Champ188

Still got mine. I safeguard it with my life. 🤐😁

By all means, don't get in the way of the spoonbill snaggers. Almost like some of the striper guides on Beaver ... they own the water, you're just borrowing space from them. Love it in the winter when you're trying to navigate your way up/down the river arms and they sit out in the middle of the channel with their shad/balloon spreads and shake their fist at anyone who dares to drive within a quarter-mile of them. Sorry, but I'm not running up on a shallow flat and hitting an underwater tree, rock, etc., just so that I don't disturb you fishing in the middle of the channel.

Perhaps the best single sentence of fishing advice I've ever read. The older I get, the more time I seem to waste sitting on inactive fish --- both shallow and deep. You can't force feed a bass. It simply doesn't work.

Actually, you may be spot-on. I throw my Fins around shallow cover a lot more than most people. Not sure why. Doesn't work. Never ever. 😆

Good stuff, Bill. I have a buttload of RKs but they are all in the 55 series. Gonna grab a couple of those 50s and head up to SK on Monday. Haven't been on the Rock in nearly a year. That's just too long.

I agree. Pre-Johnny, the fishing tackle department was managed by a darn good local fisherman named Chris Johnson. His hands were tied to a degree by corporate policy, but he kept the good stuff in stock for the most part. Anymore, the tackle space is dominated by BPS -branded JUNK that probably prevents more people from catching fish than it helps.

Like everything else he's done? Nothing built, nothing back, nothing better.

The Rogers store is the biggest cluster I've ever seen just trying to get waited on, then you wind up with a guy (any/all of them) who knows nothing about fishing equipment; rather, he wants to stand there and tell you how overworked and underpaid he is. I just walked away from one the other day then went home and bought two new spinning reels online, where I knew my computer could help me a whole lot faster than any of the numbnuts/meth heads they have "working" at that store nowadays.

Spinning rod should tell you a lot. My guess would be either a small swimbait scrubbed across the bottom or a Ned.

Thank you, Vernon. And agreed on the shirt thing. I could go the rest of my life without having to see that again.

Surge Shad seems ok but doesn't get the bites for me that my Fins do. You just have to find a few good Fins and hang onto them.

Where's all the Rock Chalk folks? Not hearing much clucking or chattering from them today. Shoot, Arkansas even won DESPITE the refs. LOL

Me either, buddy. Sure not making a 6-hour drive towing the boat for a 7-pounder. Lots of places to do that closer to home that are a lot less trouble. I'm getting old and soft. I'd rather drive a couple of hours to Bull Shoals and catch 30 smaller fish a day, go back to the motel and back the rig up to the room, take a hot shower, go have a nice dinner at a wide choice of restaurants, then come back to the room and watch my choice of sports on cable TV while I fall asleep in my cushy bed. The womenfolk call that "glamping" nowadays, I think. Sign me up.

Wait, you spanked a tranny? I'm mortally offended. I thought you Yanks were WOKE! What the heck? You can expect to be scheduled for LGBTQ sensitivity training in the very near future.

And a whole heckuva lot more elbow room on the water.

Who is this mysterious man and what have you done with Bill? Winding? All fish under 8 feet? Dirty water? By the way, to anybody reading this post ... our time here on earth is limited, so please don't waste your allotment by slow-rolling a spinnerbait on these staging banks. Won't work. Nope. Not a chance.

Ebare is an up-and-comer. Kid seems to have a full toolbox of techniques and IMO just needs to learn how to win.

Great bunch of fish. Wonderful to see them so healthy and packed with eggs.

Now you're on the right bus. LOL. It ain't about entertaining anyone except those looking to line their wallets. Also gonna be interesting to see how viewer ratings hold up over the next few years when everyone out there is staring at livescope like a 14-year-old at his first Playboy magazine.

This viable population of walleye in TR is still rather new and it remains to be seen how they'll fare long-term. The word is certainly out on them, as evidenced by numerous so-called guides hammering on them daily during the spawning and dragging out one big female after another. Lots of eggs and future fish in those females. Wonder how many some folks have illegally stacked up in their freezers? Not sure about Missouri but Arkansas generally defines "possession limit" as twice the daily creel limit --- not however much your deep freeze will hold.

Nice bag! Congrats, guys!

You guys act like he's the second coming of Bill Dance. Good grief, he's just a dang ol' dragger. Reminds me of my wife. Sits back there on the back dragging that silly jig or senko around and bores HERSELF so badly that she nods off while fishing. Stop glorifying this dragging deal, people. It's barely a step above carp fishing with dough bait. 😆😂

Hogs better get their petty lockerroom/on-the-floor bickering put to rest (are you listening, Anthony Black?) and start playing as a TEAM or they are done. Might also help if they'd put as much energy into playing ball as they do arguing with the refs every time a foul is called on them.

I had a very enjoyable and educational talk with Beck once about this very subject. It was at the dock at Schooner Creek Resort and he underscored what I already felt about using only mono for jerk baits. For my money, he was the best source of info ever on Table Rock. Dave Barker wasn't far behind. And neither is our own Mr. Babler.

Sure, but I'd rather stack the odds as high as possible in my favor. Goes double when you're talking about tournament fishing. I want every ounce of tensile strength I can get between me and a bass. Besides, as a multi-time Bassmasters Classic qualifier once told me, "Sometimes you want high-tech and sometimes you want low-tech." Crank baits are a case for low-tech, and for me that means either P-Line CXX or a quality monofilament like Trilene Big Game. I want my cranking line to stretch under pressure, not snap because it's too rigid. Keeps you from (a) breaking off fish and (b) pulling those treble hooks out of the fish. A soft rod is preferable, as well, for the same reasons.