rps

Used the moon this morning to run down lake to Rock Creek. Sometimes there is an early morning school bite there or near Point 26. Not this morning. Zero fish on the top water. Every top bite I saw was a million miles away and looked smallish. Caught one nice keeper size Spot on a jig with chompers but only one other bass. I did have a keeper walleye volunteer to go home with me on the plastic. About 8:30 or 9:00 I started trolling flats for walleye on the way back to Holiday Island. I started in the 20 to 25 foot range with the bait on or just above bottom. No joy. I was back upstream from HI by noon and caught another keeper walleye at 25 feet over 30 feet of water. He was near the drop off to the river channel among some sticks. I hadn't been on the water for a week so it was nice to get out. It was also nice to arrange dinner for this evening. However, with the heat and the 88 degree water, it was almost like work out there.

Martin: I've been out of town. Share with us the depth you found the walleye. Thanks in advance.

family + fishing = heaven :-)

I'll give you my opinion for free. Of course, it may only be worth what you pay for it. TR is not as bad as LOZ. Yes there are big houses with big docks with big slips with big boats. But not near as many as on LOZ. Yes we complain about the idiots (can I use that term?) who wake us and pull other stunts, but the reality is that it is not an every day thing, even at the dam end of the lake. Those who fish down there can confirm or refute that. As for your question about a 20' deck boat, I think that will be more than sufficient. I am fishing out of an 18' aluminium Xpress bay boat and once in a while have to grab the post seat for balance. The broader beam and longer length of the deck boat will reduce your problems even further. I won't wait until you get here, welcome to TR.

Whack'em asks, "What do we do?" Good question. Try this. Copy the entire thread here, and maybe the other one. Send it to several places: The MDC or the Arkansas Fish and Game rep for your area, MDC and AFG at the state capital, your local state representative, and your governor. Be sure you show you have sent copies to each so everyone knows they can't pass the buck. Ask that they have hearings that establish and implement science based requirements for tournaments during the spawn and hot summer months. Be sure you say you don't oppose fishing or tournaments. Only that you want rules that will help insure your children and grandchildren can enjoy the same resources you enjoy. If nothing else this will make everyone aware there are intelligent fishermen that care and who want something other than an all or nothing approach. BTW the guides and resort owners need to add this to their organizations agenda - I assume many do belong to professional or industry organizations. Am I wrong about that?

I am referring to Security Update KB951748 issued a few days ago. MS found another truck size hole in its code which allowed breach by hackers. The update was designed to fill that hole (probably with more bloated code writing) and the end result did not agree with Zone Alarm. Zone Alarm has since issued an update of its own. You install the Zone Alarm patch first and then the MS patch. I run Zone Alarm because it receives high ratings from experts not paid to say so. I don't like it that much. It is not intuitive, it is a resource hog, and its undisciplined. When it wants to do something, whether its a scan or an update, nothing will stop it from using 98 percent of the resources until it is done. However, it is as protective as it advertises. It says something that I use equipment on which both the operating system and the firewall/antivirus cause me fits of ambivalence.

