hoglaw

That's great stuff worm. Just isn't know anything about it. All I did was blind cast to grass. But the one that broke me off, I saw his wake moving around. Next trip I'll have a cuda or a big rig of my own and can cover some more water. That was hard to do in a rented yak that was so uncomfortable that I had to ratchet strap a cooler behind me just to have a back rest. My back is too messed up for that. Can't help but think with a good set up I could see better and stay on the water longer. I wondered about spinnerbaits. Will trout hit them too?

funny, that was a trip down memory lane so I looked up my old post on it. I didn't post a report. I suppose that since enough time has passed I can spill the beans that I caught a bunch of big small mouth on sammys that trip. Also, my recollection of the gauges was a little off. But I did finish the trip in two less than full days.

Last time I did it was mid-week in October and I was by myself. Didn't see a human being the entire time. I had a week between leaving my old job and starting my next, so I left a "float plan" that called for me spending 2 or even 3 nights on the river. I planned to take it slow. But the weather had other things in mind. The water was high (don't remember CFS...sorry Al), but it was about 4.5 feet on the most downstream reading which coincicded with about a 4' standing wave in the middle of clabber creek shoals. The wind blew hard the entire trip. I'd say a sustained 20 with gusts of 30+ at times. Fortunately there was enough current to fight it and I could just let it spin me around while I fished. With those conditions, bottom fishing was out so I threw a sammy the whole time and murdered them. By 5:00 on day one, I had already passed that mid-point creek. I made camp and it was so windy I didn't even mess with a fire. It was cold too. I brought my dog and he curled up as close as he could get to me in the tent that night. The next day conditoins weren't any better, and I was done with the trip by mid-afternoon at Shipp's Ferry. Water levels are the whole enchilada on that float. If it's moving, you can do it in two days easily even while fishing the whole time (maybe not stopping to get out and wade every run, but at least drive-bys). If it's low...well I've never done it low. I've done it in three days before with good water, two days with high water, and that's it. The fishing is definitely good. I wouldn't say it's the best in the state or anything, but it's worth the trip. The scenery and wildlife is exceptional. I've seen pigs, turkeys, and deer on every float. Yes you will encounter a john boat or two, but not very many during the week and not too far up. Now a nice spring weekend during turkey season? You're likely to see bunches of them and a couple of turkey camps.

I had a close shark encounter in the surf last year right where the little lagoon dumps into the gulf. I don't know what species it was. He was big and moving really fast - swam right by my wife and I. That was the end of my surf fishing time. Sure, they're highly unlikely to do anything bad to you, but being within arms reach of one that could take my leg off is not my idea of fun. That little lagoon pass is a great spot to surf fish, but lots of big toothy ones there. I wouldn't want to wade the backwaters. We could have done it on our three rivers trip as I don't think we ever got into more than two or three feet of water. But there are so many sting rays and gators back there that it would really give me the willies. You definitely wouldn't want to do it without heavy boots on and maybe even snake chaps. A sting ray to the foot or calf would be an automatic emergency room trip. I caught one good sized sting ray back there. Once I saw what it was, I brought him just high enough to cut the line with a knife below my popping cork. No way was he coming on the kayak. As best I can tell, the best kayak strategy for the redfish is to run and gun. I don't think they're hard to make bite. You just have to find them. Covering water is the only way I got mine hooked up on our second day. Once I saw his wake, I threw a dead shrimp in his general vicinity and he ate it immediately. Then he ran under my kayak and broke me off. It was cool for a second. Ham, I'm for sure in the kayak market now. Only problem is I'll have to get one for my wife too. I really like the Coosas and want a big rig for myself, but I'm not ready to shell out over $3000 for them.

I've always had canoes. I like to stand up and fish. Wasn't until recently that I learned you could do it in a 'yak. Flysmallie, you've got to do it. I don't have the first clue about inshore fishing but we still got bit and had lots of fun. Got broke off by a really nice red within sight of fort morgan road in less than a foot of water.

