Martin

Nice Flat Walleyerich...!! Thought the photo was going to be a Muskie or walleye. I love those flatheads too ! Especially on a rod and reel. Must have been a great fight . Well done !

Nice report Robert !! We don't hear alot about what's going on way up there. Thank you ! mF

When I came in from walleye fishing out of Holiday Island last spring, he was there and had a couple of keepers. That particular day he had been trolling crankbaits. Yes, he was a good guy, friendly, and obviously knowledgeable.

You want to see LOTS of cigerette boats ?? Come to Cow Creek on any weekend. lol. Make sure your bilge pump is in good working order. Sorry rps, didn't mean to switch subjects. That's a great catch for that time of day in that part of the lake. HOT, HOT, HOT.

CMAC, When I'm up front using a Lowrance LCX 25c, if I'm in 70 to 80 feet of water, or more, I'm sure I'd be at 100% on the sensitivity. Like Capt Joe and others have said, go all manual. Don't let the unit do anything "automatically". I normally hit the "stop chart" on the console unit. That clears up any interference between the two units. Then, when you move to the drivers seat to move to a new spot, just uncheck the "stop chart" box and you're back in business. The unit won't have to re-acquire the satellites.

Randy, you are on a roll.....Great info !!

Well you're right about the submerged forest and lost crankbaits....and bottom bouncers.....and crawler harnesses....lol...It can get very frustrating when you start a run and get only 40 feet or so and get hung-up. My first go-round there I lost 4 - $8.00 crankbaits in about 20 minutes. When the lake very very low, (a long time ago), I marked all the nastiest tree's with danger waypoints. I STILL get hung up every trip. By the way, I hit the lower lake this morning and caught only Kentuck's. 38 or so feet seemed to be the ticket. I didn't troll any cranks. Just bottom bounced with crawlers / harnesses. It got HOT and rough (boat waves) around 9:30. I hung in there until about 10:45. One of the Kentucky's was huge. They all went back to their deep water shad schools.

There is no such place on Tablerock. It's at Norfork.

No, the powers that be has specific sign requirements / letter size / yada, yada, yada.... I wanted to make a sign. It would have been very easy, but my spineless neighbors out voted me and wanted an "official" sign. As you would expect, several "sign companies" popped out of nowhere to make those oh-so hard-to figure-out signs.....lol..... Oh well, 6 bucks and change and I'm in with the in-crowd again. lol.....

Another little trick many of you guys probably know about is....If you are puting / idling along (maybe trolling) and right when you have your handsfull, doing something, you go right over a killer brushpile with fish all over it, but you missed hitting the waypoint button, you can quickly use your cursor and run it back to the brushpile, hit your waypoint button. Your new waypoint will be at the brushpile (or wherever your cursor was) and not 40 or 50 feet off. Another little trick I use for marking things that won't be there the next day or next week (like a big school of shad), use an icon instead of wasting a waypoint. Just hit ENT twice at the point you want your icon. You can also hit enter once, then pick your symbol you want for that day, hit ENT again, you get your icon in whatever symbol you picked from the chart that showed up after you hit enter (ENT) the first time. The only downside to that is that the units won't share icons, but they WILL share waypoints if you have both units turned on and have checked the "allow waypoint sharing" box on both units. It's all in the manual, if you need clarification. (And I'm sure you do after having me try and explain it) lol .

Chief GB.....The dock owners have to foot the bill for the dock address signs. I had to pay 2/12th's of the cost of our sign. (2 slips in a 12 slip dock). The total bill for a "professionally made sign" was about 40.00. So my part was less then 7 bucks.

Super catch rps !!

If you want to stay with the guys in Golden, that's fine, but buy Trojan batteries. They sell them, or at least they did the last time I was in there. The Trojans will still be blowin and goin when those pro-guides are dead.

Great report Mike. Wish I could break free, but it's not in the cards this week.

Back to the question: Ironic that I got a phone call last evening about 9:00 p.m. from some neighbors up the road. The live about 1/4 mile from me by road, about 1/8 mile from me as the crow flies. They asked if I wanted to see a 49 inch rattlesnake. I said I did, but please take a photo. I was just too darn tired to put my shoes back on and head up there. I'll see if they got the photo and post it if possible. In any event, there are definately rattlesnakes in the area. A 49 incher isn't a Pygmy, must be a Timberrattler. Again, watch where you step, and watch where you put your hands.

