Champ188

Couldn't agree more. That's the tendency everywhere, but especially on highland reservoirs like Table Rock and Bull Shoals.

They would bite. They always bite in the snow.

We will limit the hug giving to Donna so as to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Of course, in this age of political correctness and universal acceptance, we are bordering on sparking a riot by even suggesting that traditional standards for M/M contact are still in place.

Be careful about applying logic to Beaver.

C4F, you are a man after my own heart. If you don't catch em, at least deflect the negative energy with humor.

Line slap must be the tekneekul term for what I said earlier ... wallering around.

I throw mine on everything from dock corners to cedars to 45-degree banks to straight-wall bluffs to shallow-sloping gravel points. Depends on the conditions, the season, etc. I can tell you that you pretty much won't go wrong throwing it anywhere you'd throw a Wart, so long as you have a minimum of 2-3 feet visibility. It's possible to call one up out of 15-20 feet of water but 30-35 is getting a bit ambitious. Probably better to go with something you can get down there better, like the A-rig.

You're dead right about that Alex and we do a LOT of winter fishing.

176champion, there were a couple of theories at work when the micro guides came out a few years back. First, they lightened up rods considerably and allowed blanks to operate more freely with less wrapping required. Second, with little room for the line to "wallow around" inside the tiny guides during a cast, it was believed that the reduced friction would result in longer casts. I'm not sure that actually happened. It certainly didn't for me. I bought quite a few of the Duckett Micro Magic rods. Loved them and still do. They're light and I've never had one break unless I shut the rod box lid on it or committed some equally careless/ignorant act. HOWEVER, nearly every one of them is now missing at least one guide, and some are missing two or three. The dang guides are super fragile and become moreso with age. I would love to have them rewrapped but I'm not going to spend more than $50 a rod to refurbish used rods. Just not prudent. So I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. Bottom line is I really can't recommend micro guides, at least not the little tiny ones like Duckett uses (or did on the original rods). I think there's a newer semi-mini size that probably is sturdier and would hold up longer.

Try going a bit lighter on your line ... I like 8-pound P-Line CXX mono or 8-pound Maxima mono. Be sure and use green. Both are very tough lines that are stronger than a lot of people realize. What you don't want to use is fluorocarbon because it sinks and will pull your jerkbait down with it or cause it to sit at more of a nose-down angle than you want. That comes straight from Mike McClelland, who is as good a jerk bait fisherman as there is anywhere.

I used to have several of the old silver 4600-CB's and for some of the junk I've owned since then, I'd be better off to still be throwing them. Built like a tank. Mine went everywhere from the biggest lake to the smallest farm pond and worked as advertised every step of the way. All they ever needed was an occasional level wind paw and a good cleaning/lube a couple times a year.

Funny you should mention Woolly. It dawned on me after I posted that we made a quick stop on those right-side docks going in as we were heading in from Buzzard. In fact, Donna caught her short Rock Crawler fish in between a couple of those docks. Didn't go very far back in there. Was starting to rain pretty good and we were worn out by then. LOL about the decoy fish. I think you're right.

He's right about this. Blue Bandit and Ghost Table Rock Shad are good starting places on colors in the SPRO lineup. The original suspending McStick 110 and the McRip 85 (for really cold water) are what you want for basic jerk bait fishing around here.

Tell you what, my friend, a cup of hot coffee would've been pretty darn good right about then. Sorry for intruding on your fish but I promise, we didn't hurt them much. LOL

Terrin, I catch a fair amount of jerk bait fish and that RC STX is my absolute favorite bait. Don't toss them away.,

Yes Jim, it was my stained water favorite purple green apple. And thanks Mike, we do stick it out.

Yes I have and let me tell you, it's amazing to be able to throw a Ned on a casting rod. It is well finished, too. Very pretty work.

Beautiful fish. Congrats on a nice hour's work in what has been some tough conditions. And thanks for the report!

