hoglaw

I have a sit backer like the one pictured and it is awesome. Highly reccommend. I'm 5'11, 235.

But Roland's suggestion is an excellent one. I love reels that you can't find easily anymore. It's definitely a little classier than my garage sale mentality.

get on ebay and find something that's a recognizable brand but super cheap. I bought four fly reels for about fifteen bucks a year or so ago when I was wanting to start building rods. They are all servicable reels. I wouldn't take them on a carp trip (and wouldn't take a 4wt for that matter), but for trout, panfish, and bass they're just fine. The reel's function is to do nothing but hold line unless you're anticipating needing a good drag system. You could honestly wrap the stuff around a coffee can like a bow fisherman. For beginning fishing, a nice reel is the last thing you'll need in my opinion. Find an old orvis clearwater, or even a wal-mart click-drag reel on ebay. You could probably pick up a servicable click drag reel for a dollar plus shipping.

I went to autozone a while back and bought an optima blue top battery. I told the guy I wanted the best deep cycle trolling battery they made. He told me "okay, $250" or something like that. I replied, "I want the second best battery then." Anyway, he sold me a battery and I was pretty disappointed with it. Turns out it was a starting battery and I never paid attention. The problem was solved when the terminals pretty much exploded. Not sure how I managed to do that. Must have arc-ed it somehow. Long story short, they warrantied it out for me but they didn't have a true deep cycle trolling battery. I wound up getting a "dual purpose." It has 75 amp hours, and a reserve capacity of 155 minutes. It's less than ideal for my purposes, but it is what it is. If someone wanted to take it off my hands, I'd entertain reasonable offers. I think I have like $230 in it after the exchanges and paying some extra cash. It has never been used, and it's located in Fayetteville/Rogers Arkansas. I really just need a flooded lead acid deep cycle with a monster amp hour rating. I talked to my electrical engineer buddy who worked on the U of A solar boat project, and he told me that for my purposes, I'd be better off with a wal-mart deep cycle to get the maximum capacity for the dollar. His opinion was that the gel battery was much better for a high impact application, but just running my trolling motor in electric motor only lakes, the only benefit I was getting from the optima was a good warranty (which has already come in handy once). Anyway, if anyone wants to take this thing off my hands for a fair price, let me know. My intent would be to just switch over to one or two giant capacity trolling batteries. Like I said, it is absolutely unused with the receipt. It will probably be "used once" as of this weekend unless someone lets me know first.

the water is extremely low. Dragging is putting it mildly.

Well I found Russ, but I had to drive to Missouri to do it. With the blazing hot days, I had been wanting to do a night float on the elk for the past few weeks. Last night's full moon was a perfect opportunity. I hauled my canoe trailer to work in Rogers, and my girlfriend met me at the Walmart just across the line. We bought our one day licenses, and headed to Hog Heaven to say hi to Russ, and get permission to leave her jeep at his place. We drove my car up to the public access above 71. It was elbow to elbow with folks, including an whole group (national origin is unclear to me) of guys who had a stringer of fish I'm sure were illegal. I don't keep smallmouth, so I have no clue what the restrictions are, but these guys had at least six 12" fish on a stringer. Anyway, we paddled up big sugar a bit to kill some time and wait for dark. At dark, we started night fishing - black buzzbaits and the typical night baits. I decided to set my girlfriend up with a technique that TrophyFishR turned me on to, and it wasn't long before she hooked her first 15" fish. After a few more the same size, I decided to fish the same way, and we positively killed them for the rest of the night. We had numerous fish 18" and more crashing our baits (she caught the biggest). We lost a number of fish. She broke one off, and I missed a few short strikes on the buzz bait (need that trailer hook next time). The downside to the trip is I missed the take out at Hog Heaven. I never saw her Jeep and didn't recognize the place in the dark, so we kept on cruising until we ran into a whole group of folks and asked them where we were. We were at Judd's landing. These folks were having a good time, but they were nice enough to let me drag my canoe on their shore and hoof it back on highway H to Russ' place. I clocked it at 1.4 miles on the way back. That's a long walk in wet river clothes at midnight in that part of the world. The folks at Judd's landing would have given me a ride, but they were having too much fun to drive and I already felt bad enough for missing my takeout by a couple of miles. Fortunately my girlfriend is a trooper. Despite having to walk back on a dangerous stretch of highway, and despite her nearly stepping on a snake in the middle of the road, she's itching to go again. I did, however, tell her that for the next few weeks I would be happy to do what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants to make up for her having to hike out like that. Hopefully she'll take me up on it. Anyway, the midnight float on the Elk still has it going on. Can't wait for the next full moon! I'll try to post a few pics, but the girlfriend has to approve them first. Thanks again Russ for letting us park at your place and for being a good neighbor. Many many thanks to the owners of Judd's landing, without whom I would probably be single. And thanks to the drunken hoards of Missouri folk camped along the river who kept our night entertaining.