I have 2 fairly old fly tying stations ( 3 way folding) and the drawers have lots of old stuff in them. There are also 2 storage boxes with assorted "stuff" and tools....See photo's...... Asking $110.00 for the whole deal. Call 417-779-3673 or 779-2008 if interested. Thanks, Martin Well, the photo's are taking forever to load, so e-maqil me if you want more photo's... mandj@hughes.net

I'm pretty sure they are talking about the creeks near Baxter. Little Indian runs through Dogwood Canyon before entering the lake. The Carroll Electric guys that cut those swaths through the forest see alot of snakes and told me that thge Little Indian / Dogwood Canyon area has more and bigger Copperheads then anywhere they've worked. We got into the discussion after they helped me kill a really large Copperhead on the road next to my house. We have also seen more Pygmy Rattlesnakes in the last few years then we used to. When they rattle, it sound like a bee buzzing. We've had 2 Timber Rattlers killed within a few hundred feet of my place last year. None so far this year. We had to "remove" a large Cottonmouth doing his courting dance at the dock this spring. We have many water snakes and do not mess with them unless we have swimmers in the water. The big Cottonmouth was floating in a coil. He was floating very high, as somebody said, like he was made of styrofoam. Then, he would flip upside-down, still coiled, and float that way for awhile. Very neat to see, but.....a very dangerous snake, so he "went away". I live in Cow Creek, SE of Lampe, North of Blue Eye. I agree with most everybody. The are lots of copperheads, and a few rattlesnakes & cottonmouths. They are there, just watch where you step.

I'm with Capt Joe...... shhhhhhhh........quiet please.......lol

Nicely done !! A 26.5 inch walleye is a VERY nice fish. I can't quite tell from the photo, is there a split ring and snap on the wart, or just a snap??

Ham, I use mostly 2 oz bouncers but I know people that start fishing shallower and they use 1 1/2 oz bouncers from say, 10 to 17 feet of water. I finally realized that I need to keep it as simple as possible, so I just bought a bunch of 2 ozer's and they work fine for me all the way to about 30 deep. I do have a few 3 oz bouncers I use up front if I have others fishing bouncers farther back in the boat. Helps keep tangles down with my rig more vertical. You hit the nail on the head for tying spinner rigs. Most guys use floro in about 14 to 17 pound test. Spinners seems to work better on the stiffer line. I use superline on my reel. I use 15 lb test Fireline BRAID or Power Pro, any of those high strength, low strecth lines are fine. You will lose a bouncer once in awhile, but it's usually the spinner (harness) that gets hung up. I use # 3 and # 4 blades. Indiana or colorado is fine. I also use # 4 hooks (keeping it simple) and tie 2 hook rigs and some 3 hook rigs. I rarely add a float but I've recently started using some BPS "body spacers" instead of multiple beads. The spacers float and I caught several eyes with those rigs at Bull Shoals last week. The rod you mentioned sounds fine. I haven't used any Gulp or Gulp Alive, but guys I know say they work "sometimes". It's hard to beat a big, fat, live nightcrawler. The main thing to remember is to get the boat moving with your electric trolling motor before you let this rig down. The idea is to get close to the bottom but not dragging on the bottom. 1 mph is usually about right for me. Anywhere from .8 to 1.2 mph is kind of the speed range that works for me. It takes awhile to get used to trying to keep the boat at a fairly exact depth, while maintaining exact speed, and letting out the exact amount of line. lol. You are constantly adjusting line length. Hope this helps.

ar.walleyes, you are one tough dude ! It was H O T yesterday (Sunday). I would have liked to stay longer, but most of my crew were really sunburned and tired. (They DID use lots of sunscreen). Glad the keeper ratio got better for you. The bite really does change throughout the day. Were you still using crawlers and bouncers ? And Ron Burgundy, ouch ! A $250.00 reminder to measure your fish good and don't cheat.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere !

Just got home from fishing the mid to lower lake area since Friday. We didn't get in to Peel until after lunch and ended up fishing 3:30 to 6:30.. Had 12 walleyes with only 3 being keepers...But catching 12 walleyes anywhere is fine with me.....lol.... Saturday, didn't get out until 10:00 a.m. and ended up with 4 keepers out of ??? walleyes total...Had a boatload of rookies and kids, so we all had fun (it resembled work for me), but several of the kids and grandkids caught their first walleye of their lives, and that was my mission. This morning we only fished a couple of hours but it seemed much tougher. We had 2 walleyes, one of which was 17.9999999 inches long, but we threw her back. I'm not going to teach those little boys to cheat. All fish were caught with bottom bouncers, crawler harnesses and nightcrawlers. Friday they were hanging out around 25 to 26 feet. Sat they were all around 20 feet and today, everything was at 17 to 19 feet. Everybody had fun. Lots of "stop and go swimming", cause it was hot ! Tired, sunburned. Just the way I like it ! lol.

Well I'm glad you guys had a good day ! Sometimes it seems if I report on a good bite, it is the kiss of death for that "good bite". lol. It is fun to catch a bunch of fish, even if they are not giants, on light or ultra light tackle. Were the whites about the right size for eating ?

If you want to have some fun, grab an light or ultra-light rod and go catch some giant bluegills. These dudes are big, and are biting really good right now. Sorry I don't have a photo in the computer yet. I've been using either 4 or 6 lb test, no. 4 (no. 2 will work), long shank hook, a number 5 or so split shot. We've had our best luck nose hooking a whole nightcrawler, throw it out in 11 to 14 feet of water, let er sink. Then reel intermittently, very slow. When it gets heavy, set the hook ! My granddaughter hooked and landed a 17 inch smallmouth last evening while bluegill fishing. What a fight ! Oh yeah, points or better yet, gravel points have been best. Have fun !