merc1997 Bo

went to the dam area to chase the brownies around last night and it was constant action. just had five keepers with one around 3 1/2, but the numbers sure was not lacking. started out doing very well one a 1/2 jig, but when that slowed down, went to a 1 oz. SpinJig with a #7 colorado blade. flatter gravel to chunk rock points seemed to be the best, but we did catch some in the back of coves also. depth wise anywhere from 15 to 25 ft. we finally quit around 1:30 and left with them still biting. for those that just like catching bass whether they are big or not, they should get out for some night fishing in the dam area and target our great population of brown bass. they seem to always be more willing to bite than blacks, and even the small ones give you a great battle. last night, i did not see any shad activity past 25 ft. so, to me, it seems that the constant flow of water through the lake is having an affect on where better dissolved O2 layers are at depth wise. spending a bit of time doing some work with your electronics before you start casting really helps to at least know the depth of water you should be targeting. bo

i have tried the bass pro shop led black light, and it is in the same boat at their tube black light - very lacking. some people get along with the strip lights, but you have to have enough of them that your line is always over a light. a good two bulb tube light still costs 150 to 180, and that is the same cost of a good led such as the lunar extreme. hazbin, you can buy a good light and leave it to someone when you leave here. you can't take your money with you when you leave here. so, you may as well buy a light that you can see with. bo

that is dandy for sure!! bo

put in about an hour before dark to scout around and see what depth the bait seemed to be. nothing past 20 ft. in the areas we looked. caught two nice chunks on a 1/2 oz. jig, just as it was getting dark, and then struggled for a while and could not buy a bite of any kind. we tried a variety of stuff. i finally moved out on a flat. put the boat in 20 ft. of water and put on a 1/2 SpinJig with a #7 colorado blade. i was pulling it off the bottom and letting it coast back and that was the trick. that produced 5 more keeps. then fished a bluff end ledge out in the lake before we quit and caught 4 more nice keeps on the 1/2 oz. jig. 4 of the keeps were right around 3 lbs. most bites were in the 15 to 20 ft. range. we quit and put it on the trailer around 1. sure could not ask for a prettier night. the moon was pretty as could be. bo

not looking for an argument at all. trot liners have every right to do so and it is a great sport. but, when a trot line is not marked and it is then very easy to accidently snag it, the outcome of that is never good. the way your statement is worded sounds as though when you started tying them off under the water, you also quit marking them which would make things worse. i can understand the frustration when you have a legal line that is clearly tagged and marked and someone runs it or cuts it. anyone that gets snagged up in a marked line is just plain stupid, deserves to loose their lure, and needs to be severely thrashed for cutting such line. however, i have no sympathy for those that do not clearly mark their line. by the way, i am not what anyone would describe as a city folk bass fisherman. i am as about as hillbilly as they come. bo

so, do you still clearly mark you lines so those of us that do care to not be tangled in them can do so?? if not, that is the biggest reason for getting a trot line cut. i really thank those that clearly mark their line so they can be avoided. for those that do not mark their line, have they ever wondered what if a child took a swim where your line is, not marked, and got tangled in it and got drowned????? there is a very good reason that the law requires a trot line to be clearly marked. don't want someone running it and stealing your catch, then you need to run you line more often. if your last name is clinton, then it would be possible to be above the law. bo

well, i think people better get to knowing something before we are completely down the tubes. bo

i am one that is of the mind set to make things here. has anyone given thought to the fact that if we were to get into an all out war, we will get whipped because we do not have any manufacturing facilities. does anyone believe that china is going to ship us steel to build war machines. i just hate seeing manufacturing going off shore. bo

thanks ben. easy to see why the thermocline is not very deep. i thought i could see six discs in one of the photos. the O2 levels must be adequate on the lower end and several depth since i saw shad balls at 40 feet. bo

i can tell you that the more light the better, especially if anchored in an area with other boats. you have to out draw them. we use two submersible halogens and one submersible green. when you anchor up, it is an all night excursion, but when you get a big school of whites and stripers in underneath you, it can be like a chinese fire drill. a great activity to take youngsters on. when the bite is on, you will just stay busy keeping them baited up. i did mention stripers because we often go do beaver to fish under the lights. it does work great on table rock also. docks that are located and connect up with a channel are most often the best. bo

i was going to suggest both quill and champ, but quill has chimed in and champ has been mentioned. either of those two could give you really great info. bo

went downstream and chased the brownies around for a bit last night. what we did catch were deeper than previous trips. most bites were 20 to 25. if there was any pattern to be called one, we had more bites in the back section of larger pockets and smaller coves. we did see some small shad balls as deep as 40 ft., but never did see any evidence of fish with them. kind of hard to predict where a bass might be when there is a food source from the surface to 40 ft. deep. because of the wind, started out throwing a 3/4 oz. jig and caught a few, but i changed to a 1/4 oz. jig and added a 1/2 slip sinker to the line to see if they would bite the smaller profile better, and that was the trick. we scrounged around and ended up with 7 keepers and none of them were much over 16 inches. two of the keeps were largemouths, and they came back in a cove. we caught a few just about everywhere, which meant to me they are pretty scattered. the only constant was that everything we caught was 20 to 25 ft. basically, we just stayed on the move. the one thing that we did not try was to go way back in on of the big coves or arms to check. i would say that the rise and fall of the lake has had a big hand in fish migration right now. many times with a rising lake level the shad will move off the main lake and go back into coves. but, we found evidence of shad everywhere we looked, and they were at varying depths. bo

