merc1997 Bo

fishing beyond the light is really not a true statement. you can catch as many or more fishing directly under the light. we fish for whites and stripers on beaver during the summer on beaver and catch them fishing straight down,and there is most often a scramble to fish under the white lights. it is hard to have too much light in the water. one of the important things is to pay attention to your electronics, and you can see fish movement and have a good idea how deep you be fishing. bo

sometimes, there is nothing like using the real thing. meaning, you might have done better catching the shad circling under your lights. you need shad nets to hang down, and the shad swim into them, and get caught in the netting. setting up in an area where the fish are helps also. there is an art to fishing under the lights and having success. bo

stren did make an excellent braid, but no longer offer it in florescent. spider wire glo-viz is the next best thing, and you can use fireline, but fireline is just ok as far as super lines go. the glo-viz does a good job and is very smooth. comes through the guides noiseless. bo

couple of comments. yep, all those included law enforcement that are texting or holding a phone to their ear while driving is at that point being a bad driver. comment number two is for the parents. why do you allow your children that are driving to get into a car with a phone??? at least, check their phone to see when their activity is, and if they have been on the phone when you know they are driving, take it away. sometimes being a parent you have to be a parent and not a friend. and, as a parent it is up to you to set the example to follow. are you on the phone and driving??? one last point for boaters. the lake is very busy right now. when fishermen are underway, and are dinging and pinging on their electronics, your eyes are not on the waterway. dinging and pinging on your electronics is just the same as texting. think about it. bo

got out for a bit. started around 7:30 pm and fished until one. caught several shorts and only two keepers. the current on the main lake was pretty strong, and consequently, the bites were few and far between. once off the main lake we could find at least some bite. 15ft. is still a good number for bites. beaver type baits were still working. speaking of all the shorts and only two keepers, we were fishing like the Elites, a peckerhead fest!!!!LOL. don't know why the smiley faces aren't working. bo

perhaps not here, but on a national level, there are way more pan fisherman than bass chasers, and yes, the spring is when they are out in force. but, a whole lot of pan fishing goes on from the bank and docks. bo

quill, there are still more crappie chasers than bassers actually. many, many people pan fish, but just do not get the headlines. bo

the best way i know to have a permanent fishing buddies!! bo

since you mentioned shocking, you can not get a true read on a lake by shocking the same few areas all the time. the mdc has not done any shocking in the eagle rock area of tr for eons. they shock james river all the time, and base the entire lake from that. this sure is a long thread starting from someone posting a pic of a few k's they intended to eat. bo

i did not state that i never catch a bass off a bed. what i did state was that i do not go sight fishing. i know that many bassers look forward to going sight fishing each year. i have always never felt the need to sight fish, and put more effort into staying with pre-spawners, and when they are all gone, figure out where they spawned first and start catch those that have. the main point of what i have stated is for those that have been berating this fellow for keeping a few bass to eat do things such as sight fishing that is not good in others eyes. bed fishing is legal and so is keeping some legal bass to eat. bo

sorry that linda's pic is blurry. you have to consider who is operating the phone, me. bo

got to take the wife fishing had a decent night. the bass definitely got more active after the moon came up, but we still had action along before. tried some main lake stuff without any bites at all. got back in the coves and started catching them. the bass were still relating to the channel bank, and the bites were still in the 8 to 15 ft range. will post a couple of pics when linda sends them to me from here phone. you will get a hoot of how she is holding one she caught. she was clutching it as though someone was going to steal it or she was going to hog tie it! best bait started out being the 1/4 head with a beaver type bait, but as we were fishing an area that no bites were coming from and i felt some bass should be there, i picked up a 1/2 Elite with brown and blue skirt, and just put a whacking on them. seemed like i caught a dozen bass in not even 30 minutes. i did catch a few on a 3/16 head with a 1/16 sinker and a 7 inch ringer. caught a lot of really nice keeps, some on the 3lb. range. i will have to admit that linda had me down for a loooooooong time. really main reason we fished until 3 am . i got her to stay with a baitcaster all night, and it will not be long, she will have it down pat. linda has "ARKANSAS RULES" down pat. on the way home, she claimed victory because her catch ratio per cast was better than mine. meaning that she had a few back lashes and those casts did not count . gotta love a competitor! bo

