Champ188

Arkansas needs to get over this Nick Smith thing --- kiss his NBA-obsessed butt goodbye and get on with their rat killin'.

Still a big, big crappie. A 2-pounder is huge. Lots of people honestly THINK they've caught one when the fish actually only weighs 1-8 to 1-12. I was fortunate to catch a 3-4 once on a private lake in Hot Springs Village, Ark. Was throwing a Shad Rap in winter and reeling it quite slow for bass when the thing inhaled it. Heckuva fight on 6-pound line. Never got a pic because the marina was closed and it was pre-cellphone days. Just couldn't bear to kill the thing by dragging it home for a pic.

Yep, some of em have no regard for possession limits. They probably don't know that a game warden doesn't need a search warrant to enter your home. Would like to see a few of em get popped for packing those freezers. Not throwing darts at those who have it, but livescope units may well be more detrimental to crappie than any other species given their tendency to occupy open-water areas during all parts of the year except the spawn.

Nice job, Jeff. Happy new year!

Nice job, guys. Proves that FFS is only a tool and not a requirement to be competitive. Nothing will ever replace knowledge, which comes from time on the water, not a box.

Nailed it. It's nothing personal against BBT and yes, fewer fish are touched in this format. The fish are also handled more carefully than many other tournaments, and that's a very good thing. My pipe dream, which I will advocate for until my dying day, is that MDC officials would come to the table with concerned fishermen and hear us out on fishing pressure --- particularly during the spawn. Arkansas Game and Fish officials sat down with anglers many years ago concerning a similar situation on Lake Ouachita and the result was better fishing for all in the long run. There are lots of us out there trying to catch fish and we all have our own opinions about how things might be made better. Hey MDC, maybe at least hold some public forums and hear what we have to say?

I'd forgotten that but good to know. Agreed that life is waaaaaay too short for getting riled up over the little stuff. I've lost two close friends over the past week ... one to a case of pneumonia and the other to a brain tumor. He was just getting set up on home hospice and expected to have a few more months but a sudden brain bleed took him. Not to be a Danny Downer around Christmas ... just trying to underscore what we both are saying about not letting a little poking get to us. It's a fishing forum and beneath all the banter, we all want the same thing ... to catch another fish, and hopefully sooner than later.

I see you guys' point and retract my statement about ulterior motives. Yes, it would be bad business not to take advantage of such tax breaks. Still have my own opinions of JM and always will, but I was wrong to make the statement in question.

For your edification ... although it's generally prudent when you start throwing rocks (e.g., "has been") to either have a thick skull or be able to duck quickly when your target returns fire. 😂

That's the beauty of an internet forum and freedom of speech --- take what you can use and leave the rest. You guys can defend JM all you want ... you are just as entitled to your opinions as I am to mine. Or you can take the low road with Bullshoalscat and say things like others' opinions are "the DUMBEST thing I've ever heard." At the end of the day, none of us are likely to change the opinions of others. It's the nature of the beast we call the internet. And it's generally more a good thing than a bad one.

Once again, Ol' Moneybags had an ulterior motive for doing something for which he was credited as being a conservationist of angelic proportion.

Yep, same guys whose primary "strength" is the ol' bent-pole pattern. They see you catch one or more and you won't be lonely the rest of the day. Possibly one or more of those on this thread.

Bet he'd be glad to share GPS coordinates to where you can buy a brush/rock boat of your very own.

Hey Willy, I like the 65-pound PowerPro braid for frogging. I remove the pitchfork from the end of my gigging pole and tie the braid into a slip-knot noose, then carefully reach out with my pole and encircle the frog's neck with the noose. Meanwhile, Donna dangles a can of Bud Light on another pole in front of the frog and when he reaches out for the beer, I yank upward and snare him around the neck. Don't try this with any of those "craft" beers though ... these frogs are only interested in BUD-WISE-ERRRR.

Good to see you guys getting together. Speaking from experience, Jeff is great company in a boat. 😉

Glad to hear of this project. Very glad. May blessings befall BPS/COE/MDC for this effort. Would love to see them use some other types of trees, as well. Grew up being a "brusher" and several of us around lakes Ouachita, Hamilton and DeGray, including tournament fishing pioneer Ricky Green, learned that cedars, while GREAT for crappie, weren't necessarily the best species for attracting and holding bass. Pin oaks, on the other hand, were sublime.

Now THAT is some serious action in the right direction. I'd much rather hear of an "every man fisherman" putting his money and sweat into helping the fishery than others taking credit for adding to an empire that does nothing but add angling pressure. Makes me feel pretty small for simply trying to raise awareness with my mouth (or fingers), but for now, that's what I can afford to do. THANK YOU, Browning Guy for your contributions. You rock, brother!

