Champ188

Fishrman, The answer is (d) all of the above. Seriously, there are suspended and bottom fish both around the docks although seems like the better ones are on the bottom.

Dave, If you're looking for more action than bigguns, there's a pretty good dock bite going on. Shaky head worms and finesse (Eakins-type) jigs are working really well. Concentrate on the portions of the docks that are in 12-25 feet of water and try to pitch your jig or worm as far back in the slips as you can. Green pumpkin candy is my favorite color but anything similar will work. Also, keep an eye on your graph out on the ends of the docks and have a drop-shot rig ready to drop to any schools of fish you might see. You can also drag a football jig around the dock ends and catch some better fish. Have fun!

BlueWave, Here's an idea if the striper bite doesn't seem to be on ... try them at night. Get yourself a Super Spook and a big Rat-L-Trap (3/4 or 1-ounce) and fish the flats where the stripers are hanging out. They'll come up on these flats and feed at night. A good friend introduced me to this a couple of years ago and it's a BLAST. The flats and points off the islands out in front of Rocky Branch are excellent places but I'm sure there are equally good ones farther down the lake around Indian Creek. Tip on the Rat-L-Trap ... take a chrome one and scrape it down to a bone color. Oh yeah, and don't jerk prematurely when you hear an explosion on your Spook. You don't want that big contraption flying back atcha in the dark.

BlueWave, Yes indeed this pattern will work on Beaver but likely not as long as the lake remains high. There's simply too much shoreline cover available right now. One of these days when they finally start drawing it down and the shoreline cover becomes more sparse, the bass will pull out into the cedars. Good areas to look are Ford's Creek, Rambo/Van Hollow and Indian Creek.

By gosh, Bill is right. I'm a Champion owner myself and fished the tournament. On Sunday morning, I had two guys who were WAY old enough to know better pull up and start fishing the same blasted boat dock that my wife and I were fishing. The SAME DOCK! I'd hate to think how bad it might've been if we'd actually been fishing for a boat instead of $5,000 cash. Bill's thread did not personally attack Champion boat owners as a whole. He simply pointed out the truth about some of the boneheads who happened to be fishing out of Champs this weekend. They'd be the same if fishing from a Ranger, Triton, Stratos or anything else. Sad that common courtesy seems to go out the window so fast these days when a few dollars are dangled in front of folks. Bill's also right about the cedar tree pattern. My wife and I had enough fish on Sunday to finish much higher than we did and possibly win the tournament. We simply didn't put them in the boat.

The only early November pro tournament that I know of is Central Pro-Am, which will be Nov. 1-2. In all likelihood, probably won't be more than 60 boats in it. Shouldn't crowd the lake at all.

Thanks so much guys for all the thoughts and prayers. God has already been very good to us in seeing that this was discovered at an early stage. We're confident that He will see us through. We'll be at Table Rock this weekend for the Champion owners tournament. Hope to see some of you there. If you see a white/silver/red/black 188 Elite with a Merc 200 Opti, please stop by and say hi. We'll likely be somewhere between KC and the Kings.

Snakem, sounds like a very good day on the water. My wife is my best fishin' buddy and fishes team tournaments with me. She was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer and the prognosis for full recovery is very, very good ... 95% or better. Still, she's facing surgery and quite a while off the water afterward. I think she's more worried about missing out on winter crappie fishin than the darn cancer. Thanks for the report.

I agree on the first cast. It's my only superstition in the world. I always make a little 10-foot cast before actually starting fishing.

kcangler, i've been doing well for months now on the football jig. i'm using a half-ounce jig (green pumpkin candy, green pumpkin Zoom Creepy Crawler trailer) and not fishing it too deep. 6-15 feet seems to be the key range and it works best on points (both main-lake and secondary) with wood or brushy cover. sometimes they grab it and haul tail, other times they nibble for awhile before taking it. don't assume the nibblers are small ones. caught a 3-pound-plus smallmouth sunday that just nibbled and pecked at it for several seconds. wait til the line tightens up and let em have it. hope this helps.

Any of you guys know how to adjust the foot pedal on a MotorGuide Tour 82? Had the lower unit replaced on mine last week and apparently the tech didn't get the new foot put on in the same position as the old one. I'd like the pedal to be flat when I'm moving straight ahead as it used to be but right now my foot is cocked heel-back and it's killin my lower back. Thanks in advance for any help.

Congrats on the new 198. You will love it. My 188 is a 2004 and I'm at the point right now where I'm considering selling it and getting a new one. I hate to let it go, though. Dang it's been a good one.

My nearly new MotorGuide Tour Edition went gonzo the other day, pretty much refusing to run at anything but high speed. If I turned the speed-control knob down anywhere near mid-range or below, the motor ran constantly. I could turn it all the way up or close to it and the motor would operate semi-normally except you didn't know when it might decide to come on all by itself, which is a little disconcerting to a guy who doesn't swim and would prefer not to be tossed off the front deck. Took it to Waymack Marine in Springdale, AR, where they found water in the foot. Seems this a common enough problem that MotorGuide has issued a service bulletin on it. The units are leaking around the built-in transducer. The good news is that MotorGuide honored their warranty not only by replacing the entire foot (i.e. the motor itself) with a new and improved model, but also bumped up my warranty by a year, giving me a new warranty for 3 years. I'd call that stand-up service in today's age of customer service. And speaking of service, Mitch at Waymack happened to have a foot in stock, so my turnaround time was less than 24 hours. They are one of only two MotorGuide warranty service centers in NW Arkansas. I know we all have our preferences and I have nothing bad to say about Minn Kota, but I'm a MotorGuide guy and after this experience, I'll continue to be one.

