me up when one of those goofy-looking things jumps right beside the boat, and it seems like every year I snag one (briefly) on a crappie rig. That's part of the spring fishing I look forward to - and I'll see you out there!

I have a friend who caught a few crappie from Bridgeport up to Ashercane yesterday on the James River arm. You may be a little early for peak crappie fishing, as I didn't start getting limits until April 1 last year - and then we stayed on 'em for about 6 weeks. Those Tablerock bass reports Bill Babler is posting are interesting, though. Good bass fishing is a great way to fill out a crappie trip, and vice versa.

There's nothing wrong with specializing in bass. I've had some fantastic bass trips on Tablerock, lots of them. But it can be a tough lake, and I have no problem with increasing my odds by being willing to go after other species too. There's nothing better about bass fishing than any other kind of fishing. They're just big sunfish, fellas. For those who want to fish for bass only, that's fine with me - but by including crappie, white bass, walleyes, perch, catfish, whatever, it's a rare day when I can't find something that'll bite and be fun to catch. It's up to each individual, and if you're on the tournament trail that's different. But I fish for fun, and that's how I decided to turn some poor bass trips into good fishing trips a long time ago. That philosophy has put a lot of good filets next to the fried 'taters.

For me it's 35 miles to K Dock and about 32-35 miles to several launch ramps on Tablerock. Bridgeport is about the closest at 26 miles. Stockton is about 60 miles and Pomme de Terre is 70+, so I don't get to those too often. I'll hit Theodosia at least once a year, but that's crowding 100 miles. Those distances are GREAT by comparison, though. We lived in Southern California for years and people would often say they were going to the "river" for the weekend. There's just one RIVER, the Colorado, and it's 200+ miles away, in the middle of a nasty desert, and crowded with ski boats when you get there. Compared with that, we've got it real good here in MO for fishing holes.

I hate to say, but I think we've got 3 or 4 years of poor crappie fishing to look forward to. Well, maybe not poor - but not as good as the past couple of years have been. I think the good crappie fishing we've had in the last couple of years were because we were catching the "classes" of crappie that hatched out in the last high-water springs. High water in the spring makes an enormous difference because the baby crappie have land weeds and brush to hide in when they're real little. Now we've had about three low-water springs in a row, and the young crappie couldn't have had much shelter from predators. When the water is down, you can see that the lake bottom, except for brushpiles, looks like a desert with no cover whatsoever. So, we'll see what happens - but I'm not expecting real good crappie fishing again until 3 or 4 years past a high-water spring.

Jim - I'm glad to hear the crappie are starting to work in the James River arm. The ones with the black stripe are a sub-variety called "Arkansas Blacknose", and they're native to the White River watershed. They're spread widely now, and I've even caught them in eastern Tennessee. Maybe it's my imagination, but it always seems to me like they fight a little harder than the non-striped ones. I've cut into those black-pepper spots on crappie fins before, and I think they're a little parasite that grows under the outer skin of the fins and tail. I assume they're harmless to people, since we don't eat the fins anyway and I've never seen them in the filets. It seems to me like deep-frying in hot grease oughta kill any parasites - at least I hope so.

One good thing about crappie - they don't go very far. I've read that most crappie never move more than 1/4 mile from where they're hatched, and I think that's generally true. That means good crappie areas of the lake always hold crappie, they just move around within those areas depending on the season and conditions. In very early spring, they're going to be staging right down the middle of major coves - especially near the cove entrances. If there's flooded timber nearby they'll move in and out of it, and on sunny days they'll move into the shallows on nearby sandy banks to get warm. They don't move far, though, and "home base" is mid-channel in the cove entrance. Later in spring they'll be staging on rocky banks near those cove entrances, first the males, then the females. After that, they'll be on nests on the cove banks and in flooded timber, of course. Post-spawn they'll be in bunches on banks within a couple hundred yards of their nesting area, usually in about 15 feet of water - and that lasts until they go into thick brush and flooded timber for the summer. Since I know a whole bunch of generally good crappie areas on Tablerock and Bull Shoals, I don't have to search the whole lake for them. Within those areas I'll cover a lot of water at first by slow-trolling with the trolling motor and watching the scope. I'll slow-troll a 1 1/2" Swimmin' Minnow on a 1/16 or 1/8 oz. lead head jig and cast the same rig up into the shallows and around brush. Once I locate crappie, it may be more productive to stop and cast or jig straight down for them, or it may be better to just keep slow-trolling back and forth over the same area. Another thing to remember about crappie is that they'll come up for a lure but they'll never go down for it. It's easy to slow-troll too deep for them, and if you're bumping the bottom you're probably going under a bunch of fish.

