merc1997 Bo

for night fishing, black or black and blue is hard to beat, but we have been catching quite a few with a western craw skirt even in the daytime. there have been times during daylight hours that a smoke shad has worked. getting the right size blade for the particular day is probably more important than color. i put a selection of different blades sizes and types in my pocket and keep changing until i find one that seems to trigger strikes. bo

this a two trip combined to one report. went friday and monday night to the lower end. it is a hunting trip each time out, and the key is to keep looking around until you find an area with lots of shad present. there really is not a pattern of just where you might find them. last nigh we found them in entirely different areas than from friday night. the one common factor is that everyone of the better bass are coming from 25 to 30 feet. on friday evening, linda caught one, i would say pretty close to 5 lb. at 5 pm on a 1 oz. SpinJig. since we were fishing out in the middle of the ocean and the teeth of the wind no pic. in fact, we did not get any pics friday because it was one of those nights that the biting bass were right out in the wind. tried some protected areas, but with no luck. on friday, we ended up with 7 keepers, and four of those were from 3 to 5 lb., all lmgs. best two lures were still the 1 oz. SpinJig and the 3/4 GrassJig. Last night started out somewhat the same, other than we had to go find the shad and they were in different areas than on friday. we ended up with 8 keepers last night with two nice lmgs, and the rest was a mixture of brownies and k's. 25 to 30 ft. still produced all the better bass. same two lures, but both of the better lmgs came on the 3/4 GrassJig. it is worth the time to not just put the troller down and fish. why throw a lure if there is not any there. spend the time to look around and find an area that has a food source and fish present. bo

nice eye! hopefully this will be the last siege and then it will again be safe to get out during the day. bo

sure looks to be one. bo

mitch i think you have a great idea with the photo reading of the bass on a digital scale. since cell phones can easily take and record a pic with the bass and scale reading, it could be easily done. it would not take any longer to tally up everyone's phone pics than it would to weigh in the bass. it would just require entrants to carry a cell phone, and a digital scale, to take and record the pic with bass and weight. of course, it would also be nice to have a recorded time of the pic, and that would prevent some temptations of cheating, but there will always be those few that do so. perhaps, it might be something that this forum might attempt a trial run at. bo

my two cents about rods is to use what seems to work the best for you. many would not care one thing about my rod and reel arsenal, which is pretty meager, but they seem to get the job done for me. and, i have never sharpened a hook with a rod. very good thought processes about different rod types and how they work for each of us. bo

well, toby is a great mascott. does he count for a jersey?? bo

how come i have to come down to your area to catch a bass or at least more than i can catch up my way? bo

fish care is something that just seems to go by the way side with some. there are those that do take every precaution to ensure a safe release with their bass. if you ice your livewell to the correct temperature, you will not have to fizz your bass. colder temps than what the bass came out of will shrink the air bladder. i have found that 10 degrees colder than what the bass are coming out of is the optimum temp variation. realistically for me, if an angler can not properly take care of any bass in the livewell for tournament purposes, really does not need to be fishing a tournament. most of those that are not taking care of their fish, it will not make a difference what the tournament limit is. it could be a one fish limit and that bass is going to die in their livewell. as champ and many others have said, there are just those times that you will hook one too deep or in the gill, and they are just not going to make it. but, that is the exception and not the rule. those bass that will not make it after release at a weigh-in, need to be harvested and not wasted. as bill stated, perhaps something might need to be done with any particular tournament's penalty system for dead bass. that might help to get everyone on track to get up to speed with fish care. one thing that i do like about the mlf format is the immediate release of the bass. i am not too much that they do not up their length limit for a scoreable bass, and most of the contests turn into a pecker-head vest. but, weighing and releasing that bass right on the spot is great. it would prevent the constant taking of bass from other areas of table rock and redepositing them at kimberling city or state park. bo

great job, and keep looking around. there are plenty of schools bunched up like that right now, but they are not everywhere and it does require some gas burning in searching for them. bo

well, it is a lure that i designed and manufacture at NuTech Lures. i use a small chunk type plastic trailer similar to a zoom super chunk jr. we have been having the best luck lately with a #7 colorado blade, and of course the 1 oz. is needed not only for the depth we have been catching the bass, but to be able to fish it with enough speed to trigger bites. you can cover a lot of 30 ft. water with that lure. the big bass, 6 lb. 4 oz. that was weighed at the alpena ffa tournament out of cricket creek saturday was caught 10 minutes after take off at 6:00 pm on one of them. it is a definite great deep water fishing tool for these shad eating bass day or night. some of these bass have been coming out on clean gravel, but trees are a big plus in holding them. bo

