SKMO

Well how old are you? I'm just 23 but I quit ripping up carpet iin my boat in my late teens as I was getting the spots I marked all sprayed over and it got too confusing. Then I realized there was no such thing as a "spot". Unless of course you know how to use GPS and then "spots" take on real significance.

Yep, the birds can be your friend. There are usually not that many gulls around on the lake, so even 6-8 that continually cruise a spot usually indicate shad below. Fishing is always spotty for me. I am not wishing for bitter cold weather but I think water temp around 38-40 would put them in more of a winter pattern, at least concentrating the shad in some of the coves and prompting some shad kill. Seems to me it is more of a fall pattern out on the gravel, and with uniform water temp down to 70+ feet makes them even harder to pin down as to a depth. I looked at the side imaging H-Birds as well. I imagine this might be a technology that could displace the current standard over the next few years. Personally I have a hard time trying to interpret the image, but I could probably get used to it. Also it seemed to me that you would not be able to see your rig on a vertical presentation and that would be a deal breaker for me.

They were all spots.

Would not have even posted this except it was 12/27 since Babs put anything on and it seems a shame for the site to not have some TR Bass info even if was not that informative, so I will punt. There are a relatively large nember of bassers in the Baxter area and on up the White past SK to Big M. Several guides and lots ot hard core guys I know and recognize. My point being just "maybe" the bite here is as good or better than anywhere on the lake. Maybe. Went out New Years Day about 1200-1700. No new or exciting info! Two of us caught 14 fish with 4 legals in that time period. It was an OK/average afternoon excursion. Water temps around SK still 49. We did not catch a single fish in less than 65' of water, although some of them were suspended about 30' deep over Nothing. Talk about a fish and shad hunt we had one. Caught all our fish way out in the middle of the lake where we saw scattered shad balls. Fished 5" smoke grubs and they bit them real well if and when we got over some fish, but it is a big lake and more or less a crap shoot to get something in the cone to present to. Water temp profile seems uniform down to way-deep (70') so these fish can be about anywhere. The guys that have confidence in the 2-20' fish are catching a few on jigs and whatnot. Don't get me wrong I think a fellow could do real well on some shallow fish when the stars lined up but I am an offshore guy and not a good source of info on the shallow bite right now. A bit later, a few weeks from now ... watch out. When the shallow fish wake up I'll be plugging away right in the midst of it. It's approaching the time of year where about anything can work with some cloud cover and a bit of a breeze. Not sure if we will ever get a real winter pattern (wiith mid 30s water temps and a shad kill) but I am already looking forward to the Feb stickbait bite. Tight Lines - SKMO

Fished with a buddy Sun afternoon around SK. Did the deep water thing in the mouths of coves and found shad in the first two places we checked. Gulls tipped me off to one location which I would not have fished otherwise. Other location has been holding shad for several weeks. Struggled to catch maybe 8 in these two spots over a couple hours, with one keeper. All KYs. Then went looking for greener pastures with similar shad that might be more productive. Checked about 6 other cove mouths and inside coves with zero shad or success. So wasted quite a bit of time on a shad hunt. Fished the end of a big gravel flat in 62' of water and popped 3 real quick when I found some shad around a brushpile. One keeper. Had 30 minutes left and went back to cove#2 where we had left a big concentration of shad and caught 4 more with 2 keepers. Final tally 15 fish with 4 keepers. All Ky's. Caught on smoke grub and big tubes. Would not bite a spoon or a dropshot. At least not for us. The shad we found were huge concentrations and very easy to stay on, but I was not seeing a lot of large fish roaming around them. All in about 60-65' of water. In the guts of coves, and in the one instance on a main lake flat. When you find them they will light up your screen. About half the time my depthfinder was telling me I was in 40' of water when I was actually in 60-70, they were that thick. Water temp was around 49. I think I made a mistake ever leaving the huge concentrations looking for something better. Probably better to bob around working where you know there is baitfish and begging for the occaisional bass and hoping something will turn on big time. Talked w/some guys who were catching some shorts shallow on jigs, and one guy who had caught a couple real nice fish in shallow on a stickbait.

That dock was actually constructed and installed by MDC, and it is "co-sponsored" by Sport Boats. It is my favorite ramp on the lake and I launch there a lot. Not sure why I forgot to mention it. Perfect slope, plenty of parking and never any congestion.