Just like anyone else, I'm limited in WHAT I can do because I am one person, and one person cannot impact change upon a 50,000-acre fishery. That takes action from the ruling bodies ... in this case, the MDC and the COE. Missouri was second only to Texas back in the 70s and 80s for fisheries management ... i.e., the statewide 15-inch length limit on largemouth bass. Perhaps we need some forward movement from them ... at least conduct some intense and viable studies on the busiest lake in the state to see where catch rates stand, where gamefish numbers stand vs. what the forage base can sustain, etc. Perhaps the Corps could look at limiting the number of tournament permits it issues per day, week, month ... And for that matter, the Corps could also consider the damage being done to our shorelines (as Steve pointed out earlier) by the big cruisers and wake boats. Instead, all we get is status quo from both agencies. "Everything is fine," they say. Maybe it is, but their answer is not based on science because they haven't conducted any real science. All they do is run a shocking boat through a few areas every spring and say YEP, WE'RE GOOD! Anytime that anyone I know, including myself, has inquired about taking a closer look, the default answer is "We can't afford it. Not enough in the budget." So here's an idea ... how about Johnny Moneybags gets up off a few dollars and actually DOES SOMETHING FOR THE VERY LAKE THAT HAS SUPPORTED HIS LAVISH LIFESTYLE FOR DECADES instead of every project he does having the end result of putting more money in his pockets? Frankly, I would be happy with some sort of protective regulations on fishing during the spawn. Northern states do it and so could we. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can't increasingly pressure something forever and expect it to remain in peak form. Doesn't work that way with machinery, relationships or fisheries.

I'm afraid none of it will do any good long term but, hey, at least I can go down swinging. I'm not anti-tournament but we can't take things for granted and expect them to always be there. Gotta show a little love for the fish and the lake itself. Thanks for the nice words, Steve.

You know Ketchup, us "has beens" have seen the lake at its best and we want to leave it like we found it ... or better. At this point, it's doubtful that will ever happen, but at least we are open to some new ideas of management and conservation. But heck no, let's not consider tighter regulations because by gosh, we aren't gonna let the gubment and those dastardly "has beens" take away our rights to pound the resource to death. Heaven forbid that we be restricted to a 3-fish limit or a no-cull rule during the spawning months to protect the fishery for ourselves and future generations. No one is trying to take anything from anyone, just protect the fishery from fishermen themselves. One really big problem is, the "never beens" just want to start more and more tournaments until the field is diluted enough that they can finally cash a check. Shoot, put your money up and fish against the Becks and Bablers and Barkers and Fletchers and McCutcheons and Thomases and Eakins of the world ... that's how it works if you want to get better. Of course, many will drop out at the thought of putting their money up against the best, creating exactly what many including myself believe would help more than anything. Less tournaments means less pressure on the fish ... especially spawning fish, which is the original subject of this post anyway.

Don't mean to pick on the BBT event except that if JM was really the conservationist that he's trumped up to be, seems like he'd take a lead role in looking at how many tournaments are scheduled each year on Table Rock and perhaps lead the way in reducing that pressure on our wonderful resource. I think it's pretty safe to say that TR is easily one of the most tournament-pressured lakes in the nation. As Browning Guy suggests, find a way to cut back on derbies when the fish are in their most vulnerable state of the year. Surely there's a viable solution if the powers that be (i.e. money folks) would come to the table and talk.

The powers that be are never gonna short the illustrious Big 10 when it comes to the playoffs, and especially THE Ohio State University. Too big and slow (i.e. white) to compete against SEC teams; nevertheless, it's not FAIR to load the playoffs with too many SEC teams. Look forward to expanding to 12 teams in 2024 so most of the whiners can get in and get their butts kicked in the early rounds and then we can get on with the real business of crowning a champion,.

Congrats ... that should be right in the middle of the spawn again. What would be wrong with scheduling these to MISS the spawn rather than to land right on top of it? Another example of how committed ol' Johnny is to taking care of our resources.

I, for one, am totally embarrassed at the comments Chuck Barrett made about Missouri. I'm sorry, guys ... I didn't say it but I am compelled to apologize on behalf of our state and Arkansas journalism as a whole. I started working at the statewide Arkansas Gazette in 1979 as a sports clerk and continued on there to become a sportswriter of some note. Spent 16 years in sports before transferring over to the news side. If Barrett can say he just never liked Missouri, I can say that in my limited time around him, I never cared for Barrett. He certainly isn't half the man (in any way) that the late Paul Eells was (picture below).

Me and ol' Bo went round and round a few times on this subject. Sure miss him. Did an article on finesse fishing once with the late Ricky Green on DeGray Lake in Arkansas. We fished timbered bluffs on the lower end of the lake in April, when most of the fish were postspawn. We did some experimenting with 10-pound test down to 1-pound test (yes, not sure about now, but in the 1980s, Trilene made its XT (blue box) line in 1-pound test.) There was a marked difference in the number of bites we got by reducing our line size to 6 lb and then even more of a difference when we switched to the 1 lb. test. There are points for and against light line fishing but for me, I'll always be a light-line proponent.