hornyheadchub - What species are the minnows now raised and sold legally at marinas and bait shops? Are they "shiners"? Are they naturally present in Missouri waters? They must be, or they wouldn't be allowed as bait. They're often sold as "crappie minnows" and "bass minnows", but that refers to the size of the minnow and the target gamefish, not to the species. Are those two different species, or the same species half and fully grown? Thanks.

I seldom fish with minnows now, and I buy them when I do. My experience with setting minnow traps is from back before Tablerock was built when I used to fish the Finley, James, and Beaver Creek with my dad and grandpa. Minnow traps were glass at that time, and you had to be real careful not to break them on the rocks. We didn't know anything about the minnows scientifically, of course. The ones we called "topwater minnows" swam at the surface of the water, were about 2" long, and had a white spot on top of their heads. They weren't very good bait, as they'd die quickly on a hook. Are those the ones you're talking about? The minnows we liked to catch and use were the ones called "slicks" now. They're stonerollers, I guess, and they'll stay alive all day on a hook.

When I was a kid I'd specially target big black perch on the creeks, they were about my favorite fish. I'd sight-fish for them, moving slow along the bank and looking into deep shady holes. Those orange fin-tips really show up - and a black perch is always hungry. If you can see one, you can catch him. I'd just use an unweighted hook and a worm, flip it out there and let it sink naturally - a black perch would take it every time. It's funny how I now think I need a whole boat-load of fishing gear, and I used to be able to carry all my tackle in my shirt pocket. It was just as much fun that way, too.

Knowing what you've got would be the thing. I helped a friend seine the Finley, and I ended up with a big picnic cooler full of minnows. Most of them were the "slicks" he wanted, but there were about half a dozen different kinds, mostly unidentifiable by me. I could recognize some gar minnows because they were perfect little garfish, only about 2 inches long. Lots of the others, I had no idea what they were. The "slicks" made great bait, though. They'll stay alive on a hook for a long time.

I was wrong when I said I catch spawning walleyes at Mincy. Those are post-spawn, of course. I do better on walleyes on B.S. about June than at any other time - and by that time they're not just in the headwaters, they're all over the lake. Slow-troll a small Roadrunner tipped with half a nightcrawler, bumping the bottom in about 20 ft. depth where the flats drop into the channels and you'll see what I mean. I've got nothing against glitter boats or vest patches, of course. Fishermen are great people, there are just a few exceptions in any crowd.

Well, I'm pleasantly surprised at the favorable comments about my "perch fishing". I'll fish for most anything. If a bass fishing trip proves to be "one bite an hour", I'll quickly switch to another species that provides quicker action. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I've got reluctant to mention panfishing around some bass fishermen - some guys (with glitter boats and patches on their vests) really put it down. Sometimes hotshots even blow by too close with their high-speed wake, on purpose, if they see you fishing for crappie or perch. There's no use in that, we're all out there to have a good time. I'll catch bass all day long if I get a chance, and I catch some real good ones sometimes. I never kill big bass though. I might eat a Kentucky once in awhile, but not a good largemouth and never a smallmouth. They're just too scarce. Same with walleyes, I'll keep four 18-21 inchers on Bull Shoals if I can, but I won't kill the big breeders. Panfish, though, are a different story - they're made for the skillet if they're big enough. You're right about green sunfish being terrible predators of gamefish eggs - trouble is, most of the ones doing that damage are too small to keep so panfishing won't do much to control them. But I'll do my part and keep trying. Jeremy - One of the best green sunfish banks I know is on BS just below Piney Creek. That's directly across from the flat above Mincy where I've caught many spawning walleyes. There's lots of G.S. also on that bank straight across from the K Dock launch ramp, and as you know, that section of Bull Shoals is walleye country. I don't think I've run into green sunfish much above Snapp Holler, though.

One version of the green sunfish/bluegill cross is raised commercially, because they're purposely hybridized and sold by hatcheries for stocking ponds. In that cross, I don't remember which species has to be the male and which the female, but the result is a "mule". All the hybrid offspring are sterile males. The advantage of that is, in a pond they grow rapidly and provide good fishing quickly but they can't reproduce. That keeps a pond from becoming overcrowded with stunted little panfish in a few years.