My notes include: I always use an egg wash, usually with a liberal amount of soy sauce and spices added to the wash. Dry the fillets off real well with paper towells before soaking in the egg. I always cut the fillets into inch-wide strips at a diagonal to the fillet. More breading, more grease, less healthy I know. Depending on the mood and what I can find quick in the cabinet the spices I use are Cajun seasonings (try to find some with lower proportions of salt and more spices), Cavenders Greek Seasoning, Emeril's Essence, and always some McCormicks "Old Bay" seafood seasoning. Old Bay has a ton of celary salt which for some reason is good on fish/seafood. Fish that tend to be heavy fishy flavored like white bass or catfish or anything I might have had in the freezer a while I'll go heavy on the spice. Fresh crappie or walleye etc. I go light on the spice. For breading I use about 30% corn flakes, 50% potato flakes (instant pot's) and 20% Louisiana brand corn meal based breading (there are a few flavors), all mixed together. Mix it up in a big zip-loc bag. Whatever you do not use zip up and toss into the freezer for next time. Sometimes saltine cracker crumbs. If you use a cracker like Ritz or much cereal with sugars in them they will brown deeper and quicker. This can be an advantage or disadvantage. With big fillets they can be almost burned looking and not really quite done so too much sugar is to be avoided. It's ALL good if you start with decent fish.

I am not much of a photographer so excuse me if I do not use the correct terms. If I have a digital photo that I crop and it does not end up in the original height to width ratio and I want to have it commercially printed, what usually happens? For example I just want to zoom in and crop a pic of a long skinny fish. Will the print come out with the whole fish represented with a white or black zone above/below the fish. Or will I get a print of a chopped off fish as they expand the thing to the correct dimensions. Not sure if I have asked this to where anyone can understand my question. I have uploaded some digitals to Wal-Mart for printing and it seems to happen both ways. Anyway if anyone could offer suggestions about cropping/trimming photos for printing it would be appreciated. Tight Lines - SKMO

Cajun - Off the top of my head I can think of a few: The Shell Knob Bridge (operated by Barry County I think). It's a good double ramp but limited parking during busy season. There is also a ramp just upstream of the Cape Fair Bridge, on the east bank. This is some kind of neighborhood association ramp I have used a couple times. Decent ramp and if you don't park correctly some old f*rt comes down and puts a nastygram under your wiper about learning how to park better. Also one in AR SE of Blue eye where Cricket Creek and Long Creek split. This is just a gravel ramp but actually OK and can put the 20' Skeeter in w/no problem. Theres a gravel ramp in Wooley Creek. There are probably several more I don't know about. Most better ramps are Corps ramps that they charge I think $3/day, or I just buy a season pass for $30 (I think it is 30). To me all the Corps ramps are OK and I have never not been able to launch, just need to realize that individual ramp angles change with the different water levels and trailer in and out accordingly. I don't mind crawling out of my window into the bed of the truck as long as I can "get 'er done" on and off. I have heard people say that if a neighborhood or community ramp exists they cannot prevent you from using it, but I am not sure if this is true. But it would explain the Cape Fair ramp I mentioned.

Seems like they pretty much just poured the ramps on the existing grade. Some of them are steeper than others. Campbell Point is bad flat, Mill Creek has a pretty decent grade.

I went as far as Jakie. There is some dangerous trash but not very much. It's more of a problem early in the AM if it has been calm all night. After some wind most gets pushed to shore. As usual though they can show up about anwhere and any time so you still need to be alert. I would not call it "muddy" anywhere now. Dingy or off-color would probably be a better description. Probably 3' visability. I would expect it to actually be more clear up around Blue Hole. Once the Kings River runnng in from AR runs clear the extreme upper und usually gets more clear then the plug of muddy water moving down the lake.

