Champ188

Welcome to the pre-Johnny Ranger club, tv tom. I'm afraid you are right. Ranger quality is destined to decline.

Thanks for the good report, Longball. Sounds about like a lot of trips lately. I do like the looks of that spoon. Gonna have to get me some.

One of the greatest blessings of being a sports/outdoors writer for the old Arkansas Gazette back in the 1980s was getting to know Forrest and Nina Wood well enough that Forrest invited me fishing with him and his daughter Rhonda one day. Spent some special times visiting with them in Flippin. As a son-in-law of the Woods, Randy Hopper is family in both flesh and spirit. BPS will not be able to find anyone with that kind of down-home character and common sense to lead Ranger, but then if that's what they wanted, Randy would still be there.

Very true, Ham. I'm all about disagreeing peacefully these days.

Hope all had a great Thanksgiving and are able to get out this weekend and enjoy some fishing.

Gotcha. I went over to the restroom and finished strapping my boat down. He and I have differing opinions on several things.

In my opinion, nothing good can come from Randy Hopper leaving Ranger, or Keith Daffron. Randy started out sweeping floors 45 years ago and eventually was deemed the man for the top job by Forrest Wood himself. Again, MY OPINION is that Johnny is in business to make every last dime he can at the expense of quality. When they start talking about making changes to increase profitability, it can't mean much else than cutting corners that Ranger previously held as important to the manufacturing process. We've all heard the consumer nightmare stories concerning quality issues with Tracker/Nitro boats. Glad I bought my pre-Johnny Ranger a couple of years ago. Hope it lasts as long as I think it will.

I loaded up right at dark. White Ranger, silver/gunmetal stripes and a silver GMC crew cab. Which boat were you in? I did see the shad between the buoys. Tons of them. When I got there just before 11 a.m., a couple of striper guides were fishing in there.

I got a late start due to errands in Rogers and decided to just go to Beaver. Ended up having a pretty good day there (SB and CB) with 26 fish total and a fair number of keepers.

Great stuff, Bill. Almost makes me want to tie on a spoon and go get myself over 70 feet of water. Key word there is ALMOST! LOL Seriously, anyone should be able to take that info and get on the right track to learning how to fish deep in the fall/winter. Happy Thanksgiving and WOO PIG SOOIE! RAZORBACKS!!!

Fished 11-5 out of Prairie Creek and spent most of that time between Horseshoe Bend and Big Hickory Creek. Ended the day with 26, more than half of which were keepers. Best 5 probably 12-13 pounds. Took two rods out of the box upon arriving and put the same two rods back in the box when I finished. War Eagle spinnerbait and SPRO Rock Crawler did the job. All participants were in their proper places ... LM in the backs of windblown pockets and spots on the points and bluffs. Plenty of other boats out, including OAF members.

Same from me and Donna, everyone. We're certainly thankful for the friends we've made here.

Sounds like the El Nino pattern is in place. Just wait til the temp dips below freezing and these heavy rains turn to snow.

Enjoy it while it lasts, Trophy. And that is by no means a knock on your fishing ability. It's just a nod to what Beaver can do to the best of 'em. And I mean the very best.

You have every right to be proud of a 40-bass day and nearly 12 pounds ... on Beaver especially. Great job!

Not a terrible day by any means, Hammer. We can't all catch 15-20 keepers every trip. Love the eagle shot. I had one sailing around pretty close the other day myself. Gorgeous creatures. So you caught lots of crank bait fish in the Kings but mostly short?

Didn't mean to come across as grumpy guys. There was a smile on my face when I typed my reply. I know you guys aren't knifers and were joking about the smallies.

You'd have to ask some of the knifers. I'm 100% C&R, but then that's pretty widely known on OAF.

Great day, guys. Congrats on the success and the fun obviously had by all. Nothing sweeter than seeing a pile of dead stripers in the bed of a pickup truck!

Justin McClelland and Michael Hubbard won it. That's all I know as far as who finished where.

I'd much rather have whitecaps than no wind. Tie on a 3/8-ounce War Eagle spinnerbait (spot remover color works great up the James), get on a windy 30-45 degree bank with big rock and throw it til the cows come home. A Bandit 200 crank bait in a crawfish pattern will work too.

I know the guys well who won it and they posted on FB that they caught their fish on football jigs with the new Big Bite Battle Bug trailer, along with a McStick jerkbait. Their fish came from the lower end and included a 4.87 smallmouth.

I like your plan gitnby but I think the TW part might be a little overly optimistic. The water temp was 57 around Eagle Rock before this last big cold front so I would expect it to be lower 50s by now. I didn't see any mention of a crank bait (Wart or something similar), for which the time is getting right. One other thing ... don't let the clouds and wind trick you into throwing a SB too long. If you throw it for a couple hours with marginal results, be sure and pick up a jig or a Ned and see if they seem to be feeding down. They're famous on this lake for doing that on dark days when conventional wisdom says they should be looking up. I'm going Wednesday. Let's compare notes afterward.

Good job, Dan. Glad you got into some. I love pics of dead stripers. :)

Wish to heck they made it in my size. Got up at 5:00 to go fishing this morning. Wind was howling 25-30 mph out of the north and temp was already in the 30s. As Babler likes to say, I decided I just wasn't that mad at 'em. Went back to bed til 7:45.