Sam

Years ago I turned the key to start my pickup truck and the battery BLEW UP. I always thought those battery safety warnings about a possible explosion were just legal silliness, but no. I've been told since then that hydrogen gas had built up in the battery, there was a short in a bad cell that caused a spark, and BANG. So I learned it can happen. I also keep my boat in an attached garage, and I never use a charger except when I'm there and awake to keep checking on it. The fact that those batteries are in the bilge right next to a plastic tank full of gasoline really has my attention. I disconnect both ground wires before leaving the lake, and they don't get connected again until we're at a ramp ready to launch - so I really like the idea of a disconnect switch. I need one of those!

I'm sure Dave's jigheads and the Z man worms are best for this - the optimum and all. BUT, being mostly a crappie fisherman I didn't have any of that and went slumming for bass out of Indian Point anyway a couple of days ago. Two of us caught 40+ bass in a few hours including 14 keepers. I used what I had - half-Senkos and some Chompers in various colors, watermelon, green pumpkin, motor oil red flake, purple striped, etc. For Ned-rig jigheads I used round unpainted 1/8 oz. crappie jigs I pour on Eagle Claw #575 gold hooks, size 1/0. The Senkos tore up after a few fish but I had plenty, and color didn't seem to matter one bit. Heavier hooks would have been better for bass I guess, but the light gold hooks were OK. The way the bass were biting, I think anything that remotely resembled a crawdad, fished very slow on the bottom, would have worked just as well.

I've put in at the Galena ramp only once, one spring several years ago when the James was running high and clear and the white bass were running. I had a partner with me and we got the boat launched OK, but in trying to get it back on the trailer I almost swamped it several times - the closest I've ever come to sinking/losing my boat. It's a well-built ramp, but it sets sideways to that strong river current. When my partner backed the trailer in just a little deeper to help me, the current jacknifed the trailer around sideways with no boat on it! Never had that happen before. After that, my partner drove the truck and empty trailer across the bridge to the city park on the other bank, and we got the boat on the trailer. That side was out of the current, but we had to use a mud bank with no ramp and lots of 4WD - boat, trailer, truck, and both of us brought home lots of James River mud and we tore that bank up pretty good. I don't think I'll ever use that Galena ramp again. If the river is up the current is downright dangerous, and when the water level is normal the river is too shallow around there and I'd wreck a prop for sure. Instead, the ramp where Blunk Road dead-ends into the river is pretty poor but it's usable, OR I usually just put in at Bridgeport and run all the way up. I sure miss "Charlie's $2. Ramp" at McCord Bend, which has been closed for several years now - we had a lot of fun going out of there.

Thought I'd post this picture I took a few miles from K Dock. Lots of water to yourself - even on a beautiful, calm day. That's what I like about Bull Shoals.

Bill, I've always heard it's "When the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear", and that's about the time of the dogwoods blooming and morels popping up. Every year I get antsy after a long winter and start looking for spawning crappie, white bass, and suckers in March - and that goes on until I find them in April.

Skin off. Except for suckers, I haven't scaled any fish for years - I just filet 'em out with an electric knife. No skin, no bones.

Glad to hear there are some whites around. I'm looking forward to smoking a bunch of big filets again like last year (yeah, I know, it's hard to keep 'em lit ). When we lived near the ocean I found that oily, strong-tasting, "fishy" species make the best smoked fish and milder fish aren't as good smoked. Sure enough, that's true of big white bass sows here - for smoking, I don't even trim the red meat off. Filet 'em, soak the filets in salt water, let them air-dry to form a hard patina surface, and smoke them away from the flame in a gas BBQ with the lid closed, some wet hickory (apple, mesquite, whatever) chips over the flame, at about 200 deg. for a couple of hours until they turn golden-brown on the outside. Those nasty ol' big white bass are GOOD and they're fun to catch too!

Does anyone ever troll with the A-rig? I fish almost entirely for walleyes, crappie, white bass, etc. - when I catch a bass I throw it back. Last couple of years I've been watching bass fishermen throw A-rigs - ka-chunk, looks like they're casting a crystal chandelier, and it looks like a lot of work, too. But hey, if they catch fish.... Now, I like to slow-troll for the above mentioned species with my trolling motor at about .9 mph, generally using a Roadrunner, Swim N Minnow, or such, and PowerPro braid. Seems to me that slow-trolling a small A-rig with braid and a medium spinning outfit might be productive. I'm thinking of rigging the A-rig with three Swim N Minnows on thin gold 1/0 hooks and the rest of the rig could be hookless Swim N Minnows and blades - I'm sure Bill B. is right about fish most always hitting the lure in the center that trails behind. By letting the rig out and trolling instead of casting, there shouldn't be any tangles. What do you think?