Just got back from a week in Gulf Shores. We did a snapper trip last Monday in Florida waters that was a bust. Did some inshore stuff with a guide on Friday and wound up fishing the Dixie Bar on the outgoing tide. If you haven't done that one before, it's a blast. Basically a huge sandbar that forms near the mouth of Mobile Bay, and on an outgoing tide lots of big fish pile up on it to pick up whatever is getting sucked out into the gulf. Bull reds are the main target. It was a slow day but we got 4 bull reds ~20lbs. Three of them came on the same drift about ten seconds apart which made for a fun fire drill. During the fireworks display on the beach a guy who had been fishing all week for sharks got lit up by a big one that he broke off about 20 yards short of spooling his 400 yards of 30lb. It picked up his lady fish about 100 yards from the beach. That was pretty cool. It never even slowed down. But the more interesting stuff to me is the kayak fishing available down there. I'd never been in a 'yak until this weekend. We just rented some cheapos from one of the outfits down there. But in the Fort Morgan area, there are miles and miles of cuts and canals that hold lots of flounder, redfish, and trout (and the occasional irritating sting ray or gator). Next year I'm going back with my own 'yak. Speaking of which, anyone know where I can get my hands on a couple of used Coosa's? Or better yet, a Coosa and a Big Rig? They'll be in the fleet by next summer.

I've never had good crappie luck in nwa other than beaver and bob kidd. And bob kidd was only a couple trips to one spot that's kind of mid lake where an old fence row runs. You should try pump back lake in oklahoma, aka w r hollway reservoir. Big lake for electrics only. Kinda tough to fish but it has lots of fish. Had a state record smallie at one point. I've never crappie fished it, but I've caught some there in the dead of winter vertical jigging a spoon for blue cats in 100 feet of water.

We seem to catch them on whatever we are fishing in the arkansas river down by van buren. Crappie jigs this spring and crank baits this last Sunday. I used to fish in the "drum rodeo" in Smackover arkansas. We would fish live eating sized crawfish on the bottom. That was always an interesting time.

The buffalo is about as close as you can get to doing that. If you can leave a boat and hike up big creek or into the sylamore wilderness, you can be a LONG way from civilization. Probably some of the mosteremote places in the state next to down south.

With a small motor you can also run up the buffalo and camp. So put in at rim, float to and camp up buffalo, then float to norfork on day 2.

The point of a leader is to have a less visible line at the lure, and to save the main line when using something expensive like nanofil instead of shortening it every time you want to re-tie. I have no idea whether fish are really "line shy" or not. I know I've experienced it when fishing for trout when a 7x leader gets lots more bites than a 5x, but in truth I don't know how much highly visible or large diameter lines affect bass. Carp and trout can certainly be line shy in my experience. Braid just looks so bright in the water, even the dark green color. If you're content fishing fireline directly to the lure then more power to you. But lots of folks feel like it's too visible, and if it costs just one bite from the old wise fish in the pool, then that's not acceptable to a lot of people. It's a problem that's easily avoided by putting a leader on, or fishing a less visible and castable mainline like CX-Premium. It would be neat to see a real study on the effect of highly visible line in clear water on various fish. I'm sure there's plenty of annecdotal evidence, and maybe a few side by side tests out there.

What MOsmallies said...

Everyone is really into the hollow body frogs. I like them, but I've always caught a lot more fish on the swimming style ones like zoom horny toads and the Ribbit frogs. They have a very good hookup ratio for me anyway. They're awesome in lilly pads. One tip for the hollow body frogs is to use a stout pair of pliars and bend the hookpoints out away from the body just slightly. With that little bit of clearance, you'll get more hook-ups. Also, be sure to let the fish take the frog. It's hard to keep from ripping him as soon as he blows up on it, but you need to let him turn down with it, then hit as hard as you possibly can. The baits moguy suggested are all awesome. So between those and your frog, you have the top and bottom covered. But you need something in the middle as well. A non-weighted senko, a trick worm, fluke, or a whacky rig/flick shake worm can be very good in that situation. The pads are thick on top, but they're wide open just underneath them. Fish can be right underneath them sometimes, and have a hard time resisting something fluttering right in their face.

Confirm your Internet access before you buy unless satellite is ok for you. On the 1031 I thought you had 90 days to identify replacement property and another 90 to close.

There probably are some, and more in colder months. But if fly fishing for trout is your thing, you'd probably be happier up higher on the river.

Nick got a good lesson in why we use heavy tackle and braid in thick stuff. I'm lucky to have carte blanche at this place. It's completely full of hydrilla this time of year. It fishes great in the winter but the summer frog bite is my favorite. My wife's personal best lm of about 7lbs came from there. I caught maybe 10 or so this trip but was disappointed at the lack of big ones. Nick had just as many blow ups but he was working with spinning gear. He lost one at least as big as that one, but he handled the fish in the picture very well.