rps: My firm belief is that BOAT is not an actual word but an acronym that stands for Break Out Another Thousand. Oh well, warranty should cover the repairs but I hate being down in the meantime. And thanks kindly for the tournament wishes. Be nice to find a strong dock bite up there at LOZ and win the big one. CPA championship is Oct. 4-5. I'll report back regardless of the outcome. Chub: rps is right about the upper Kings. Stay after em up there and you'll get em. Keep a buzzbait and spinnerbait handy for when the water dips a few more degrees and chunk em at every dock and piece of wood you come across. Oh, and too bad that RETARD in the big cruiser didn't punch a hole in the hull on one of the MANY deadheads up there that are just under the surface. Never hurts to have another piece of structure to fish.

Nice largemouth, rps. And a good walleye as well. Went Sunday myself and managed to catch a mixed bag of about 15 SM, KY and LM by flipping docks with small jigs and shaky head from Baxter to Big Creek but only three keepers in the bunch. I'll take it, though, considering I had no front graph (brand new Lowrance 520c got water in it during a rainstorm last trip) and my trolling motor suddenly went berserk and would run only at high speed, sometimes coming on without me even touching the foot pedal. It's a MotorGuide Tour 82, less than a year old. Needless to say, not exactly in equipment heaven right now. And of course, all this happens a few weeks before the Central Pro-Am championship. Boat traffic was awful down Baxter way Sunday. Maybe they all ran outta gas $$$ by Monday.

Know what you mean, techo. I'm 6-4, 300-too-dang-much and can make a 6-pounder look like a 2-pounder in pix.

Wish I had used my cellphone and took a picture of the one I caught Saturday. It was a pretty one ... shaped like a KY but with smallmouth coloring and markings. It was raining at the time and I had put my phone away. Hope you catch one soon, too, rps. Don't tell anyone (lol) but this particular one was on the first secondary point on the right at the mouth of Big Creek. Maybe you can catch him. He seems to like WMC football jigs.

Also fished the Kings area Saturday, launching at Viola around 9:30 a.m. and fishing til 6 p.m. Caught some shorts flipping jigs around docks and dragging FB jigs around points. Did eventually catch eight keepers but all of those came between SK bridge and Big Creek. Again, FB jig was the ticket but the fish weren't deep ... 10-18 feet. Used a half-ounce FB jig in watermelon candy with the Zoom Creepy Crawler trailer. Did hit a keeper grand slam ... SJ, KY, LM and 3.5-pound MM. Would like to have weighed in that sack in a tournament just for novelty purposes. Best five went 13-14 pounds. Not a big sack obviously, but not bad for getting started late and you don't often see all four species in a five-fish tournament sack.

Thank you Techo for your comment about the pros not getting a free ride. I fish the pro side of Central Pro-Am and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to do so. Other than a few complimentary lures here and there, that is all money straight out of my pocket. I do not have other sponsors who pay my way and that has nothing to do with my angling skills or success rate. I have qualified for the CPA championship among the top 20 in season points each year I've fished the circuit. It's because I work a full-time job and do not feel that I could adequately represent such sponsors with my remaining time. I prefer to spend that time on the water finding fish for the next tournament, which will benefit both me and my co-anglers. In the past two years alone, five and perhaps six of the co-anglers who have fished with me have finished in the top five of a CPA tournament, including two who won. At current gas prices, my average fuel bill for a tournament day is $100. Forget the oil at $20 a gallon, let alone all the other expenses of owning a state-of-the-art bass boat. And still, like clockwork, most amateurs hand me a $20 bill at the end of the day for their "share" of the gas. In part, that is perpetuated by folks spreading the myth that pros in regional-level tournaments have most or all of their expenses paid. Tain't so.

Sounds like you had a good plan and that you did darn well for your first visit to a great but very unique lake. Glad you enjoyed yourself. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Anyone know if the Sweetwater ramp is open now? Also, curious if anyone has a report on the Kings between Viola and the 86 bridge? Was thinking about trying to fish that area Saturday for the heck of it. Thanks in advance for any help.

Eric's right. I know because I guided full-time for several years on the lakes around Hot Springs before deciding that was too much work and worry for me. Some people will zero in on a guide boat and dog you everywhere you go. And it has more to do with the person than whether they are a "tournament fisherman" or recreational angler. Some people just have little regard for others and lack the character or ability to find their own fish.

I have one thing to add to the C&R issue ... the MDR has always been on the cutting edge of bass management practices. Missouri was one of the first states to implement a minimum length limit, if not THE first. Minimum length and slot limits are management tools that enable biologists to help balance a fish population within a lake's ability to support a given number of fish per acre. But such limits are completely ineffective when there is zero harvest. The idea is to take some fish, therefore improving living conditions for others. Catch and release is a great practice and needs to continue up to a point, but there also needs to be some controlled harvest in order for our regulations to work to our advantage.

On the subject of jig trailers, just wanted to add that I've been using the Zoom Creepy Crawler doubletail this year with quite a bit of success. It's a smaller profile than the Yamamoto or Kinami but works well for me on a fb jig. But its real niche for me is on the back of a 5/16ths Eakins jig. You might give it a whirl.

Shane, what buddy tournament are they having up there this weekend? Are you not fishing Central Pro-Am?