i get the catch and release that most are wanting, but sometimes you need to look at it from a different perspective. what about those that love to hunt trophies of other species such as walleye and cats??? do you not think it might be just as offensive to some every time you eat a walleye, cat, or other species?? i am one that has never liked bed fishing to be allowed in tournaments. let them spawn. in fact, it would be a great idea to divide the lake into sections, and have a closed cove policy on a rotating basis for each section for the month of may. might help with the crappie population also. all of you crappie eaters could quit eating all of them you catch on the upper end of the lake for a year or two so we could get a few back in the lake. . bo

champ, the loss of cover is part of it, but also the brown sludge left over from the yearly green slime is part of the rest of the story. that brown sludge is not only covering what little bit of timber left, but also the bottom of the lake. therefore, it is cutting down on the available crawdad population. remember when you could pull up to the boat ramp at night, and they were always covered up with crawdads. ever see any at all in this day and age. very few if any. we are quickly changing the eco system of the lake not only from the constant sewer going into the lake from all the housing around the lake, but also from the various soaps and other chemicals that go into those inadequate septic systems. plus, how many other various fertilizers weed killers and other things drain in everytime we get some run off?? yep, we are forcing the bass, and other species as well, to become suspended open water feeders. great example of what the crawdad population is doing - i have a friend that traps crawdads, and last summer, he had to set his traps in 45 to 50 feet of water to get any. not many summer bass will spend the energy to feed below the thermocline in the summer. some of the suspended shad chasers will, and it is a very brief feeding window because of the lower O2 levels. side imaging should help some in dealing with these suspended bass. you could at least have an idea of where to throw. here is where a good knowledgeable troller will begin to put everyone to shame. bo

it does however prove what i have been saying for quite some time, that a whole lot of bass have not spawned yet. bo

i am thinking a lot of bass are suspended off shore during the day. i do not think they are very deep, but just hanging with the bait. bo

i am thinking it would work very well since it seems they are wanting a smaller slower bait. bo

finally got a chance to get out for a bit and fished in the eagle rock area. fished some main lake without results, and i really do not know if the bass were not there or was not throwing what it took to get a bite. when we did get to catching them, it was off the main lake on channel banks, and ended up catching them on a 1/4 Nujig with a beaver type bait. most bites were 8 to 15 ft. deep. made me think there might have been a bite on the main lake too if i had been dialed in on lure and presentation. ended up with 7 keeps, and lots of shorts. of the 7 keeps, there was a 4 1/2, and two 3 1/2's. one of the 3 1/2's was a brownie, and i would bet it was one that leonard and i transplanted from the dam area. sure a good sign than maybe some day, we might be able to have a few of the brown critters on the upper end. we quit a little after 1 am. would have liked to have stayed, but got lots of other things to get done today. the trip sure goes to show that you need to keep an open mind on what to throw, and keep changing presentations and speed. in other words, throw what the fish want, not what you want to throw. bo

not too bad of a trip for 6 hours. i've certainly had many worse trips than that. pretty good job. bo

really nice job, and there is nothing like a top water bite. bo

i've had a few of those days over the years, and that is why it is still called fishing and not catching. at least you got some bites. bo

dot three will work fine. given the low capacity of fluid of a surge system, it would be a good idea to flush the system with new fluid. one of the jobs of brake fluid is to absorb moisture. after the fluid has reached its capacity in absorption, you brake system will begin to corrode from moisture. even on your vehicle, you should flush your brake system on a scheduled service. the brake fluid is the life of your anti-lock brake system. you can use a pry bar to work the trailer tongue to pump the master cylinder to push the fluid through the system to replace the fluid and bleed the system. bo

nice bass. i agree with you that the barge traffic is insane. take a look at all the docks they keep allowing to be built and look at what kind of boats are filling them up. it will get worse. the other really scary part is that a big percent of these vessels do not have anyone really qualified to be operating that craft. there is so much boat traffic on the lake now, that you really need just as good of driving skills and knowledge an anyone driving a car on the highway. and, we have not even started on whether they can safely navigate the water, meaning not crossing over submerged timber, shallow bars, ect. bo

cody, that is why it is called fishing and not catching. one thing that caught my attention about your plan of attack, and that is it seemed you fished a lot of gravel. i have not looked in the last few days, but for a while the lake had a ton of water running through it, and was dropping. this will normally pull the better bass of the flats and suspend. this means you will have to either figure out how to deal with the suspended bass, or fish areas that are more vertical where access to the bank is at arms length so to speak. bo

they did not turn up in any of the tournaments in march. mostly the same size as what showed up in the big bass bash. the site fishing stringers were producing the same results. bo