i always cut down to the point. bo

shad were back at 25 to 30 feet and so were most of the bass. sure enough a head scratching thing to figure out. it is what it is and you just have to go find them where they are every trip. it was a very good night of catching. 16 keepers total with at least half a dozen 3 lbers., but nothing in the 4 lb. range. we also had a tri-vecta of 3 lbers. of the same spot. that does not happen often. we also had several keeper lmgs, but the smallmouth still led the way in numbers. two lures accounted for everything - a 3/4 oz. GrassJig, and a 1 oz. SpinJig. they were pretty close to being half and half. they bit the jig better to begin with, and the blade later on. normally, it seems to the other way around, but that comes under the heading of keep slinging different presentations until you figure out the right combination. bo

there is not such a thing as winter draw down any longer. the lake has went from flood control priority to power generation priority. same for bull shoals. congress is part of the problem. they passed legislation to do so according to the corp. so, no one, in goverment, gives a flip if everything is flooded out and the lake is not accessible because all the parking and ramps are under water. bo

as i read through the post, and it mentioned to cut down on excessive damage to not only docks but to shoreline as well. does that mean the boats throwing the big excessive wakes are going to be brought down to idle only. only in my dreams. bo

linda and i put in on the lower end around 10:00 pm. caught 25 to 30 bass with most being short brownies, with a few k's mixed in. absolutely no pattern as to where you got a bite. we fished until 4:00 am. ended up with 6 keeps, 5 brownies and 1 3 lb. largemouth. we caught bass at 35 ft. up to 10 ft. caught them on steep banks and out in the middle of the ocean on really flat stuff. never did see any concentrations of shad anywhere, and the scattered bites were good evidence of that. most of our catches came on the 1 oz. SpinJig. bo

really good to see that he was in good spirits and has the will to get back up to speed. bo

just got back from visiting Cletus's Tackle Box and had the pleasure of meeting owner Terry Lewis. he is friendly as they come and is busy getting inventory in to fit your fishing needs. it will be an easy, nearly one stop, to fuel up and get your needed fishing items at the same time. Terry will also soon have a great stock of NuTech Products on the shelf. i would suggest to anyone to stop by and get acquainted with Terry and his family and enjoy the great friendly customer service. bo

i was thinking that alex did give you specifics. all over fish would mean to me that there was not any pattern or specific anything to where the bass came from. it was one of those days that one came from the back end of a cove, one from a main lake bluff, and one from a pea gravel flat. as alex stated, it was just put the trolling motor down and cover water. bo

you were sure fishing with rough company. your fishing report mirrored what i have observed the last week or so. the cooling water temps seemed to be scattering the bass again, and they had just finally got gathered up pretty good. it sure makes every fishing trip an adventure. you can catch them the same way or place twice in a row. bo

went back to the lower end again last night. it was back to hunting those darn critters down again. actually, they were somewhat scattered and you got a bite where you happened to get one. all of the shad that had been deep, were all 10 to 15 ft. deep last night. however, we had very little luck fishing at those depths. the bass we did catch were still in the 25 to 30 ft. range. we did end up with a dozen keeps, but they were all just 15 to 16 inch bass, and we did catch several shorts. the bass definitely got more active after the moon came up, and we left them biting at 2:30 this morning. it is hard to quit fishing when it is so pretty out, no boats on the water, and the bass are biting. the best bait last night was the 1 oz. SpinJig, but our last stop, the 3/4 oz. GrassJig caught all of them. we did catch one or two on a 1/2 oz. with a plastic crawdad. did not catch any on a senko or various styles of worms. we did have a decent mix of all three varieties and would catch all three on the same spot. one thing that i caught onto last night was the fact that catchable bass were not strung through an area as they had been, and you had to keep throwing at a particular spot. water temp was showing to be 82.3. with the variance in how much the shad had came up last night, there could be many bass scattering from summer homes. the weather will dictate how fast that happens. bo

i would guess that they may have just suspended out in the middle of nothing. that really makes for difficult conditions to catch anything. bo

still a good day, and it is fun to be catching fish. my retired buddies that live in emerald beach told of a little bit of top water going on early in the mornings last week, but most of what they caught were on spoons 25 to 25 ft. deep. i would think for those that like fishing boat docks, some of the deeper docks might be holding bass if you can figure out how to get them out from underneath them. good to see you take a break from the golf course. bo

nice going! even I have been having some success down in that area in catching some nice largemouth. really nice to see them begin to show up again. bo

that is just the knot. bo