Champ188

That entire area usually holds bass, too, and some good ones. Of course, there are several smallish sweet spots where 90 percent of them live.

Not a bit surprised ... the boy can flat catch em. Hope his motor isn't badly broken.

I didn't know exactly where he had built up there but being that close to you, he must have quite the view of the lake. When he was in Bella Vista, we lived only a few houses apart for quite a few years. He's a good neighbor.

I've mentioned here many times that my career was in the newspaper business. If you'll stay with the major newspaper sites ... LA Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram to name a few ,,, you can pretty much rely on what you read. But when you get into the broadcast media or internet-based news sites other than PBS, you can find just about anything spun to fit your ear. That's what those "journalists" do these days ... intentionally lean one direction or the other in order to please a portion of the population and "buy" their loyalty.

I don't have Wrench's knowledge by any means but that's getting back into the first few years of the Opti when they were not known for dependability. Well, yes they were ... you could depend on them to crap out long before they should. Those were the years when they were known as the Poptimax. I'd tell my buddy he better stay with the known quantity ... no telling how many hours that 99 Merc has on it or exactly when it's going to "pop".

Not quite the same deal so hopefully I won't get dinged by the moderator for straying off topic, but was fishing DeGray Lake (in Arkansas) many years ago and there was an old guy spider rigging for crappie with minnows about a hundred yards away. He had a dozen rods out on his modified party barge when a school of hybrids (wipers) came thru and gang-banged his spread. He ended up losing a rod or two and had a couple more broken. He was not a happy camper when all was said and done. Not sure how many he actually landed but it wasn't many. My fishing buddy and I had to leave we were laughing so hard.

Never could make it work in tournament fishing. Finally just started fishing my way and my bags got heavier. Of course, Beck could catch one on a wart (or just about anything else for that matter) in the Harter House parking lot.

Good news, Jeff. Hope he hangs in there.

I will just say that of the three living creatures pictured here, none appear to have missed any meals recently. 😆😂

Oooohhhhhhhhhh, I get it now. I was trying to make that into SK bridge and it just wasn't working. Then you said Randy and I thought, "he didn't get down to the SK bridge in his trolling travels, did he?" Wrong bridge. I'm slow but I usually get there eventually. 😂

High-speed reels aren't very well suited for winding baits other than a buzz bait. Generally speaking, the higher the speed, the less the power. A good ol' 6:3:1 or 6:4:1 will serve the purpose as well as anything.

The old Lucky Craft 1.5 is my go-to. The 2.5 will work, too, especially in stained water. A very close second is the Bandit 100 series (slightly smaller profile). With that said, I own a LOT more squarebills than I need because when the fish are active in that part of the water column, I'm usually throwing one of those jangly contraptions made by War Eagle.

Nice job, arch. Always good to get the W.

My comment about the dust covers design being Trump's fault was what I thought was obvious SARCASM intended as humor. Sorry if anyone was offended. But thanks for calling out me and Cheesemaster in public. Makes me want to just mail in a donation to the Bo James memorial fund and skip another OA tournament.

I assume it's not flush-mounted, so you might try putting a bungee around it. Haven't lost one since I started using the bungee. Those covers had to be designed by Trump ... on a day he wasn't busy screwing up something else. 😂 so

Dang, my confidence in the product would be pretty much in the crapper at this point. Sorry you're having to go thru that.

Yellow bass?

NAILED IT. ^^^^^ Or perhaps close off one arm of the lake sytematically each year to fishing in the months of March-May. You've got three major arms --- White, Kings and James --- and closings could rotate between them. Some say Beardsley also qualifies as a major contributor to the annual lakewide spawn numbers, so there'd be that to hash out.

At the risk of repeating myself .... you got Johnnied. Every product he touches is reduced to crap for the good of the profit margin, aka Johnny's pocket. And if you buy up all of the competition, you can screw everyone over and they'll still come back and give you more of their money.

I'd rather get it fixed right the first time than have to take it back. No one but Kelly Power touches mine.

There's one in every crowd, Dutch. 😂😂

Bill, your prayers are joined with mine for Mike's success in the championship. Mike is a fantastic representative of what a lot of these young fishermen (pros and ams alike) should aspire to ... a gentlemanly competitor who minds his own business and never has a bad word to say about others. Watched him raise three boys while fishing tournaments for a living, and he was more "present" in their lives than a lot of guys who are at home a whole lot more than him. I understand completely what you're saying but Mike was cast and molded in a different type of tournament fishing ... one where persistence with an angler's strong suits usually paid off at the end of the day. Dead periods during the day didn't hurt you ... all you needed was 5 casts to weigh in 20 pounds. In the MLF format, you better be catching them all day on whatever the heck they are biting at the moment. As you well know, that's a different deal altogether than traditional tournament formats. Again, I join you in prayers and best wishes for Mike in the upcoming championship.

Very good point there, Bill. No time to go looking for places you can catch them your way. Gotta constantly be on the "when in Rome" deal ... throw what they want at the moment and be ready to change in a heartbeat.

So could George Cochran. He'd pull up the troller and run 3-5 miles on the Arkansas River to his next spot 10 times a day. And chances are, he wasn't throwing the same thing or even fishing the same kind of cover/pattern on any of the 10 spots. First time I ever got in a boat with him, he made a 15-mile run up the aforementioned Arkansas River near Little Rock to a serie rock jetties with current rippling over the top of them. "Time for some topwater fish!" he said. "Got a Spook tied on?" I did, and I picked it up. But who throws topwater at noon on a broiling September day? George's second cast produced a Table Rock-looking spotted bass ... 18 inches and 3 solid pounds. Long story short, we sat there and caught 15 before the action cooled a half-hour later.

You know, it's humorous but also true that at least he had the confidence to stick to his guns. However, a lot of gunmen die when they hesitate. I had an Arkansas friend who was bullheaded as a champion Angus. He fished BASS for a couple of years and actually won an invitational in South Carolina. But this guy would tell me before he ever left town for tournaments what one or two lures he was gonna throw all week because just KNEW that was how the tournament would be won. In his case, confidence was a downfall. All things in moderation. Even confidence.