Pumpback lake in Oklahoma used to be one of my favorite fishing destinations. It's electric motor only. I wish I could take my big boat out there and fish it but they are zero tolerance on no gas motors on the lake period. I called the GRDA office to ask one of the officers if I could use my big boat and leave my motor trimmed up. He said absolutely not and if he caught me he would write me a big ticket. He seemed mad that I even asked. They patrol it with helicopters. A lot of the guys out there have full size bass boats with three trolling motors lined up on the back and one on the front. It's rediculous. What I suspect the poster is really complaining about is that even if the big boats don't run their motors, if they can get on the water that means more pressure. I get it.

Good deal. Didn't mean to high-jack your thread with an Arkansas river report, but it just got me worried that the spawn was over. The fish we cleaned two weeks ago were full of yellow eggs as well. Tell me this, do crappie eggs get "bloody" when they're ready to pop? Also, will a big cold front and cold rain like we just had prolong the spawn, or do they just go ahead and do their thing anyway? Finally, the areas we are catching fish are clearly spawning grounds. They're just off the main channel in flats where I don't think the fish would be but-for the spawn. When primary spawning activity is done, will some fish still hang around those flats or will they move back out to the main river channel which is very close by?

Crappie. But you can't help but catch some accidental bass, drum, and other stuff. We're fishing near alma. I was just wondering if the spawn is done FF. I'm sure the Arkansas has significantly warmer water temps by now and it seems like your fish were post spawn right?

Ive been doing really well on the Arkansas river. Or at least was two weeks ago. May try again saturday. Hoping to still find some shallow in the spawning grounds. That may be a done deal by now.

Thanks Phil. I hadn't checked out their website before today. They make some really neat stuff. Has anyone tried their frogs?

That's where I've always understood it to be. You can launch at the end of natural walk road.

I caught one in Goshen that was over 7lbs. I didn't even realize it was a spot until we got the pictures back. This was in 99 I think, so I didn't have a digital camera at the time. My uncle owns the land where Mill Creek and Richland come together. He used to keep a canoe chained up on a tree for me, so when I was a fresman in college I just had to get out there and walk down the hill, then paddle/wade down richland to the confluence. I'd normally just fish the main pool right there at the bridge, and sometimes the next one up and next one down. That was before they put the boat ramp in out there. I've caught more big bass from that hole than anywhere else I've fished aside from a private lake I have access to near Siloam. There was a big flood in 2002 or 2003 I think. The lake was high and the river was backed up for a long time. It coincided with the construction of the new bridge and that darn boat ramp. Ever since then, that place has gone WAY downhill. I don't know if it's overfished, or the effluent water has gotten worse, or what. But it used to be that our average days out there would include a dozen bass on white terminator spinnerbaits or floating trick worms with at least one or two of them over 5lbs. We hardly ever saw anyone out there other than in the spring. The fall fishing would always be the best. I wish I would have had my jet back then. It would have been awesome to get up there in the low water when no one else could fish it in something other than a canoe. Anyway, this was a giant spot that I just assumed was a largemouth. I'm not sure I knew the difference back then anyway. It was 7 and change without a doubt. When I got the picture up, I looked up the state record and saw that it was 7 pounds 15 ounces. I don't think this one was 8 and it certainly wasn't on our scale (that's how good this place was back then...we always had a scale), but it was close enough to be noteworthy. I wish I could find that picture.

It's not rocket science once you get out there. Fishing jigs is a sure fire way to put a bunch of fish in the boat. You can also catch them on jerkbaits, but for the big jerkbaits you really need higher flows or weird conditions for the bigger fish to get after them. Smaller jerkbaits like Rapala X-Raps in the ~3 inch size are great on light tackle, as are in line spinners and rebel crawfish type lures. There are lots of great holes all over the river. You can catch fish in the holes, in the shoals, and even in the slack water. You will have no problem getting all of those guys on lots of fish. If for some reason you're really struggling, you can always drift with power bait or night crawlers. But there should be no problems catching rainbows on the lures mentioned above until you get tired of catching them. I'd reccommend just carrying spinning rods and 4lb line. That way you can throw everything at them.

I think it will run from 10 until 11 or noon. Court's schedules can be finicky sometimes. It's a pretty simple hearing which means I could be out in 30 minutes, or they may have five other cases stacked up before us. So you just never know. It will be a game time decision on whether I take the boat or not. I may bring it, or if they aren't scheduled to generate, I may just rent a canoe and float the Norfork. That would really be my preference and the money would work out pretty close vs. towing my boat there and back and burning gas in it for half a day. It's hard for me to not want to float the norfork on a weekday given the opportunity.