indeed

What's up man? Your PM box is full and you can't receive new messages. You must be a popular guy. Whitney (my girlfriend - not the red headed girl you've met) and I are going to head your way tomorrow and I wanted to hit you up first. PM me your current phone number if you can, or give me a call - 479-957-8 32 8. We're going to pull into your neck of the woods around 7p.m. give or take.

Oh, and the water will be very low absent some significant rain. This is good for fishing. Not so much for floating. Keep your trips short.

As much as I hate sharing knowledge with a Texan...here goes. You can use some of your smaller bass gear. Most folks use spinning outfits, but I'm pretty strictly a baitcast guy. I use a number of different rods, but you can't go wrong with 8lb XT mono or heavier flurocarbon on your baitcast rods. If you're using spinning tackle, I'd use 8lb mono. I'd carry at least two rods and keep one rigged up with a bottom bouncing type lure, and the other with either a top water or a soft jerk bait such as a fluke, senko, or trick worm. Your lures are going to be your standard top waters that you use back home, smaller crank baits, and an array of bottom bouncing stuff with weights of 1/4oz or less. Typical bottom bouncing lures would be anything that imitates a crayfish such as a tube/gitzit or any number of crawdad type baits. You can also use lizards, worms, or creature baits with plenty of success. Weekend traffic can hamper fishing at times, but there are tons of bass in the river. For the bigger fish you'll want to fish closer to sun-down and sometimes through the night. Whatever you are comfortable doing in Texas will catch fish on the Buffalo.

I've seen TrophyFishR's work first hand and it's nothing short of amazing.

Big juicy worms from catalpa trees that seem to be disappearing, but Trophy FishR managed to scoop up a bucket load when I saw him the other day

Have you done it in water this low? I know a few of our creeks around here get a good bit of spring flow, or water treatment effluent flow and are floatable year-round for the most part for that reason. The ones that don't get that benefit are very bumpy at the moment. If it took you eight hours during normal water conditions, it may be too much for me to tackle with these girls in a single day.

Yes, Smack-out appears to be the name of the boat ramp directly across the river from my buddy's place. So which direction is downstream, west or east? From what I can see on Google Earth, it appears there is about a five mile float I can do to where Highway W crosses the creek. It also looks like there is parking by the Highway W bridge. Can anyone confirm?

So I'm thinking about going this weekend. I know how folks can be about their favorite spots on their favorite creek, but I'm going one way or another so that is what it is. Anyway, a friend of mine just bought a good chunk of land on Shoal just west of Monett. His property line starts a quarter of a mile from Highway 60, and it's directly across from a boat ramp he says. I'm going to either put in or take out on his property I think, and just figure out somewhere else to start or finish the trip. First of all, does the creek flow from east to west or from west to east? I see a couple of road crossings, but with all the talk of law enforcement out there, I don't want to do something I'm not supposed to. Where can I put in without worrying about getting into a hassle. Believe it or not, playing the "Well I'm a lawyer and...." card doesn't work well at all. Generally I just tell them I'm a mortician. Where is Prater's property in relation to where I'll be? If there's a boat ramp across from my friend's property, I'm guessing that this part of the creek gets floated and fished a ton. I'm taking a couple of folks out that aren't really fishermen or drinkers - just wanting a nice quiet float. I can take them to places in Arkansas where we wouldn't see a boat on memorial day weekend, but I figured I'd try this creek and I was hoping it had a little more water than most of my stuff down here. Also, is there enough water to float the creek at all right now? I know that's a lot of questions. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Whether these fishermen had a gun or not is unknown, but the sure fire way for them to have made this situation worse was to pull a gun themselves. All that would have guaranteed is that the dumbass would have shot at them and not just near them. It's an aggravated assault which means that it is a felony. I would imagine given the nature of the crime and that shots were actually fired, the WCPO will require actual pen time. If he's a first offender he may get to go to RPF or something, but that may only be available for non-violent crimes. The law in Arkansas (and most every state as far as I know) is that you have a right to use force in defense of yourself or others that is reasonably proportionate to the harm that is threatened. If someone pulls a gun on you and you reasonably believe that your life (or the life of another) is in danger, then you have an affirmative defense to the charge of murder when you smoke them. It doesn't mean you didn't commit murder, it doesn't mean you won't be accused and tried, it just means you have a defense to the charge that will result in an acquittal if you manage to prove your defense.