I went out of K Dock over a week ago and the water temp was between 41 and 42 everywhere we went, so duckydoty seeing it at 43 last Tuesday sounds right. Now we've got 6 inches of snow and a real cold week coming (minus 6 degrees for a low on Wednesday!) so the water's getting colder again instead of warmer. I bet we won't see 52 degree water on B.S. until the middle of March.

I believed the report, re-scheduled some stuff to clear a day for fishing next week, got my boat ready, and my partner lined up a babysitter because his wife is out of town. The Barker / Pothole area wouldn't have been my choice of places to go right now - but we sure would have if I hadn't checked back on this thread and found the report was an intentional hoax. No harm done - I needed to get my boat and tackle ready and I'm anxious to go fishing, so we'll go somewhere else. I've got a pretty good idea where we can do some wintertime catching but I'm sure not going to say where we're going, now. I seldom post fishing reports here, but when I do I'm real careful to make them dead accurate with the idea of sharing some good thing I've got going to be helpful to others. I've had some good trips at times by following reports others have posted on this Forum, and I sure appreciate those. There are no 'catching' guarantees in fishing, but I'd never, ever intentionally cause people to waste their money and scarce recreational time chasing a bad report. I'm sorry to learn that someone here would do that. Two things come out of this for me: (1) From now on, I'll figure anything duckydoty posts is absolute BS and not even read it. (2) I'll be pretty reluctant to post fishing reports on OAF now when I get something good going. Better to send PM's to those on here I know and trust than to post good information in a place where I can't believe what I read. ------------------------------ Edited to add: duckydoty sent me a PM this morning in which he apologized, told me how he's actually catching some walleyes in the K Dock area, and he promised to never post a fake fishing report here again. Fair enough - I don't hold grudges and I'm here for fun, not to argue with anybody. Thanks, those who put a "like" on my comments - it's good to know I'm not the only one who felt that way. To end this on a more positive note I'll share some info that won't be anything new to you bass guys. I'm not going walleye fishing this week - if there's a fairly calm day I'll go after lunker bass out of State Park on Tablerock. Staying in 50 feet of water I like to work a 3" grub (salt and pepper or light green) on a 3/8 oz. jighead, straight down, REAL slow, just tapping the rocky bottom all around the islands, the edges of the humps connecting those islands to points on the west bank, past the dam in "powerline cove" where they built the Chateau, and on around toward Indian Point. That's it - late January into February, tap along the rocky bottoms in 50 feet, straight down. This is smallmouth country as well as big LM's, and I throw 'em back - my best ever was a 24" SM, once. It's rare for me to fish for bass. I try to get in a couple of night trips in mid-summer and a couple trips doing this grub thing in 50' in Jan/Feb. The trouble with my wintertime deep grub fishing is that it requires a calm day - in a wind, my boat can scoot backwards and sideways a lot faster than it ever goes forward with the motor running. LOL

I've taken lots of crappie limits out of TR, and I know others here have too. That's mostly in the spring and summer, and I probably couldn't catch one right now to save my life. Still, I think Table Rock is one of the better crappie lakes around here. They won't jump in the boat the way a realtor trying to make a sale might tell people, but that sales talk wasn't completely a lie. More like an exaggeration.

Speaking of fishing boats - how 'bout this fully-amphibious Russian rig? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0I-76_pHLQ

I bet no one is having EIGHT TIMES as much fun in an $80K rig as I've had with my boat and trailer that cost $10K brand new many years ago. That was the best money I ever spent. Anywhere that expensive boat can go, well, I can get there too. Maybe not so fast or fancy, but that's OK.

Thanks for the reports, fellas - and thanks for posting those good pictures, Edwin. Got me fired up, I'm going to go pester 'em tomorrow. (Or pester something anyway, most likely myself.)

Wow, 130 views and no reply. I'll bump this up to the top one time, but I'm starting to suspect no one is seeing/catching any white bass. :>)

Is anybody catching any white bass, or better yet, seeing them busting into baitfish on top? I love "chasing the boils", and it seems like it's getting about time for that. Thanks.

