Champ188

I can do a 7:15 mile in my truck.

In my opinion, can't beat Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. You can get by with 15-pound. Shouldn't have any breakoff issues but just remember, with practically no line stretch, you don't have to set the hook as hard as with mono.

Combat fishing. Gotta love it.

Apparently Saturday was the day for trolling motor issues. Planned to spend the wkd in the James but snapped a steering cable around 2 p.m. Saturday. Up to then, caught one keeper LM and several short K's on shaky head and dropshot.

Supposedly Boyd Duckett helped start Carrot Stix then left them (E-21) to start his own company, saying they fudged on quality once the rods became popular. His company is now making those Micro Magic white rods that you see a lot of the tour guys using.

So you can still launch at the old H Highway ramp, right?

That's a hoot, Stump Bumper. Glad the people making their Trilene line are more competent.

I've heard good things about Big Creek Resort but the fishing in that part of the lake is terrible. If you do happen to catch a bass, it's one of those "girly man river fish." To borrow a line from our buddy Techo, "Nothing to see here. Move along, please."

Hey guys, thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. And yes, Straw Hat, it means the world to have Donna by my side. Incredibly, she went through this same thing less than 2 years ago except that they removed her entire left kidney because her tumor was too centrally located in the kidney to allow for a partial procedure. We will get through this and be back on the lake in no time. Glad to hear you're going strong Gilly and Gobbler couldn't be more right about fishin' and huntin' being the best medicine.

Hey Bob, thanks much for the post but we didn't make it either Thursday night. Struggled MIGHTILY all week. In hindsight, shoulda put a lot more effort into locating the "public" brushpiles and hammered away at them. Had one keeper for 4.29 Saturday in the CPA pro-am, and Donna and I had two keepers in the team derby on Sunday. Had one decent area near the dam with a ledge drop and bled it dry off and on for two days. You'd pull up there and get a couple or three quick bites, then they'd quit and you'd have to go off and fish elsewhere for an hour or so. Come back, get a couple of bites and they'd quit. Like I said, I beat it up pretty good. Predator1, appreciate the kind words but any secret weapons misfired this week. Biggest misfire of all was my feeble brain. Just couldn't get around any keeper fish. Anytime you see me drop-shotting darn near all day, you know I'm struggling to the max. Appreciate the kind words about Donna and I fishing together. As always, the highlight of my week was getting to spend 4 out of 5 days fishing with my best bud. No matter how hot the weather, maddening the boat traffic or slow the bite, there's a lot to be said for being together, doing what we love. You guys have a great lake up there. I gotta have half of a kidney carved out the end of this month to get rid of some cancer, but I told Donna on the way home yesterday that we need to get back up there this fall/early winter and do some fun fishing.

Hey rps, great that you guys had such a good time. I know for me, it's tough this time of year not to get all worked up about the boat traffic, lack of fishing action and the heat. But truth is, we're FISHING — sometimes with friends, other times alone in nature. Those are pretty special times.

Dutch, something wasn't right there. As denjac said, the $30 annual Corps pass is good nationwide, including Texas.

Donna and I are definitely in for the HOOT-IN-NANNY. Hopefully I won't be down long from my surgery, which is Aug. 25. In fact, I have every intention of fishing the Central Pro-Am team championship Sept. 11-12 on Norfork. Might be relegated to fishing fairly close to takeoff, but it'll beat sittin' on the bank. I have scouts patroling from KC bridge up both rivers and so far Denny hasn't breached conditions of his probation. I'm not soon forgettin' that "girly man river fish" comment. Perhaps we can get things straight if I can lure him up to Stockton with me for a day or two this coming week.

A brute indeed Tapout. Congrats and hats off to you for not divulging Beck's info. A guy has to draw the line on what he tells every now and then.

I guess I'm "dumb" but I'll be fishing Central Pro-Am there next weekend and I'll bet my fish are alive and well at weigh-in both days. It's all about taking proper care of them ... running the aerator constantly, adding ice occasionally to cool the water and using additives. The Thursday night derbies are only 3 hours. Shouldn't be hard at all to keep fish happy and healthy for that short time.

Good job and good reports, guys. I think this very well tells the tale that we're at the time of year on TR where bass anglers have two choices. You either locate the thermocline and fish for suspended fish as rps did, or you go far enough upriver to find the cooler and less-stratified water that allows the fish to roam around wherever they wish.

So we should be on the lookout for floating bodies in Aunt's Creek?