Bill First, and very importantly, you are right to be disgusted with abuse of resources. You are also right to advocate intelligent and science based handling of fish to be released. Keep at it. People who advocate are the ones responsible for the dominance of catch and release thinking. I support what you say in this thread and in the other one. Unfortunately, you have just run into vested interest land. Big money has become involved in televising bass and walleye tournaments. The best of these events carefully schedule to avoid the conditions which dictate the steps you describe. FROM THIS POINT ON I HAVE MODIFIED MY POST AFTER READING WHAT A NUMBER OF FELLOW MEMBERS HAVE WRITTEN IN THE OTHER THREAD CURRENTLY RAGING ABOUT A FISH KILL. The rest can't do that, and the results, in terms of fish kill, are wildly uneven and not successful. Good tournament directors exist at many levels below those big dollar events. Unfortunately not at all, and the shame is that they are more important at the tournaments not in the big leagues. Why? Because the lower level tournaments are more likely to happen at locations after the summer thermocline has set in. Also those fishing at the lower levels are not as likely to be well educated on the necessary steps to avoid massive fish kills. The evidence to support this is in the dead fish Bill and others talk about in their posts. Everyone except my wife has fallen in love with the idea of a central weigh in where big men fling fish in the air to be admired. Any rational steps to avoid the death traps such behavior creates in the summer will be resisted: It isn't manly to fish measure and release. Bubba might lose a tournament he would have won if his fat fish were weighed against that other fellow's skinny one. How can Roy Jim be sure Bubba didn't cheat if he can't see the fish Bubba claims. Why limit the tournament to three fish when the limit in the state is five? The list goes on and that doesn't even begin to address the costs that truly proper care would entail. I remember the death and injury toll among anglers when bass tournaments first started imitating the BASS shotgun starts. It takes too long, but if all us keep working and writing, we can eventually have some effect on the fish kill problem. Hopefully, we won't have to resort to that European country rule that banned catch and release fishing.

22 inches is a serious fish. Certainly larger than anything I have caught this year or last. The charts say 6 to 7.5 depending for 22 inches. Tell him I am envious. rps

Because the cloud cover delayed dawn I wasn't on the water until 5:30. Nothing on topwater today. Zero. I started fishing a C rig fish doctor in watermelon seed. Before the clouds blew out I had ten Spotted Bass in the boat. Two or three jumped off and one broke off on underwater trash. The fish were shallow - 12 to 17 feet -and feeding on or next to points like Stubblefield Branch, Sawmill, and the point next to 86 bridge. Only two or maybe three would have been legal, but I had a great time anyway. Didn't get a bump when I went trolling for walleye.

Meat rub and Grill Seasoning Use a coffe mill, the kind with the little blades that whirl. Put in it: 1 tbs. Brown sugar 1 tsp. cumin seed 1 tsp. coriander seed 1 tsp. paprika 1 tsp. chilli powder 1 tsp. onion powder 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. Old Bay 1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns 1/2 tsp. white peppercorns 1/4 tsp cayenne Whirl until the seeds are fine ground. Rub on and wash your hands before you touch any mucous membrane. NOTE: If I brine the meat in salt and sorghum water, I cut the salt and brown sugar from the blend. I tinker with this mix every time. Lately I've been using smoky paprika and give that an A+.

Went out at 5:00. Fished hard until 2:30. Not the best day but not a shut out. I put 5 bass in the boat, all but one spotted. Two were legal size, but just barely. One legal came on topwater. All the other fish were plastic crawfish imitator victims. All the fish came from points where a channel swing ran down one side i.e. Jolmes Branch, Owl Creek, Devils Backbone. I was only connecting with about half the bites. It seemed many fish were sucking in and immediately moving toward deeper water (the boat position). Frankly, I reeled as fast as I could to catch up and stick them, but obviously I didn't do that well. One funny - early I had an explosion on the spook. Fish charged back toward cover and broke me off in the mess. Twenty or thirty seconds later, long enough for me to reel in my slack line, the fish jumped about five feet from where I lost her. She shook and threw the spook loose. I guess she wasn't a collector and had been window shopping. Pity. It was the best fish I saw yesterday, maybe 3.5 pounds. I was glad to get the spook back. The one before that broke off is still out there. I trolled the backbone, the flat/point number 26, the bluff upstream from Eagle Rock, Stubblefield bluff and a spot above Holidy Island for walleye. One strike, keeper size walleye from 25 feet, and then I managed to knock it off the lure with my net. I need to go to net school I guess. BTW to any that overheard me after I knocked the fish off, I apologize for my language. At times of extreme stress I tend to sound like my father, a veteran of the Cardin/Picher lead and zinc mines.

I just had dinner and you've made me hungry all over again. rps

Aren't we lucky?

Just now I started laughing out loud at the posts in this thread. My wife of 36 years looked up and asked what was so funny. She was disappointed I would laugh at something like that. I told her I would promptly chastise you for your inappropriate behavior. Consider yourselves chastised.