sorry that ended the start of a trip, but sometimes things happened. in the case of pushing the hook back around through the skin, a little numbing sure helps. with toby, my westie terrier, in the boat, i really have to be careful boating bass with a mouth full of treble hooks. he wants to attack all of them. bo

well first, you are fishing with an exposed hook and do not have to drive the hook through the plastic. you do not have the plastic bunching up in the throat of the hook and causing issues. also, does any bare hook locate itself in the hooking process?? no, and that can be witnessed by the way bare hooks hook all over the mouth and never in one general location. also, a bare hook does not have the ability to lock itself in and be harder to dislodge. and last, to many's dismay, the "rig" is actually more snag resistant than the traditional t-rig. that is quite a few more pluses than the t-rig has going for it. i really have not found any fishing situation, where weight is involved, that this system can not be fished. it works very well in vegetation, brush or rocks. the bass hold on to it just as they do with a t-rig, and if you wait too long to set the hook, will have it swallowed just as they do a t-rig. having so many more pluses in the plus column is why i would make such a broad statement that this setup is a better method for fishing soft plastics than the t-rig. bo

using a slip sinker in addition to the jig head is to keep the profile smaller and more in tune with the soft plastic being used. a 3/16 head blends in very seamlessly with worms for example, even finesse worms. bo

frankie we used two different baits to catch them. one was a 1/2 skirted jig, and the other was a 3/16 head with a 5/16 slip sinker added to the line to make up 1/2 oz. of weight, and a soft plastic beaver type bait was added to the 3/16 naked jig head. it is a much better way to fish soft plastics than the traditional t-rig. bo

got out with linda for a short while last night (friday) and could not find a bite. but, as i have often pointed out, you could be fishing where the bass are, but not doing the right thing to trigger bites. last night was a prime example of just that. we could not buy a bite and i am sure that all the boats in the area were not helping. i finally started changing weights and all kinds of different plastics and finally came up with the right combination, a 5 inch senko on a 3/8 head. caught 4 keeps including a very good one in 15 minutes and then the storms were getting too close and we loaded up and hurried home. we got there none too soon either. when you are sure there are fish in the area and not getting any bites, stay put and keep trying different things until you unlock the lock and make them bite. bo

man, those brownies just do not seem to be in the same type of places two days in a row. everytime we have been down that way to chase them around, chase them around is very descriptive. it really seems as though you need to first establish where all the bait is rather than just go hit where you have caught them in the past. out of the last 4 times we have been down to catch brownies we have caught them on main lake steep stuff, the next time, every one came out of the very back of steep pockets, then the next, they were main lake bluff ends, where they really start to flatten out, and the last time, we found them inside flat type coves. each time, where we ended up catching them was where we found the best concentration of bait. you hardly ever hear bill babler talk about catching fish and not mention the bait being right there. the one great thing about brownies, is that even when they are resting, they are most usually still bottom related, and that really helps to be able to get a lure in front of them. bo

the truth is that most of the time, we do not often deal with active bass. those active times are fun times for sure, but the truth is they rest more than they are actively eating. nearly all of the bass that catch day or night, are not activily feeding, but are in an area where they are attainable to try to make them bite. this is where fishing the right depth at the right speed comes into play. it is much harder to find resting bass in contact with something since we have very few trees anymore. you can spend a lot of time searching for a place where resting bass have laid down on the bottom. for those that like fishing boat docks, here is prime example of trying to catch resting bass. bo

that young man is taylor hicks. he is on the cassville hs fishing team and helps us with the fishing lures. he is a really great young man, loves fishing, and has a desire to learn. he will be leaving before too long to college of the ozarks, but i already have another fishing team member lined up to take his place. bo ps don't tell taylor you said that he looks like someone as ugly as me. bo

got out for a few hours last night. depth we are catching is still remaining in the 15 ft. range. still catching them on the same two rigs. beaver on a 1/2 and 1/2 skirted jig. caught lots of shorts last night, probably somewhere around 30 total including the 8 keepers. the of the keeps were 3 lb. and the other five were lappers, meaning fatties that you would not have to measure. since there is a multitude of shad up on the surface, i would not think bass will be getting very deep anytime soon. anyway, bass are still biting, but they are not just anywhere, and you had better be doing everything right to get a bite out of them. they are not in the same places, and you just have to go hunting each trip, without any preconceived notions. bo

it sure beat working didn't it? these bass seem to be moving everyday. bo

now you know why i just go at night. i would be in jail if i fished during the day this time of the year. i am just getting way too old and cranky. bo

got out not too long before dark last night and had the lake to ourselves. put the boat back on the trailer at 1:30am. catching was not too bad either, once we figured out where they had moved to, again, and had to make a few adjustments in speed and lure. most of them are still coming from around the 15ft. mark. the most consistent lure last night was a beaver style soft plastic on a 3/16 head with a 5/16 slip sinker. that is 1/2 an oz. of weight for those that are trying to figure that out. i did catch two big ones on a 1/2 skirted jig right before we quit. it started raining in earnest right as i boated the 5 lber. and we folded up and put it on the trailer. by the way, the bass had moved to much flatter terrain last night. ended up with a total of 12 keeps, with 3 of them in the 3+ range, plus the two big ones. bo

great trip! bo