Champ188

Nah, got sidescan for that. Humminbird might once have had the market cornered on that ancient feature, but Lowrance made it better. Still a dang good way to find crappie piles (and crappie). Sometimes one even finds a bass or two. And speaking of docks and bass, what happened to catching them off the front corners of docks on a topwater, spinnerbait, swim jig, crank bait or anything else for that matter? I did not catch a single front-corner dock bass in 2023 that I can recall. Hard to believe it's just coincidence ... I may not fish 100 days a year or more like I used to, but I fish enough and throw at both front corners of dang near every dock I come to. Used to be a darn good way to catch Ol' Big.

Just when you think you know me, Jeff .... BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! Never underestimate a native of Hot Springs, Arkansas --- we were the first people in this great capitalistic nation to make a fortune selling bottled water and rocks (crystals) to the rest of the country.

Great post. Thanks for the expert info.

Caught a similar bunch of fish but much shallower Tuesday. Sun was high and bright with no wind so I started out flipping docks and pretty much stuck with it the entire 6-7 hours I was there. Mostly spots but 80% or better keepers and a couple a little north of 3 pounds. Most of mine were sorta long and lean, like some of Bill's fish above, but the two bigger ones looked like lower-lake fish ... just total footballs. Have to share this ... our late buddy Bo came to mind because, along with the smallmouth he caught when he ventured downlake on his night trips, he'd bring big spots back up the Kings and White rivers, too, as part of his "tournament restoration program." He figured --- and I agreed (yes, Bo and I sometimes agreed 😆🤣) --- that with all of the big derbies being out of Kim City and points even farther east, a lot of fish were getting hauled out of the river arms and never replaced. Bill knows this better than I, but no telling how many fish Bo brought back to the rivers over the years. It was a bunch and it wouldn't surprise me if it made a noticeable difference. Now just imagine how much MORE difference it could make if the MDC would just do an annual ... or semiannual ... supplemental stocking of SM and LM. I don't think spots really need any help with numbers, especially with a 15-inch min length limit. My fish Wednesday came from 4-28 feet (almost ran outta line on that deep one 😂) on two things ... finesse worm (watermelon candy) on a drop shot and a 5/16 ballhead jig (jelly smoke) with green pumpkin craw trailer. Yeah, I rambled. It's legal in the winter.

Exactly right, brother. No one else coulda gotten by with that.

Coz Johnny needs that $5 real bad. I thought he was all in for doing things to promote the sport of fishing ... how's charging $5 to access a lake that already belongs to all of us doing anything for anyone except himself?

I'm going to The Knob tomorrow (Tuesday) and will report back Wednesday AM.

Maybe, maybe not. I'd keep my head on a swivel just in case. 😆🤣

You were talking so sensibly, Bill, and then you drifted back into that delusional discourse about shad at 80 feet and other such crazy talk. 😆🤣

Stay off my stuff. ☠️😆

Good to know, you ol' walleye hammer. You've spent a lot of hours learning them for sure!

Just be glad you don't have to spend them in a Caymas. 😆 Hey, we knew something had to be up when Johnny hadn't already bought em out. Makes you wonder how long Clouse will hold out before he gets sucked into the vortex that is the White River Marine Group. Pretty sure Rick Pierce would never consider it.

With boats costing $100 grand apiece, could the market finally be pricing itself into big trouble, as we've all been predicting for decades?

Ditto on appreciate the reports. May come up Wednesday myself.

Truman has plenty of places with sufficient light for fish to spawn. But they do it shallow Shallow. The dirtier the water, the shallower the nests will be. The following was taken from Field & Stream, a very old and very reputable source of fishing/hunting information.

Gotta agree with you there, Mitch. And congrats Possum on doing a fine job of raising your girls. Yes, I did generalize for emphasis, and glad yours don't fit into the group of "gimme more, gimme more" types that are sitting waiting on YOU AND I to repay their student loans.

Crappie often move back in the fall into the same shallow areas where they spawned in the spring. Whether they actually spawn there in the fall I can't say, but my grandfather was a crappie guru on Lake Ouachita (much like TR, a clear, highland, flood-control reservoir) and he caught em shallow in both spring and fall.

And therein lies the reason we have so many "adults" out there who just don't get how things work in the real world of blood, sweat and tears. They've never had to figure out how to make things work with $2000 a month in income and $2500 in bills. The older generation immediately begins thinking, "I better get a part-time job for awhile." The younger generation just falls back on their entitled backsides and pressures family or friends to "be kind" and give them a hand. Not a blanket truth, but widespread enough to be a real societal problem in the works.

Been heading that way for a long time. How's anything gonna last if you spend $100,000 for a boat, another $100K for a truck to pull it, and fish for $10,000 MAX in the average regional tournament? Meaning the winner goes home with $10,000 and second place won't usually pay even half of that. Say you have a field of 100 boats ... that means only 2% make their expenses back after spending $1,500 minimum on traveling gas, boat gas and oil, incidental lure/tackle purchases, food and lodging. You'd have to WIN 20 of those $10K tournaments to even pay for your truck and boat. Talking about the regional level here. And the higher levels don't vary a lot. Still a very low percentage of guys even making back their expenses.

