Champ188

To clarify, smallmouth and spots (Kentuckies) are eligible, right? Donna's been known to catch a pig smallmouth or two in her time.

You should have that looked at, Phil. Just sayin' ...

Incidental walleye taste better than intentional ones.

Nothing quite like a good ol' greasy cheeseburger.

We like the 14th. Give us a good chance to practice for the USA Bassin derby. Just FYI, USA Bassin formerly held their events out of Campbell Point but this year is moving them to Big M. I suspect the poor condition of the ramp at Campbell Point had something to do with that.

Donna and I are fishing the same USA Bassin tournament. Not saying you can't have it without us by any means but that might affect parking, etc.

Bo, having Donna in the back (she doesn't like doubling up on the front deck) kind of dictates boat position because I want her to catch more fish than me. But what I did do was turn the nose of the boat out to give her the "inside" casting lane while I took the outside (deeper) angle. Indeed she did catch more than me, and she had 4 of our 5 keepers. On a normal day, I would have caught more K's than I did, but those rascals just did not want to come up for that bait. Nor did they want a spoon because I dropped on them several times when I'd see them on the graph. I did think about swimming a grub through them and just didn't do it. Nor did I try the spin bait. The casting angle Donna was working was almost parallel, but still had enough angle to let her work, on an average cast, from 5 to 25 feet of water. The fish I caught came from 15-30 feet, maybe a couple coming from 40 feet.

Awesome of you, Jim. That's putting Christ in Christmas.

Excellent questions, bo. We were fishing steep banks and very few of our bites came over less than 15 feet of water. Many of them came over 30-40 feet. Because there wasn't a defined strike zone, we were definitely fishing more perpendicular than parallel. That said, I was not able to draw anything out of submerged trees. It's like the fish couldn't care less if wood is present or not. Totally a "bait bite" with the fish showing little regard for any kind of cover, rock included. We did fish a little bit of gravel with no bites at all, but I'm convinced that had more to do with the shallow slope of the bank than with the type of rock present. Gravel banks just generally aren't steep.

Reports have been scarce here and seems the ones there have been have focused on deep-water tactics. But alas, a relatively shallow bite of sorts remains. Donna and I launched at Baxter around 7 a.m. Saturday. While our first stop produced a quick keeper largemouth on the varmint. Came off a Wiggle Wart-style bank ... 30-degree slope with mixed chunk, slab and ledge rock. About 200 yards later, we were still looking for No. 2. Ran a short hop up the White to another spot, then another and another, all to no avail. Finally, when one of the best spots in the lower White failed to yield a bite, I suggested we go back to Baxter, load the boat and trailer around to the Kings. Figured it would save us some driving time on the trip home and give the wind --- or complete lack thereof --- time to read the darn forecast and figure out that according to every meteorologist in the Western Hemisphere that it was supposed to be blowing 10-15, gusting to 20. Yeah, right. Actually, about an hour after we relaunched in the Kings, a bit of a breeze finally came to life. With that to work with, we flung our usual arsenal of winding baits (Wart, spinnerbait, jerk bait and soft swim bait) at 'em, along with dragging a jig and varmint. The jerkbait proved to be most popular with the fish, so we ended up spending the afternoon chunking a pair of those. We ended the day with 20 fish total and five keepers that would total about 13 pounds. Best fish was a 4-pound LM. In fact, nearly all of our fish were green, as the lack of wind kept the bait (and most of the spots) out in much deeper water. I did play with a spoon a little to no avail, but my heart wasn't in it. Frankly, when I get a stickbait bite every 15-20 minutes, I'd rather pursue that opportunity than to try to spoon feed 'em. Just not my thing, nor Donna's. A-rig also might have produced around those suspenders, but as Babler likes to say about certain tactics, I just wasn't that mad at 'em. All in all, a nice day to be out. Not often you get low 60s weather in December. Have fun out there.

I heard from someone who should know that nothing is changing (for now) with Ranger. Cabela's is their No. 1 volume dealer and they will continue to be sold there.

I wish all tournaments would ban the A-rig for the simple reason that as QB stated, you pretty much can't beat the guys throwing it if you're throwing anything else. Without it, there are a number of techniques that can produce winning sacks in the winter.

I had a 2004 Champion 188 Elite for 7 years. Great, great boat. Really got my money's worth out of it.

I was thinking the hybrid Nitro-Ranger boats might be called NIght Rangers.

How in heaven's name is Bass Pro gonna improve on the quality of a Ranger boat? Have you LOOKED at Nitro and Ranger side by side? I once considered purchasing a Nitro Z8. Thank goodness I came to my senses. And before anyone says Tracker/Nitro has overcome all of its quality issues, it was only a couple of years ago that the floors in the Z8/Z9 boats were delaminating. Ranger has nothing to gain here, just as it had nothing to gain 3 years ago when Platinum Equity bought them. It has not been the same since the days it was Wood Manufacturing Co. owned by Forrest and Nina Wood. I will say, this makes our 2014 Ranger look pretty darn good. Glad we bought a new one when we did.

Good trip, Doug. Gotta watch your background when choosing pics to post on here. This is a tough crowd. They'll pinpoint you like they have GPS receivers mounted in their foreheads.

Only one I've caught --- actually Donna caught it --- was on a drop shot while fishing a bridge piling.

They'll look great with that matte clear, TrophyFishR.

Arkansas used to be that way, then the state legislature passed a speed trap law that penalizes cities/towns who derive more than 50% of their traffic fine revenue from speeding tickets less than 10 mph over the limit. Seems to have made quite a difference.

Makes a guy wonder, if he didn't fish, what the heck did he spend all of his money on?

If you can see a bass following your bait 100 feet away, I seriously envy your vision.

I'm about as pro-police as they come but those guys are borderline nuts. Can't drive thru there without one staring you down or jumping out behind you and radio checking your tags.

Good fish! Congrats.

That just sucks. I hope you reported it to the Kimberling City cops. Lord knows they need something to do besides pull people over for going 2 mph over the speed limit.

Not really much to add. For me, the fish continue to be found in better numbers on main lake areas than back in the pockets. Even those steep cuts with 60 feet of water or more don't seem to be holding many fish. We caught 90 percent of our fish or more on jerk baits. In my case, that was because I threw it 90 percent of the time. Literally fished from daylight til dark ... bite was better early and they got really fussy for us after about 1 p.m. I think that cold front had passed by then and the high pressure was settling in. Wind seemed to swing out of the northeast, which is never good in my book.