a split shot, circle hook, and live crawdad will catch all the fish you want to catch. Please use a circle hook though.

We had a phenomenal trip. There were tons of folks on the water, but only three other boats on our float. Hoards of people floated from just about every access it seemed. As we were taking out, four canoes were putting in but they seemed like recreational floaters and not fishermen. Old Jimmy Walker must have made a killing this weekend. He shuttled my vehicle but I never got to see him. On our float, one canoe struck out before us and we caught up to them right as we set up camp for tonight, the other two boats with four fishermen camped about a gravel bar or so above us. We beat them to the water this morning I think, but I'm not sure. The water was pretty much as low as I'd ever want to float....definitely the lowest I've done it at. The fishing was the best I've ever experienced out there. My girlfriend caught 30 or so, and her best three were all over sixteen inches. I had her on numbers, but not size. I had one seventeen, and a big largemouth that was at least seventeen. She caught so many quality fish it was rediculous. The fish were extremely aggressive and the bit lasted from sun-up to sun-down on Saturday and Sunday. I'd bet that just about everything would have caught fish. I caught mine on my standard bottom bouncing lures, but 80% of my fish hit a frog fished fast. Now that is a good time.

The girlfriend and I are doing an overnight pretty far up on the creek this weekend - higher than I've ever floated before. We're going to do ten miles in two days since I'm afraid we'll be doing a good bit of walking. I'm morally opposed to camping after Labor Day, but she wants to go and is convinced it won't be "that hot." A low of 73 doesn't seem that comfortable to me, but it's going to be a spectacular weekend with off and on clouds, maybe a little rain, and very little wind. I talked to Jimmy Walker for a few hours (or so it seemed) yesterday. He's going to shuttle me, but said that he'd never seen crowds like he did last weekend. He put folks in at George's and Kelly's, but when he got back to Snow to put some more in there were three or four trucks waiting on the ramp. Crazy.

it definitely works if you crank your drag all the way down (and don't forget to let it up again when you're done). If it's that bad, I generally just find the loop that's causing the problem, free spool, and just work the bad loop the other direction until it comes out.

To further underscore this point, about two hours ago I sent my complaint to Drew who as far as I can tell owns or is in charge of this organization. I guess he went back through the applications becuase he called me on my cell phone right after I wrote that last post to apologize, and to explain what happened. The winner called the guy who owns Lewis and Clark after the rules meeting to ask for clarification on this particular stream since, as I said, the area he fished shouldn't have been out of bounds anyway. The guy who owns Lewis and Clark apparently said that it was okay and told Drew about it....or something like that. He was very embarassed and very apologetic about the issue, promised to institute measures to keep it from ever happening again, and offered to send me a few things to make it up to me. I told him I was just glad they paid attention to the error and that they would fix it going forward, and that I looked forward to fishing one of his events again. These guys really work hard to make this vision of theirs a success and I'm definitely a supporter. I can't wait for the fall and hope to see a bunch of you guys there.