I spent my first 38 years fishing one of the cleanest lakes in the country ... Lake Ouachita in Arkansas. I've seen bass bed with the naked eye at depths of 18-22 feet on the edge of hydrilla/elodea/milfoil beds. That's a heckuva lot clearer water than Ivie but the grass stopped growing short of 25 feet because there wasn't sufficient light penetration for it to grow deeper. So, if grass won't grow down there, how can I dbass spawn? Sounds to me like someone is seriously trying to justify their spend on livescope equipment. How do they know they're looking at bass? They don't. How can this guide see a spawning bed on livescope? Why is this only happening at Ivie? Why not TR, Beaver or Bull Shoals? All three have much clearer water and therefore much better light penetration. I'm a little surprised that Texas largemouth will even go that deep for any reason, but I won't argue the point. But I will argue that (a) they can't spawn that deep and (b) that guide is full of goose hockey if he's telling people they are catching bedding fish out there. Nothing personal, Travis. I understand that you are just relaying information. But in this case, seems to me it is misinformation.

It was far more primarily retirement when we moved here in 2001 than now. I'm done giving them money to whiz away. They kicked ol' Papa Mike outta his spot at the Kingswood/Berksdale complex and are putting in a POA-owned and operated BBQ place. Huh? We already have Bubba's BBQ at the state line and Smokin' Joe's to the south. And word is, this new BBQ will be oven cooked and not even smoked. Typical POA ... stop short of doing things right because we can't afford it if we are gonna keep paying management ridiculous salaries and bonuses. Done here. Already pre-shopping for homes in Hot Springs Village. Turns out, you CAN go back home.

I've always been a big fan of spots, especially the big ones that roam the lower ends of TR and Beaver lakes. I'm also a fan of eating a mess of them when they are overly populated, as they used to be in the big lake in Hot Springs Village. Just can't bring myself to whack the sides off a 15-inch or bigger spot ... as for some reason, that remains the size limit in TR. Spots seem far more prolific than LM to me, and in some cases I've read they will beat down the LM population by monopolizing the forage supply.

Travis, there are people here a lot wiser than me, but there's no way a bass can bed 50 feet deep. Bass move shallow to spawn because their eggs need sunlight penetration to hatch and that ain't gonna happen at 50 feet.

Nailed it, snagged ... as you frequently do. And yes, I do feel better momentarily ... thanks. Hard to swallow that $300K for a budget no bigger than he manages. Then there's the restaurants manager who is making somewhere near $200K, then the golf agronomist, the aforementioned golf director, the recreation director (for pursuits other than golf) and on and on. Precariously top heavy and not in the sense us gentlemen normally prefer.

Hybrids are no longer "efficient" enough for our big-city transplant yups down in NW Arkansas. They're going full-blown EV's or bicycles. Oughta try to get around Bella Vista these days ... very common to run into a big line of cars and wonder, Flowers? Then find out there's a single bicycle taking up the middle of the lane up ahead and refusing to move the heck over to the side of the road. Because it's their "right" to impede traffic. Exactly the reason that Donna and I are 2 years from packing up and moving home to Hot Springs Village, where we used to live. Eleven lakes to fish ranging from 33 to 930 acres in size --- all with concrete boat ramps and managed primarily for fishing. There are also nine immaculate golf courses and 24-hour manned gates at the main entrances. Property owners use a computer chip card to enter after-hours at q couple of additional unmanned gates. And practically NO bicycles. Heck no, those old folks aren't gonna pedal around on bicycles when they can ride like kings in their golf carts, this guy included. Might be a few younger yups there but not many, and the ones who actually are there spend 3 hours a day or so commuting to Little Rock and back for work, which doesn't leave a lot of time to jam up traffic with their bicycle buddies. Oh yeah, rather than $165 a year or whatever the ridiculous boat registration fees are up to now in BV (I don't support the BV POA unless i absolutely must, at least not until they stop paying the general manager over $300K a year and the golf director 175K) the Hot Springs Village annual registration fee for my 20-foot Ranger is $79. And despite not being able to launch without a lake ranger showing up to quiz you on what you're fishing for, what you're throwing, how deep --- i.e., everything but his JOB --- there are unregistered trailers and boats on these lakes that are supposed to be property owners only. Of course, the BV golf courses are wide open to the general public and it shows. Property owners get no preference for tee times, instead getting bumped by all manner of society (dress code is totally ignored and there are no marshals on the course anymore) just out to ride around the course getting drunk, hitting wildly into other groups on other holes and tearing up property that is paid for by our monthly dues (which, of course, our "guests" don't pay). Less than half the price for some stupid-good fishing (the biggest lake, Balboa, also has a very healthy population of spotted bass, which the lakes management folks down there encourage folks to keep a mess of for eating so that a healthy balance remains between largemouth and spots. I realize a lot of this is of no interest to you folks in Missouri, but others have a vested interest in Bella Vista and its mounting issues with our $300K a year POA "leader" allowing the Walton grandsons to tear up 50+ years of a lovely place to retire and turning it into a bicycle/yuppy-palooza.