Champ188

Good to know about the Office Pub. Donna and I have threatened to stop there for years but never have. We'll have to do that soon. Sounds like the standard early fall deal still ... one here, a couple there and all on a different bait. LOL. Thanks for the report.

If you're just looking to catch some fish and don't necessarily care how big they are, get you some 3/16th-ounce shaky heads and a bag of watermelon-red or green pumpkin Zoom finesse worms, then go find some bluff ends and steeper pockets with wood. A 5/16th-ounce finesse jig (green pumpkin or PBJ) with a green pumpkin Zoom Lil Critter Craw trailer will work, too. Beardsley Branch across from the state park is a good place to start looking.

Sprint, that's exactly what makes that bunch so tough. A fair number of them are retired, others are guides and still others manage to fish a whole lot more than guys like me and you. Donna and I enjoy getting up there and fishing them when we can, and Teri (Snider) Pierce who runs it is as nice as they come. With us, seems like it's always the old day-after-a-cold front deal when we're proud to manage a small limit and half of the field is dragging 20-pound sacks down the dock.

May as well draw interest on it while they have it, huh? LOL. Welcome to the Jerry McKinnis era of BASS.

Congrats, Sprint. Like I said, that bunch is as tough as they come.

Dang Sprint, you shoulda fished the Winter Series derby Saturday. You'd have been in the money for sure and those boys are pretty much the best on the lake ... the Fann brothers not withstanding.

Ryan, I agree with every word and applaud you for your stand-up post. This nation was founded on faith, thus the motto In God We Trust. And for 237 years we've flourished under His protective hand. But along the way, we've become increasingly ungodly and are beginning to pay the price for it. I'm with you on Obama. Bad enough we elected him to start with, but unbelievable to me that he won a second term. Bush may not have been the best, but at least we had a God-fearing man in the White House. We are living in scary times.

Donna and I are headed to Grand this morning.

Never tried it with the standard size but we used to make the big Mag Warts suspend by using the Storm strips and dots. We threw them over deep hydrilla beds on Ouachita and DeGray in Arkansas and caught some big darn fish on them. Didn't seem to hurt the action on them but the smaller ones might be a different story.

Good lord, she's on a roll now.

Aunts Creek.

LOL, abk. Fire away. Good-natured ribbing ALWAYS appreciated and usually returned in full.

I always miss out on those "easy" days. Dang it.

That's as fine a characterization of TR's smallmouth fishery as you'll ever read. Best of all, it comes from a guy who knows these fish not only by "book learning" but from chasing them 300-plus days a year. It also brings up something that I try to live by but don't always succeed, and that is this ... There's a big difference in learning about fishing and learning about fish. The more you know about the fish themselves and their habits, the less emphasis you'll place on the latest lures, etc.

Glad to hear it, grand75. Hope you enjoy your visit to the fullest and please let us know how everything turns out.

Nice one!

Way to go, Denny!

I happen to know that one among us led the way this morning for a bunch of fishermen who decided to "open" a certain Corps ramp at a certain Corps lake other than TR. I will let him say more, if he wishes to do so.

Crawfish red is certainly interesting. I also wonder about the chartreuse/blue and chartreuse/black in some of my fall and spring crank bait spots up in the Kings River arm. I'm with you, QB ... a little different look sometimes isn't a bad thing.

I've suspected all along that Obama's mission was to divide and destroy this country from the sanctity of the Oval Office. If the people were wise enough to wake up to it today, I'm afraid it already might be too late. Yes, I'm very disheartened. The guy isn't an idiot by any means. He was smart enough from the get-go to get himself elected by getting out the vote of those previously too lazy/uninformed to go to the polls by promising them more federal aid than ever. It worked. I'm convinced of this because I refuse to believe that this man was elected TWICE by those of average-and-above intelligence and work ethic.

Why not hire a guide and load up the wife for a real taste of what Table Rock is all about? After coming from Michigan, it would be shame to miss the true flavor of the place.

So if the rangers are still working, why the **** are they closing the parks/ramps? Good gawd.

Plenty of brown ones up the White. Donna and I caught a few the other day. Kings tends to be more of a largemouth area for me.

Good to hear, Duck. I spoke in good-natured humor ... that's a handy little place to launch sometimes, especially for Donna and I coming from Arkansaw.

What? You mean the Corps hasn't locked down Sweetwater National Park and Watersports Emporium? I figured there'd be no way they could manage to staff and maintain that fine facility with the government in lockdown mode.