Went out about Noon today and fished 4 hrs upstream of Viola where I put in. I got kind of beat beat up on the main lake the last couple trips and figured I'd get beat up in some new scenery and in places I am used to the abuse. Had my 17 yr old Daughter who is a real good Sport as far as humoring me goes. She is pretty darn good on a spinning outfit and causes minimal problems,. She can outcast me on a 12# spinning rig but then I hate spinning rigs, Her biggest problem as far as I can see it that she won't head to the shore to pee so this limits our trips to about 4 hours. She caught a 16" LM and two barely short LM, plus a legal crappie on a small white spinerbait. I caught a 15.01 legal LM, a 18 LM and 6 shorts on a crank. Overall a super-nice afternoon as we saw a lot of eagles and one Osprey that followed us all afternoon. Fished transition banks only and caught at least one fish everywhere we stopped. Temps ran a fraction up or down from 50 no matter where were went, we did not get past Jakie. Talked to 3 different boatloads of crappie hunters while out there. Bite seems to be on and off. Minnow danglers do good one day on the deep trees, jig guys do good on the upper river mud another. Concensus seems to be we (they) need colder water to pattern the things. As far as Viola RAMP goes... this is going to be a world-class mess this Spring. The Corps has put back in a T-configured dock right on the edge of the two-lane ramp. The T section end of the dock effectively turns it into a 1-lane ramp as the T blocks usage of the near lane. I cannot figure out why in the heck they put the perpendicular T-section on the end anyway. Makes it impossible to easily and quickly dock and moor and in this case the T blocks the use of one lane of the ramp. If they don't get this fixed before white bass/crappie season in March this will be the most screwed up ramp on the entire lake. Guarentee that. Call or write the Corps if you have an interest in using the Viola ramp this Spring.

If ypu go the Search function for this forum and search on "walleye" in the Table Rock ARCHIVE section I think you will find a fair amount of walleye nformation. Make sure you are searching the archive, not the current thread. There is also some information in the Kings River forum There's quite a bit of general and specific info there that I and other people put up last winter. No reason to retype it all as long as you can find it. After readng through the old threads fire away with any questions you still have! Best local "run" is up the Kings but there are some other options.

Mike - I think your downrigger idea is awesome. I have only talked with one person who did it and he was a transplant from Colorado and had a boat already set up. If I remember right he trolled in-line spinners and thin blade flutter spoons in the lower James and around K-city. He said did really well with it catching all species: whites, blacks, crappie etc. I would think in the summer dragging that thing around the thermocline could be pretty productive as long as you could stay out of the trees. I know of a few people who troll a deep diving crankbait on 3-way swivel down to 25-30' or so (Hellbender) with a spinner trailer and I guess this comes kind of close to what you are shooting for. Hard to imagine there is not someone else doing the downrigger thing on the lower lake. Let us know how the endeavor turns out, I am really curious. Also hope any bass caught are released for the next guy, you should be able to dredge up pleanty of meal fare of other species.

Cotton Candy what? I think you are posing that question to CMAC perhaps. He was the one pondering a favorite color. Cotton Candy can be a hot color at times and I have a couple bags of it in dropshot worms and grubs. There is a lot of clear stuff with glitter that I have as well. I tend to think the real purty stuff is meant more to attract fishing lure buyers than fish and I am as guilty as anyone as falling for that one. I have several pounds of lovely plastic that is doing nothing more than than weighing the boat down that. I have this one grub I think it's called "blue tinsel ice" or something like that that's just georgous, I'm thinking of having a couple made into earrings for my wife for Xmas, it is that pretty. When I am begging/finesse fishing for a bite I usually stick to basic subdued natural hues, smokes, greys, off-whites, shades of green. I'm more apt to throw something snazzy swimming a grub on the gravel which to me is more of a reaction bite. Honestly I think we all get desperate a lot of the time looking for a magic color when it does not exist. When I was learning the lake (and I am still learning the lake) I'd get the specifics and try to duplicate the bait: "Joe Bob was fishing a Purple Prune Thingamajig and tore them up" So I'd but some purple prune thingamajigs and get skunked. What I needed to key in on was the fact that Joe Bob was fishing his in 25'-35' of water on secondary point bluff ends with a transition to gravel with a deep channel nearby, and it was an afternoon bite. Had I gone for that I'd probably gotten bitten on about anything I presented that got down there in Joe Bobs sweet spot. The problem is our location, timing and presentation, and the fact we are not fishing around active fish. But I have said that before.

