merc1997 Bo

great day for sure!! bo

you are right, common sense. but, have you ever navigated up the kings where some of the areas really get narrow, especially during crappie season. sometimes, it takes a while because you are supposed to idle by those boats. good point about using common sense. bo

quite true, and that is why i do not deer hunt. bo

gns fishing, you are right on both accounts about lighting. those leds up and down the side are not to be on while underway, and the headlights that are on all the time is also against the law. all the bs going on on the water anymore makes me in a foul mode before i ever get to the lake anymore. bo

would you actually knowingly be pulling your children through an obstacle course of spikes??? that is basically what these people are doing. one of these days, that gun is going to hit a live round. there is a lot of difference in riding in the back of the pick up around the farm or back yard, and driving with a bunch of kids in the back going down the highway at 70. surely common sense has to come to play sometime. but, i really do not know just how many are out there any longer with common sense, and pulling children through water loaded with treetops just under the surface all over is not using any common sense at all. Plus, when they continue to do so after being warned, they are parents definitely without good judgement. bo

the other thing that was going through my pea brain was if these idiots thought about the size of the waves that they were battering the docks along that area with?? you can bet if anyone was going by there dock like that they would have been out there yelling. i wish it was not such an expense to drive to bull shoals to fish. bo

I was in Big Creek Saturday evening and was doing some graphing in the dynamite point area. there were at least three very large boats pulling kids on sleds and what not from the mouth of brown's branch on up the creek on past watson's cove. One of the boats dumped a kid off very close to where we were so i idled over to see if he had any idea of the danger of running up and down that section of the creek pulling kids, and not knowing there were trees everywhere just under the water. he informed me that he lived somewhere there in the back of big creek. i said well you have not any knowledge of the water back here or do not care for the welfare of your child otherwise you would not be pulling them over a tree just like that one right there by your boat that is six inches under the water. that did not bother him in the least, as they went right back to doing what they had been. what i should have done was to get the boat numbers and turn them in for child endangerment. nothing like playing russian roulette with your child. bo

table rock virtually filled over night. they had huge rains all at the right time. just like going to bed with a puddle, and waking up with a sea. bo

the bottom water is going to stay pretty close to the same temp year round. it almost like having a turnover. i just know that over my many years of fishing, i have never found fishing to be good when the water is bubbling. it could be from all the water that has been running through the lake. i really do believe it has something to do with the off fishing though. bo

could be, but it has not been occurring until late evening, and i really did not notice any current, and the water was slick enough earlier to have noticed them. they show up on the electronics. bo

i got out about 4 this afternoon, and did some looking. around eagle rock there are shad everywhere. most are in the 20 to 25 ft. range. saw some schools in contact with good roll off, and some fish around, but i never did find and area where i got any bites, and i did try quite a variety of lures, sizes, and fall rates. did not even have a bite on a spoon. just before dark there were bubbles coming up all over the lake, which is a puzzlement to me. i am wondering if this bubbling has something to do with fishing being so messed up??? i saw the same thing going on over in the kings also. or, are we just dealing with the bass making the actual transition to summer habitat??? seems like everything is a month behind. it has been a very weird year of fishing so far, not normal at all. bo

i wanted to say that i thought it had been in the 880's, but could not remember just for sure. thanks for finding that. i am sure wanting to say that it got back down around 888 another year in the 70's. i think a big draw down would help get rid of some of the brown sludge like material that coats the bottom now. we use to have very clean rocks, but the bottom is coated with a brown gunk, just as what timber is left. bo

when we moved here in 1963 the eagle rock dock was sitting in the actual river channel. i do not know what the lake level was then. one other year, i can remember it got to 896,could have been less than that, and the fishing was really good. same amount of bass in less water. bo

that was a good trip compared to what the fishing has been. bo

i used to run motor guides, but after buying my first minn kota, i would not use anything else. better motor, better bracket, better shaft, quieter, and no steering torque even on full power. my current troller is the first series with the maxxum bracket and there is not any telling how many hours that motor has on it, and is still running like new, and the bracket is still tight as ever. getting back to bracket issues, most of those occur because of mounting the troller bracket at an angle. i have always mounted my trollers with the center line of the boat. that way, you are not twisting the troller bracket everytime you kick the troller on and off. my buddy used to build all of motor guides lower unit housings and used to run motor guides. he will be the first one to tell you that after running his first minn kota that the bracket is better and the motor is quieter. one of my other buddies had a tour grade mg and had lots of problems with the chip card going out, and the bracket was very noisy. he replaced that one with a fortrexx and after getting to run it, will be a long time before trying another mg. i do believe mg has improved their motors, but still have a ways to go with a good bracket. bo