Hey Jason, if you want to know just how hot it was Saturday during the day and how bad the boat traffic was, give me a call. You might need an hour or two, though. Donna and I fished a derby out of Baxter. Took off at 5:45 a.m. and weighed in at 4 p.m. Yeah, 4 p.m. What a marathon. There was not a breath of wind all day and we roasted. Caught two decent keepers and lost several more. Won't go into details as they aren't caught until they're in the boat and they don't weigh a darn thing at the scales. But we literally invented new ways to lose fish. Ended up taking 11 pounds and change to win and 7 pounds for second. Dock bite that was decent the Saturday before died on the vine for us. Caught one keeper on a Fin early and drop-shotted the other one about 2 p.m. Otherwise, we did stick some decent fish on football jigs and one on a deep crank bait. Most were in 12-18 feet of water early on, moving out to 30 feet by afternoon. Sloping secondary points just inside the deeper creeks and cuts were best. Very few bites on bluff ends. For gosh sakes, bring on fall!

Roger & Craig, ya'll picked the right guide for an instructional trip. Bill isn't all about just taking folks out to catch a bunch of fish off a hotspot or two — he really enjoys teaching his clients about the FISH themselves so they can take home some knowledge and hopefully repeat their success on their own. Some clients just want to be entertained, but others like you guys want to learn something they can take and apply later. Bill can certainly provide either one. Now, about this river fish stuff ... for starters, I think Denny's river license needs to be revoked entirely — at least suspended for the remainder of the year — after that "girly man river fish" comment. I'd suggest that his new boundaries end at the White/James River split. Or we might just draw a simpler line at the KC bridge. Maybe we could enlist the water patrol to help us enforce it since they like to post up at the bridge and mess with derby fishermen coming out of Ahoy's in early mornings anyway. Donna and I are fishing a small derby Saturday out of Baxter. The plan is to fish a "special little area" located somewhere between Baxter and Campbell Point early with the Fin and Spook, then spend the rest of the day pitching jigs and shaky heads as far back into dock slips as we can. I may be wrong but I believe we can beat out 5 decent ones by weigh-in on the dock deal. Guess we'll see.

Nice one, indeed. One like that makes even a short worthwhile.

Hard not to throw that Fin — a few times anyway, isn't it?

Just wanted to put in my 2 cents worth on Bill's point about trailers. I wouldn't call myself cheap, as I buy and use whatever works best. But I'm no big fan of Yamamoto stuff these days. Their trailers are often packaged haphazardly and the tails are so thin that after they sit crumpled in the package for a while, they're ruined. There is also the issue of the tails sticking together during the retrieve. For my purposes, the Yum doubletail is as good as it gets. And cheaper too. Also, for a smaller profile jig, I've had good success with Zoom's Creepy Crawler. I first discovered these when looking for a the best trailer to use on a jig for swimming around docks in the fall. It's great for that but also does a bang-up job on "dragging jigs" in finesse sizes (3/8ths or less). I've even had success with it when pitching a 5/16ths ballhead jig around docks.

Sam, good stuff about the distance and dams breaking the wakes. I keep thinking that Babler lives in a perfect location — right on TR but not far from Bull either. Donna and I may have to find us a place close to there when our working days are over. Don't worry Bill, we won't exterminate your copperhead friends. Thanks for the prayers and well wishes, too, Sam and others. Look forward to having this behind me and pressing on.

As usual, Bill is right on the money, especially about the deep bite being nonexistent up the White. Everywhere Donna and I went the other day after 8 a.m., both the bait and the bass were concentrated from 18-28 feet. Any deeper or any shallower and the graph would go blank. From daylight to 8 a.m., there were some keeper LM's up shallower. If I had a derby to fish right now, I'd leave the topwater in the rod box and start out with a 3/8 jig up shallow (10-20 ft) and gradually work my way out as the day went on.

After working all week on some seemingly good fishing days and staying off the water the holiday weekend before, just had to get out Saturday and give it a go. Donna and I launched a bit after daylight at Big M and found some limited topwater action. Shad and bass boat seemed concentrated in creek mouths on flatter secondary points. An occasional school would come up, but for the most part it was single breakers but a bunch of em in the same areas. Mixed LM and K's. Told Donna it reminded me of that computer game where you try to bonk the mole on the head with a hammer. You stand there on the front deck and wait for one to poke his head up, then fire your topwater at him before he disappears. We caught six or eight that way but no keepers before the sun hit the water and they disappeared. There also seems to be a fair dock bite developing. Drop-shot and shaky head produced two keeper LM's and another keeper K, all in the 3-pound range. Then came the wave makers in all shapes, forms, varieties, etc. By 10:00 they were out in magnum force all the way from Owl Creek to SK bridge, making it pretty darn impossible to fish any kind of main-lake structure. Felt like there was reason to pursue that dock bite on the deeper docks but nearly every promising dock had a bunch of swimmers/divers on it. Got so bad by 1 p.m. that we said to heck with it and went home. Bring on fall. Ready to feel that refresing blast of northwest wind off the season's first cold front.