CMAC - No offense taken whatsoever. I knew you were probing tongue-in-cheek. If it's any consolation the fish from that "hotspot" have completely disappeared, along with the shad. Now not so much a hotspot as the Sahara Desert of fishes, a location they seem to have vacated with a vengance.

http://www.shellknob.com/fishing.htm Has Tom's email address

CMAC - I will say the location was within a reasonably short boat ride of Point 17 if that is any help. Actually it would not be all that helpful if I gave you the exact location because it would change by the time you got there. Pretty hard to put the same thing together 2 days in a row as far as I am concerned. Every day starts out as a shad/fish hunt and if you thought I was giving some inside skinny you would be wrong cause I start from scratch every day. The grub however was EXACTLY a Kinami "Natural Shad". I would call it a smoke with some gold/silver/black glitter. 3/8 oz head. I do not think there is anything magic about this grub color. A smoke base color seems to be a real good starting point most of the time and I don't change colors a lot. Recently throwing it because it was what I have handy and they seemed to bite it. Smokes and shades of green are hard to beat. I think it is 70% right place and time, 30% confidence in your presentation, 10% color selection, and 10% how much trouble you think you might be in once with the Little Lady once you get home after wasting another day fishing, so YOU do the math. I tend to confuse myself if I try to pin down a color selection to the Gnat's butt and get distracted from the fact that is not a color problem, but a problem that I am fishing nowhere near active fish. One of my favorite Winter colors is Kalin's "Spilled Milk". Kind of a milky white grey. A few years ago people used to take smoke grubs and put some water in the bag to "milk them up" and turn them kind of whitish, and this color comes close. It's probably my imagination but I like lighter/whiter plastics as the water gets colder.

Yeah RL has learned and forgotten way more than I will ever know about this lake. Just an amazing guy who has seen TR in it's heyday and still gets pumped up enough to get out there and chase the tough fish year round. Another kind of funny thing about him is that he will still go out in the middle of the day in July/Aug and fish these deep trees in the middle of the lake channel. I personally am frightened and annoyed by the jet ski/Cobalt/Ski boat crowd and stay off the lake then, but he told me he has yet to get run over, "though I've had some really close calls". I wonder (doubt) if there is another individual fisherman on this lake that has lifted more poundage of fish over the side of the boat than this guy.

I added some pics of a few of todays fish that managed to make it ito the boat. Not great photography but we need some real life fin and scales to look at here as the trout slimers are putting us to shame. Caught about 20 w/9 legals. As is my usual trip started out the day with 3 hours of nothing. Finally found some fish on a real distinct rock ridge, and caught 2 that would measure and a bunch of shorts. Some on spoons and some on grubs. Saw a boat (guide boat as it turns out) that shot past me and worked a spot real hard for 45 minutes then left. Not being too proud to think I might learn something I immediately went to scoping out his spot as soon as he officially vacated it and he went down lake. Was just curious as to what was going on there. Not much as I soon found out, which was why he left. So I slid ..... on down the bank. Long story short I stumbled into a really nice bunch of fish a couple hundred yards past where he had stopped. Screen lit up and I caught 7 legal KY's in a little more than an hour. They were still stacked in there when I left but I had to go and had caught all the easy biters. My experience has alway been it goes downhill from the initial bite, guess they dive back down and warn the cohorts about whatever I am dangling. This was definitely a different pattern/structure than I had related my last good trip... which was way deep water with shad over treetops. (Oh by the way I did have a trip from Hell recently where I neither caught, saw, smelled or otherwise detected any type of fish in Table Rock, but I guess I forgot to tell you about that). Today for some reason this pod of fish today was on a ho-hum gravel point and only about 40' deep, right on the bottom. In any case it's shaping up to be a great Winter on the Rock. The fish are there, but plan on taking a few hours to find them, as they are realy mobile right now and you will probably have to modify your game plan from day to day.

Brief follow up to Tues trip report: Went same spots Fri Aft and kind of struggled. Caught 3 KY 13-14" with no keepers, and 3 white bass 2-2.5 lbs. All the WB were caught on a big bulky sand tube which was a little strange as I did not fish it that much. Sat morning better, fishing between 10:30 and 2:30 I think I had 11 with 4 legal including a 17" LM and 17" KY. Nothing extrordinary or huge but enough to keep me interested until I had to leave. Water temps hovering 50-51 between Baxter and SK and the dingy water had made it to Big Bay. I heard it was 47-48 in the clear water up the White toward Big M. Caught all bass 40-55' deep on spoons around shad. Most shad were in the deepest guts of the side coves in 80-90' of water right at the cove mouth. I also saw some nice bunches on gravel points/flats in 50-60 but never caught any there, but did not spend much time with them either. Overall for me deep water with shad in the top of submerged timber. If I am lucky enough to be there the time or two each day they happen to go on a feed it can be pretty good. Otherwise it's just bouncing stuff in and around the treetops for the occasional fish but they are certainly down there. The shad seem actually fairly easy to locate right now, but that's only about half the battle, the other half being locating shad in locations bass want to hang out, and being there when they are not already stuffed to the gills with shad. Pun intended. Had you not picked up on it I am pretty keyed in on "shad" during this time of year. Ever wondered where the expression "stuffed to the gills" originated? Saw a lot of guys pounding the banks with hardware and jigs but never got to talk with anyone so don't know whats going on there. By the time I left at 2:30 most bass rigs were well offshore so I would guess not much.