Well, since I'm one who preaches that posting your failures helps the rest of us as much as reports of success, I'll take my own advice and tell you guys about what not to do in the Cape Fair area. At least it was a fine display of what not to do Saturday. Donna and I launched around 8:00 at the marina and I lit out for Buzzard ... except I headed upstream instead of down. Don't know why but that channel bend there throws me every time. No biggie, I just picked out a nice transition right in a nice bend, threw down the troller and went to work. Spinnerbait (War Eagle 3/8-oz in purple shad) and Luck-E-Strike RC STX (dang, I forgot the color) got the nod for me. Donna started with a finesse jig (of course) and Bandit 200 crank bait (custom paint brown splatter/chartreuse/orange). Fished that entire transition from bluff with wood to slab rock to chunk/gravel and finally plain gravel without a bite. And to avoid repeating that for the next several spots, we didn't get a single discernible bite for the first 5 hours we fished. Two similar areas that have proven to hold fish pretty much without fail in the past produced the same results. Soooo, apparently it wasn't a main river deal. Fine. I'd rather catch em back in the creeks anyway. Next stop was the big timbered cut on the south side just below the 76 bridge. Don't know the name of it but I do know that Jim Eakins fishes it quite a bit. Blade, jerk bait, crank bait and jig again failed to impress, . Onward to Peach Orchard, which upon entering I noticed one of the solo pro championship dudes fishing the left side, so we took the right. He was throwing a blade, too, so since he'd likely been on the water since practice opened Wednesday, I figured,S well, maybe I'm on the right track. You betcha. Donna and I pounded every inch of water in that entire pocket over the next 2 hours, again without a bite. She had replaced the Bandit with a Rock Crawler by this time, for all the good it did. I was getting more beligerent by the moment with the jerk bait, figuring if I wasn't gonna catch anything, I'd rather not catch them on a jerk bait than anything else. So I kept slinging it. Same bait. Same color. Coz I'm bullheaded like that. Finally at 1 p.m., I hauled out our 10-6 crappie rods (spinning rods that double as float-n-fly rigs) and rigged one up with a pink/white Bobby Garland Baby Shad and the other with the same lure in purple/chartreuse. First frigging drop, I caught a just-barely-short crappie. Here we go, I thought. Uh huh. It was 45 minutes before we got the second bite and it was even smaller. Long story short, we crappie fished for 2 hours and caught one decent keeper. Figuring 4 hours in Peach Orchard was quite enough, we headed downstream for Buzzard (going the right direction this time). Got in there about 2:30, just in time for the rain to start. Mind you, the temp at this time was 37. I don't think it broke 40 all day. Again, we fished and fished and fished (I'm still throwing the same jerkbait and wouldn't change for a million dollars now) without a single bite. Finally, back where the pocket bends to the right, Donna throws on a dock corner and I throw down the side and what happens? A double. Yeah, all day without a bass bite and we catch a double, and Donna's was a keeper. She had resigned herself to throwing a green pumpkin Ned rig by now and yes --- I was still throwing the RC STX. Did I mention being bullheaded about such things? So over the next 30 minutes we managed to catch 2-3 more shorts. All the while, the rain was increasing and at 4 p.m. we'd had enough. So there's your blow-by-blow account of how to screw up what should've been a pretty good day of fall/early winter fishing on Table Rock.

You may be right, Tanderson. I may just surrender the driver's seat AND the front deck and let her have it. Probably do better than the dumbazzery I've been putting out lately.

Wasn't her fault. The guide sucked. Bad choices all day, including not moving around enough.

Ben, Yes, Hickory Creek is a marina with year-round staff. It would be a great place for a reading site because it is up in the White/War Eagle river arm of the lake.

Anyone who hasn't run the Fortrex is missing out. I have a 4-year-old Fortrex 101 and I'm a river rat, so my trolling motor takes a beating. This one has never given me a single problem.

Now you guys are starting to understand ... really understand Champ188 --- the man, the myth, the legend. LOL

I'm with him ^^^ on the Shimano Curado 6.3:1. I can slow down plenty when I need to and still have the speed to keep pressure on the fish if he runs straight at me during the fight.