Champ188

Excellent info here indeed. And you guys are right ... it's not getting into the ears that need to hear it. Those who don't give a flip are gonna continue to kill our fish with no regard for anyone else. All they care about is getting their entry fee back and maybe a little gas money and then going around blowing about how they really smashed 'em Friday night. Chances are, Bo caught 5 pounds or more above the winning weight while just enjoying an evening out with his wife and pooch. And didn't kill or harm a single fish in the process. Without a jersey or power poles. Or a buff.

Ready for those good spots to get on the dock corners.

I would say that is un-dang-believable but sadly, it's not. They walk among us in ever-increasing numbers.

Kinda does resemble his stash, huh? lol

Proof positive that I have not bought out the Double Ploppers at the Cabela's in Rogers.

For the sake of full disclosure, the only fish I will ever keep from Table Rock are the few who are mortally injured in the catching process. I've said this before, but my strong feelings about this are based upon the fact that there is ZERO supplemental stocking of bass into Table Rock. I also believe that as our wood cover continues to disappear, the fish that we DO have are going to become more and more offshore oriented and therefore harder to catch, but that's another topic for another time. What I will do when it comes to eating fish is occasionally go to a lake that is overrun with small spotted bass and catch a mess for dinner. Oklahoma has completely banished both daily bag and length limits on spots for nearly all of its lakes, claiming that the spots are outcompeting LM and SM for the available forage. The MDC obviously doesn't feel that way about TR spots and besides, I'm just not gonna kill a 15-inch fish. I don't know exactly how long it takes for a spot to reach that size, but pretty sure it's several years. Nomolites or Mojorig could give a much more accurate estimate. All of that aside, leaving fish to waste is the pits. Yes, they serve as buzzard food, but they have plenty to eat without our help.

Tapout, you want to know where it's coming from? Watch MLF, Bassmaster or any other tournament TV show. The pros' "idle speed" is in the the 10 mph range. They're making as much or more wake than they do on plane. To them, seems "idle" means "anything off plane." Donna and I call it "Elite Series idle speed."

Pretty much with you, Jim. Some of these little summertime night derbies are killing too many fish, and the evidence is strong afterward at the ramps. It's certainly better if the group "cleans up" after itself and takes the dead ones home, but every one that dies is just one less fish the rest of us have a chance to catch next time out. And before anyone says it would be just as gone if they'd just been fishing for a meal, tournament anglers are supposed to be conservation leaders. Those who haphazardly toss their fish back into shallow, hot, oxygen-poor water beside the ramp and drive off are doing nothing but abusing the resource for the chance at a few bucks. No one needs that.

Pretty fish. BTW, your shoes have holes in them.

Lots of good, level-headed information right here.

Thanks for all you contribute here, Jeremy.

Some of the sentiment about removing the buoys entirely may have to do with certain dock owners bending the placement rules to make it appear that entire coves are no wake.

Are you sure that's not a peacock bass?

I'm with you 24/7. I usually try to get my bait away from them but this stupid thing came up out of the middle of a cedar tree like a darn bass.

Good one, rps.

Nearly lost one of my top-shelf Redfins to a dadgum gar a couple of years ago. A 4-footer. Maybe more. Was fishing a hole recommended by Babler. I still wonder if I got pranked.

I once said that I would never throw a jerk bait. Didn't think I'd ever have the patience for those long pauses. Now it's my second-favorite way to fish. So, I shall not say "never" to the Double Plopper. But at present, I have no plans to own one.

Great report and nice pix. Thanks for sharing the info and your fun.

Good news indeed. Larry is one of the finest in many respects.

This is as fresh and new to us anglers as it is to you developers, Ben. We are all going to learn a lot from it as we go ... namely ways to use it to put more fish in the boat. I'm looking forward to having a full winter with this data.

Beautiful, 176champion. God certainly has an artistic eye.

Can't say it much better than that. George Cochran won two Bassmaster Classics and a Forrest Wood Cup --- all in August --- fishing dirt shallow. And only one of those was on a river system. Don't forget to read between the lines in the reports on this forum. There's a lot of information there. Anyone else ready for some fall fishing?

I'm not gonna stop posting over one misinformed person. I will continue to post general information that hopefully will point fellow OAFers in the right direction. Furthermore, the offer I made long ago still stands ... if anyone wants more specific info, they can PM me and I'll be happy to oblige anyone except known knifers. A lot of you guys have done that and can testify that in most cases, I'll tell everything I know of the current conditions.

All I said was good luck getting any idea of the location or the exact lure out of him --- and you still haven't. Alex works hard at catching these big fish and fishes a lot of derbies, so he's pretty guarded in what he shares. So am I and lots of others on here when it comes to specifics. He even redacts the background in some of his pics to keep people from identifying his boat position. There are a lot of us on here who share a lot of information, but we aren't gonna give every little detail. You can if you want, but an episode last year showed that we have a lot of meat hunters on here, including some among the membership, and I'm not gonna help them kill our bass by giving away my hard-earned specifics. And then there are the freeloaders who don't want to figure out anything on their own, just let everyone else do the work for them. It's a great forum. The very best. Take what you can get from it and be happy.

It was a good day numbers-wise but I really had hoped to find a couple of schools of bigger spots. The shad just haven't moved into the right places for them to gang up. Bo is right about docks but anymore there's a big ol' barge or runabout in every slip and even a skilled pitcher/flipper has trouble squeezing a bait in there. Besides, as Bo also said, getting them out is another problem entirely.