I don't have any problems with the organization. There was a good reason why this area shouldn't have been off limits to begin with and they just weren't familiar with the geography of the area being from Virginia. It should have been in bounds all along, but they definitely shouldn't have changed it on the fly. I emailed my complaint to them and hopefully they'll notify all competitors if a previously off-limits area is opened up. Aside from that issue, they did a great job running the tournament and I know they had no vested interest in the guy who won winning. No doubt in my mind they work hard and try to be fair, this was just a mistake on their part and I'm probably the only person that it affected negatively since I doubt anyone else would have fished where he did anyway. I would have zero reservations about fishing with them again in the fall, I just want them to know what they did was a mistake and to be able to learn from it going forward. I hope some more OA folks join us next time around. The fall tournament is going to be an absolute blast.

On the whole, this was a great event that I really enjoyed. I have one major suggestion that I need to email to them if anyone has their contact info and I'll get to that in a minute. All in all, it was well organized and the guys that put it on are really enthusiastic about making it work. Two kayaks and a canoe were given away as well as a few other prizes I didn't hang around to see. The winning length for three fish was 48.5 inches. I don't recall the guy's name who won it. He was a nice guy...held himself out to be a pro. The way he won it irked me a little. The map for this event has been posted for a long time. If you didn't read the original thread, this was a CPR river fishing tournament - only fishing publiclly accessable flowing waters. There was about a sixty mile or so radius from Springdale to fish, with a few other spots designated as "out of bounds." So I start talking to the guy who won, and I find out he fished the same stream I did. I ask him where, and after beating around the bush for a while, I find out he fished in an area that was previously designated out of bounds. I was planning on fishing a spot just below where he fished, but I looked at the map and fished elsewhere. He told me that on Friday, after the tournament meeting, he called the guy in charge and explained why the spot he wanted fish should have been in bounds. His explanation was a good argument - this water should have been in bounds all along. The tournament director agreed, and told him to go ahead. However, this wasn't communicated to any of the other fishermen. Most probably wouldn't have cared, but I would have fished downstream from him and I guarantee I would have caught 50" (or at least I tell myself that). Now, I have nothing against the guy who won. He planned to fish a spot, he asked permission, and he got permission. I kinda feel like he should have asked before the meeting since that's what he was planning to do all along, but I can't fault him for getting a legal advantage over the competition. Further, his advantage on this water wasn't major. Like I said, most people wouldn't have fished this spot anyway except for those of us who know how good it is. So I don't have any ill wishes towards the winner - he legally fished a good spot and caught a winning three fish. However, I think that if a section of water is going to opened up that has been posted as out of bounds for months, that all competitors should know about the special request and the change to the fishing area. They had our email addresses and phone numbers. Like I said though, most folks wouldn't have fished it anyway. I don't want to gripe, but I've fished where this guy fished and below for the last decade. I guarantee I fish it more now than anyone else in the state of Arkansas except maybe for a few kids who live on it. This is, for all intents and purposes, my home field and I had to go 15 miles upstream from where I wanted to be simply so I could be "in bounds." I guess my suggestion in the future for these things is to let folks know when there is a request to change the boundaries, and certainly to let them know when the boundaries change. For anyone else who is lucky enough to fish in one of these awesome events, make sure you let the directors know that you'd like to know if the rules change the night after the rules meeting. They're going to have another one of these in the fall. They're also looking at doing one in south Missouri which I think they should. These are awesome events and it was an absolute blast to fish it. The prizes are phenomenal. I also got to meet TrophyFishR and his awesome wife which was a lot of fun (and they did awfully well).

The fish are a little lacking in size. I've seen some pictures of very nice large mouth caught out of it that were OLD creek fish, but that's a rare deal. My last trip down there was a good fishing day, and I think I probably had 2 that went 14" (smallmouth that is). I'm not familiar with anything above 123 though. That's a long way upstream and I can only imagine it's not quite as good as the water a little farther down. I have a friend with a cabin, really the only cabin, on river right across from Helton's Farm. I've floated from the access upstream down to the cabin before, and from Helton's to Longpool (or maybe Longpool to Moore's, I can't remember which). That access is between 123 and Helton's Farm, and it's public but it's a bear and a half to get to. Can't do it without a sturdy 4x4.

I haven't seen a single one in Northwest Arkansas. The guys at Southtown tell me they're pretty thick out by Elkins, but I haven't seen or heard any around Fayetteville.