I seldom fish for bass, but after reading about the Ned Rig here I launched out of Mill Creek a couple of days ago and gave those big green fish a try. To tell the truth, I was looking for nesting goggleyes on gravel points and coves - but found that wasn't going on quite yet. Turning to bass, I fished nothing but the Ned Rig using half a Green Pumpkin Senko on the 3/32 oz. barbed-collar 1/0 gold hook crappie jig heads I pour, held on with a drop of super glue. Yep, the Ned Rig works. I caught bass all day, including 4 that would have been keepers - the best a 18.5" LM. I was throwing fairly close to gravel banks and found most of the bass in 10'-15' of water. I was rolling it as slow as I could near the bottom, just a steady, slow retrieve, trying to not touch the bottom (which had green slime). Strangely, I seldom felt any bites - as I'd lift the rod tip I'd think I was stuck on a rock and I'd apply pressure. Then the "rock" would pull back, I'd set the hook, and well ..... you know. I fished this rig with a medium/heavy 6' spinning outfit and 8 lb. mono, which I thought worked just fine. With that Ned Rig, even a poor old raggedy crappie fisherman like me can catch bass sometimes.

S.R. Jim - I wouldn't use a leader at all when fishing with small-diameter braid and an in-line (Roostertail-type) spinner. I tie them on direct to 10 lb. PowerPro with a Fishin' Fool knot. A Roostertail moves by the fish pretty fast - the throttle notch on my 4-stroke outboard means I troll them at 1.9 mph. Casting, I'm sure the retrieve speed isn't too different from that because it has to be fast enough to make the blade spin. I'm thinking that NO Roostertail strikes fail to happen because fish get scared off by seeing that 2 lb. diameter braid line. An in-line Roostertail-type spinner won't twist braid, but it sure twists flouro and mono. I bet if you used that kind of leader with braid and a Roostertail, ALL the twists would go to the leader and make it a real rat's nest.

I fish for whites with Roostertails a lot, and in the course of doing that I pick up quite a few black bass - mostly less than 15". From my point of view it's actually a disappointment when a hooked fish turns out to be a bass - I'll think I have a pretty good white bass hooked, then it heads toward the surface (uh-oh), then the dang thing jumps (*&@!). lol Trolled or cast, Roostertails won't twist braided line like they twist monofilament - I use 10 lb. PowerPro, 2 lb. diameter. And, much as I hate to say it I like Bass Pro's knockoff copy of the Roostertail much better than the original Roostertail. They used to call those Uncle Buck spinners but they have another name now, I can't think what without looking it up. Those have larger blades that spin better and at slower speeds, and the hooks are larger too. They're better in every way than Roostertails, in my opinion, and they're even a little cheaper.

I like to use this National Weather Service map out of Springfield, and on the map click your cursor on the exact spot you need a forecast for. The forecasts are localized and usually very accurate. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/

I spotted a Big Dog Lawn Service pickup truck with a load of brush going north on Glenstone Avenue in Springfield yesterday (Friday), and it had a new-style Ozark Anglers decal on the back bumper. In traffic, things didn't work out right for me to pull alongside and say hello. So, hello anyway - which of you guys was that?

Phil, I got my Ozark Anglers decals out of the back of your truck yesterday morning. Thanks! And- your rig was parked just fine. We did OK on keeper crappie too, but we didn't get limits. We went past Bear Den, where I think you started out, down toward Virgin Bluff. The water temp down that way was 55 going up to 58, and all the crappie I cleaned were males. Down there at least, the spawn isn't on yet and we've still got some time.

We launched at the Long Creek park on Tuesday. There was no one around the entry booth but the Corps signs were still posted including the $4 day use price. The lid had been taken off the envelope box and no envelopes, so not possible to pay. LOTS of work and renovation going on at the park, road crews, grounds crews, and heavy equipment everywhere. The former Gage's Marina has a new sign on the roof "BASS PRO MARINA". I rolled down the truck window and asked a bunch of workers what the deal was to launch. They didn't know, but one of them used his radio to ask someone in the Marina office, and was told there's no charge for launching a boat until this Saturday. Lots of money being spent there fixing the place up.

I'll be looking for you - thanks for bringing those decals, I'll try to get one tomorrow. We tried Long Creek for crappie yesterday (Tuesday), and it was no good. Cold, windy, and we got rained out and left before noon. Surface water temp was 52, and we scoped loads of fish suspended in 32-40 f.o.w. but couldn't get a bite. Fish were concentrated outside of flooded tree lines where in past years they stage off the gravel nesting banks - I know they were crappie, lots of 'em. With warm days now, I think the crappie spawn is going to be ON at Bridgeport so that's where we're headed in the morning. With the difference in water temp, Long Creek crappie are behind those in the James River arm, and that may work out just fine. About the time it's over on the James arm, they should be on the banks at Long Creek.

I learned to keep my aluminum boat close to the bank and preferably among some stumps, because those guys with patches on their shirts come tearing by at about 70 mph while you're trying to fish. I mean, good golly - name me one other public resource (like the lake and the fish) that's allowed to be used and abused for a private big-money game like this. You know what they say about opinions - everybody's got one.