When I was shopping for it a few months ago I was told the same thing by Lowrance. They actually let me talk w/a sales engineer who said that there were some minor softwarte differences but physically they were identical, and you could actually install new operating software on the 25 (if you wanted to) and it would be same as a 27. You will not be disappointed if you end up getting one.

I have the LCX-25C. (The LMS series you mentioned are all numbered in the 300's and 400's so you might have something transposed.) I had an X-15 prior to this which was really good but this thing is awesome. I was told on the phone by lowrance that the LMS 300 series were almost identical just smaller screens but not sure if that is correct. I run the screen split between the GPS and sonar 95% of the time so wanted the larger screen. Best price I could find was at Jolly Ann Marine (jollyannsales.com). Best price plus no sales tax as they are in Iowa. For some reason it shipped cheaper than what they had posted on internet so I saved a couple hundred $s. I think the thing normally ships with a skimmer type transducer which CAN be mounted on trolling motor but I wanted a puck to put on the TM as teh skimmer looked kind of easy to break. You can do an exchange with lowrance for free, or maybe get the seller to send you the one you want as they are packaged seperately. I love the unit. Resoultion is incredible. GPS works great, and both are fairly easy to use. Has a wide cone angle so easy to keep track of your rig below the boat. There is nothing I do not like about it, and I actually like it a lot better than I expected if that makes any sense. The ONLY reason I upgraded was that the X-15 would not run the Navionics Premium map chip, and the one coming out in Jan 07 will have a new data set for Table Rock with the lake mapped at 2' countours. Any other questions let me know.

Hey Bassman that sounds like a really good trip. I just keep getting beat up on the shallow fish. What depths were you getting the jig bite?

Well IMHO a spoon is a chunk of metal that they are not going to chew on very long I tend to get pretty excited and 1) reel furiously, 2) set the hook, 3) stand on tiptoes, and 4) raise the rod abovehead all at once. Maybe I am overreacting but I feel I have several cranks to get out of the way before I think I have a decent hookset. Most definitely I try to recover some line immediately by dipping the rod and cranking before setting but more often than not the "hookset" is not real pretty, and I feel lucky when I have the steel in one enough to get him to the top. I feel I have maybe 1 second to close the deal. I know floro has less stretch but not sure I am astute enough to discern the difference in stretch between that and regular mono. I think it might be one of those 5% edges that we go for to try to tip the odds in our favor which is all well and good but I'm not going to get hung up on it. I spool up both Seaguar Floro and Maxima and as the day goes on and I'm punting I'll have some gear pretty mismatched as far as baits/lines/rods go. Shaking a spoon: There is a real old-time fisherman here at SK who was literally here at the plugging of the dam. Just an old school predator of all species now in his 80's, still out there more days than any of us. He casts his own lead spoons which look like a somewhat flattened 3" section of a pencil (no profile or flutter). Action = None. He continues to catch more fish of all species on that chunk of lead than you could imagine. Anyway I have taken him out and as often as not he will just hang it motionless underneath the boat. Catch fish, you bet. Sometimes he even casts the thing. In any case it seems to me that the action at times is not that important and according to him "sometimes they just want it hangin' there". Whatever, When I get around a guy like that I try to keep my mouth shut and watch! As an aside he was also doing the "Shakey Head Worm" thing about 10 years ago, long before we heard about it. Fishes a finesse worm on 6# line and jighead and even crimped down the barb as he had it figured out it was easier to get the point in the fish without a barb on his light line. Amazing. There is nothing new under the sun. Regarding the ice jig assuming you mean the Rapala type, I have a few. Have caught some fish on them. They are terrible if you are around any wood at all which is where I usually spoon. Hooks are small and you have to baby all fish to the boat. I know some guys that have racked them up on the ice spoon but under pretty specific circumstances: Calm winds, no wood, shad schools.