When I was young and very very very stupid, I used to fish at night in farm ponds in my belly boat. One night I had one collide with the back of my neck. Felt like a rat trying to crawl down my shirt in the middle of the pond. If I had been a cartoon character I am sure I would have walked on water. Now days you couldn't get me in the water at night without snakeproof waders and a 12 guage pistol.

Thank you for the complete report. I respect and I am grateful for the time that you, Don, and Bill spend every week to make so much information public.

I fished about three hours yesterday after the thunderboomers cleared. It was still lightly raining when I went out. Just because, I fished topwater for an hour. I've often done well on dark days. Not yesterday. I switched to dark plastic crawfish imitators (berkley sabertail, beaver, netbait pacacraw tubes) on jig heads and caught four bass (three spots and one LM) and one walleye during the next hour and a half. None would measure although every one of them was close. I tried to make the walleye longer but he wouldn't budge off 17.5. All came off 3 main lake points when I threw the jig outside of the tree line and dragged down to 20+ feet. I was going to fish a fourth point, but had to tow a skiboat back to its dock instead. As I wrote in techo's thread, I have used up my nice for the year. Cave canem.

While up with my middle of the night wake period, I compared this years reports with last years. I found the topwater water bite faded this year a full two weeks earlier than last. There were several good topwater bite reports during the third week of july last year. I even made one or two of them. Last year there was no jig bite like this year. It was shallow early and drop shot after that. Last year, by the 15th the thermocline was down at 26 feet and the bait balls were just beginning to gather. This year big bait balls are exist already up here, but the thermocline appears to be shallower at this point. Is there a diver out there or someone with one of those tools who can give us the official thermocline report? Anyone care to add their observations?

Learned the hard way today that the latest update to XP (home and professional) has a bug if you are using Zone Alarm AV and Firewall. The end result is NO internet access. After much telephoning finally got an answer. Use Control Panel to undo update and wait until the bug is fixed befrore installing the update.

In the 80's I owned a Lowe. Right now I own an Xpress. Very happy with both. I have been told by several the G3 is very good.

Sorry Techo. I wasn't out yesterday. I went out after the Tstorms today and wound up towing a skiboat back to its dock. That officially used up all my nice for the year. From here on out I am in curmudgeon mode. As for you dilemma, I suggest the official fixit of the Ozarks - lots of duct tape. If that doesn't fix it, it can't be fixed. ;-D Seriously, try taping it up. Every day it works after you tape it is a day you don't have to buy a new transducer. Good luck.

On Monday I went upriver by boat to the 62 bridge. That is about 6 miles downstream from the dam and near the reasonable end of the trout water. The water was brown and had about a foot of visibility. Surface temp at the 62 bridge was 70 degrees. The water was much higher than "normal" for July but well below the debris stuck in trees ten feet up. Much can change in a month, however. Check back to the site and at the Dam store regularly. BTW, therew are some very very large trout in the six mile stretch above the 62 bridge.

When I was growing up, one of the comic book super heroes had gills and webbed feet. I think his name may have been Aquaman. Anyway, as I sit here and look at the rain and lightning (I don't mind fishing in rain, but I won't fish in lightning), I am beginning to think it would sure help to be like him. I could enjoy this year's weather and I could explore the lake without bulky tanks and awkward equipment. Questions for the guides: Do many/most of your clients want to fish on a day like today? If they do want to fish, do they expect you to supply the rain gear? Do most of them understand the difference between rain and lightning? Just curious is all.

My goof. I should have clicked on the picture to expand it before I wrote. Oh well, we agree. It would have been nice if it were a rainbow.

In many ways that rainbow is more impressive than the browns you caught the other day. Ignoring the "old days" people like my father experienced, in more modern times (1980 to present) the fishing pressure has made a large rainbow like that comparatively rare. I've caught several browns in the seven to eleven range (still waiting on my teenager - 13, 14, ...) but my largest rainbow in all that time has been a five and a half. Way to go.