a lot of us old timers always figured in the three year range for lmg to reach 15 inches here on table rock. i see that is not too far off. it is easy to see that after the kill we had, and without any stocking to help out, it really takes a good number of years to even thing about having any kind of a big bass population. it has taken this long since the kill to have just some decent numbers of bass back in the lake let alone numbers of quality bass. the mdc needs to take a look at the success of stocking by the state of texas. it does work. bo

i would suspect that channel edges would work well for flatheads. i am sure there are others that can give you better advice. i just wanted to add a comment, and that is please mark your line with floats as required by the mdc rules. it will prevent other fisherman to not be casting where you have your line. i know that most do not because they fear others are going to be running your line. we came across one the other night that was clearly marked with floats, and it allowed us to avoid being hung up in it because it was marked. i was very appreciative that it was clearly marked so i could avoid it. bo

i will give a thumbs up to the lock-n-haul also. hands down the best out there. you should go to their website and watch videos they have done hauling a rig with theirs against other brands over the same road. it is quite eye opening. it takes 100% of the movement out of your steering. it does not transfer trailer movement to your boat or motor, as happens with saver to the trailer and to the motor. it does not flex like the h style does that clips into the motor housing. bo

some of what you say is true to an extent. table rock is still very short of bass compared to before the fish kill. we are improving however. i do believe that we still have some big bass in the rock, but they have become open water feeders, as pointed out by the lack of cover in the lake any longer. in the lake was not fairly fertile, then we would not have the amount of shad and crawdads that we do. i do believe with some stocking programs, we could see a big increase in available numbers of bass, but catching might still be a bit on the hard side because as i stated earlier, we have forced bass to become open water feeders. case in point, look at the numbers of bigger bass caught when the conditions favor the umbrella rig. i caught several over 5 lbs. during the period of march through may, but all from fishing at night. those same bass, are now suspended following shad. if not, they would show up on structure somewhere and be accessible to be caught. with all that said, big bass fishing in table rock will never be like it used to be. bo

7.8 is impressive anytime of the year on table rock anymore. bo

here is what i have known about table rocks biggest bass. in 1963 there was someone that caught a 12-3, and an 11 something on almost back to back casts, and they were weighed in at eagle rock. i did not witness that first hand, but have heard the same exact story from more than one of the local fisherman around here. i have seen a picture of a 17 that was gigged out of roaring river. i was laying on a bathroom scale, but i can tell you that the bass was most definitely that big. back before beaver lake, and the upper end did not have all the cold water coming down, there were plenty of big bass up here. when they started keeping trout alive below beaver dam, that has been a detriment to fishing on the upper end because it has a very negative effect on the spawn. i still feel that we could get back to some better fishing if the mdc would do some stocking. texas is very successful with their stocking programs. bo

i did check the mill creek results, and 14 lb. won, and they also had a 7.80. as always, there is someone that figures them out. as in the case of eagle rock, i have never been able to do much catching around there when there is a current running. the lower end of the lake is different though. guess that is why it is called fishing and not catching . bo

go to another lake . bo

i did put in at eagle rock and fishing was not good. two keeps and that was it. both came around 25 ft. got on the water just before dark. saw fish in contact in a couple of areas that were around 22ft. did not have any bites though. saw the same strange dense black, 10 to 15ft. thick, goop come up off the bottom in 40 ft. of water, and as it got darker ended up all at the surface on the graph. i have not looked, but they must be running a bunch of water through. i noticed that for a good while, there was a back flow current running. bo

quill, bass are in that stage of trying to get out deeper, but the cooler weather is not helping, nor is the high lake level. did you notice that you went fishing in the future?? i am going to try to get out for a bit tonight. have not decided where to put in. may just put in at eagle rock. bo