I was at Kimberling City yesterday, picking up my boat with a new outboard motor installed. I'll be spending today sorting, organizing, and putting everything back in the boat, ready to go. It looks like today (Tuesday) would be a great day to be fishing. Yesterday I had intended to launch the boat and make a short run to try out the new motor. Because of the wind, I didn't do it - I had never seen such whitecaps on that part of Tablerock, it was 'way too rough for me. I think I saw a duck fly overhead - backwards. But I've got a new four-stroke Suzuki on my boat now, and I'm gonna be out there pretty quick.

I like to catch "black perch" (green sunfish) if they're big enough. They're scrappy little fighters on an ultralight, and about the first of June the big ones come up near rocky banks spawning. Going along those banks throwing a 1/8 oz. Roostertail in front of the boat provides a lot of action, and it's a break from trying to outsmart the bass. I think the "perch" family panfish species around here sometimes cross. Here's a photo of a couple of about 9-inchers I caught a couple of years ago. The one at the bottom is a "black perch" (green sunfish). The one at the top I'd say must be a green sunfish/bluegill cross hybrid.

Black perch is what green sunfish are called in the Ozarks, especially by the old-timers. They make tasty little filets. I've got an eight-inch mark on the handle of my light spinning outfit. Under that length, bluegills, black perch, and goggleyes (rock bass) go back in the lake, over that length they go in the grease.

Welcome to the Ozarks! Aren't long moves FUN? We moved here from Southern California in 1990, and it was just horrible. We moved FOUR households (me and my wife and two kids, oldest daughter and her husband, my mother, and my mother-in-law) all in one trip. We had a semi truck with a 48 ft. trailer, a big rented truck pulling a car on a trailer, and our SUV with me driving - a regular convoy. I'd been real careful and had the SUV serviced just before the trip. It was the height of summer and when it started to get hot that first morning in the Mojave Desert, I turned the air conditioner on and it blew hot air. The dealership had left a fitting loose and all the coolant had leaked out. As we passed through Needles, the radio said it was 122 degrees, and that heat wave followed us for three days. When we reached Springfield it was 103, and for the whole trip we had no air conditioning in the SUV. Our mothers hated each other, they were sitting side by side in the middle seat behind me, and they fought and griped all the way. My wife's cat was riding on the floor between the two front seats, and I think he died several times from heat during the trip - you could pick him up and drop him like a limp dishrag. By about the second day, none of us were hardly speaking to each other. Then we got here and had spend days unloading all that stuff. But - it was worth it! I bought my fishing boat that first summer here, and I've never enjoyed anything so much as fishing these lakes and hunting these hills. The Ozarks are a great place to live. And if I ever make a long-distance move again, I won't take anything that won't fit in my bags on the airplane.

Did you hear that "Victory at Sea" overture in the background while riding the Atlantic rollers? I'm going to enjoy the 4-stroke motor because of its smooth running, less noise, and better fuel mileage. I'll fish for anything, and when it's a slow day I'll even get to trolling. I know the 4-stroke will troll down better and smoother. Trolling is kinda looked down on by "bass purists", but thank goodness I'm not one of those. If I can't get anything going otherwise, I'll tie on a deep running plug or a big weighted Roostertail, troll through the baitfish, and just see what bites. Doing that, I've caught white bass, walleyes, largemouths, Kentuckies, smallmouths, crappie, channel cats, flatheads, bluegill, black perch, drum, gar, and even trout (on Bull Shoals) and snagged paddlefish (briefly, on Tablerock). It's fun when you don't know what you might get ahold of.

My boat is in Kimberling City, I left it at a dealership on Tuesday to get a new outboard motor put on. I'm getting a 50 hp Suzuki four-stroke, and I'm pretty excited about that. The mechanic who changed the motors took it out and ran it, full throttle, on Tablerock yesterday morning. I'm glad he did the testing, and it had to be done to choose the right prop - but better him than me. Yesterday the high temp was 22 degrees. He says he has a snowsuit and an insulated helmet for that. He even asked if I wanted to go down there and come along for the ride so he can show me how to use the power trim. Ha - I think I'll figure it out OK when it's warmer! But I'm sure looking forward to that new rig when the weather warms up a little.