hoglaw

Wow, I've never seen one of those. Looks like a cross between a sucker and a channel cat.

One of my group member caught a rainbow just below Snow on Crooked Creek one time. It was probably in April. That's a heck of a long way from the White too on an even smaller body of water. No doubt the rainbows will come a long way during the colder months. With the big amount of cool rain we've had, I would think there are still a few scattered around that are making their way home.

The Kings should be outstanding by this Saturday. I imagine a few of the folks in the river bass thing will head that direction.

A little slower action seems to work best for me. You need a little give, and you can accomplish that with either a slower rod or mono. I use a moderate action for crankbait rods, a moderate-fast for sammies, trick worms/flukes and frogs, and an extra fast for texas rigging, hula grubbing, and jigging. The ideal sammy rod is a little slower than a fluke rod, but they're pretty close. I know that wasn't the question, but if you're trying to get by with a rod that's too stiff, I think mono is a necessity for decent action, while a proper rod could let you use fluro or even braid. I'm definitely with Al on the short rod length. The last rod I made was with sammies and flukes in mind, and it's a 5' pistol grip with a moderate fast action and I use 8lb Berkley XT in green.

I managed to put a trip to one of my favorite local rivers together today. My girlfriend and I drove to the river and shuttled our vehicles by about 7:30, and set off on a 10 mile float. The water was definitely up (I've been watching the level like a hawk all week), which is how I convinced myself to go float in this wind. Anyway, when I first laid eyes on the river I figured we were in for a big day. The water had the most beautiful green stain that falling rivers tend to have - the kind that makes you think fish can see baits but aren't going to be picky. With all the flooding, I thought they'd be hungry. Basically I psyched myself up for the trip in every way possible, including a trip to Southtown for four buzzbaits I was just sure they'd be all over (and a new reel and other things I didn't need, but that's beside the point). Reality is another thing alltogether. The fish were SLOW. At most we caught eight or ten, but my girlfriend caught the biggest of the day after chunking a 3/8oz chartruse and white spinnerbait with a long white twin tail trailer all day long....mainly because I didn't know what else to give her. I fished Spro poppin' frogs, buzzbaits, horny toads, a crankbait, hula grubs, trick worms, a single tailed grub, and (...ugh...) a tube. I caught a 12" spot on the crankbait, and had a few dinks hit the hula grub, but other than that, nada. The wind was absolutely brutal, but that's no excuse. We made plenty of quality casts and should have caught some fish. The water was on the fall, but certainly a little high (with the wind and our fishing efforts, the 10 mile float was done in about 5.5 hours). With the south wind and clear skies, I knew the bite might be off but I figured I'd get some reaction strikes. I was wrong. I have nothing but a sore back, a serious sunburn, and a lighter wallet to show for the trip. I did get to spend some quality time with my girlfriend on a bright sunny day, and she did get to catch the big fish, so it's certainly not all bad. Anyway, I had such high expectations for this trip because I love this stream. Even on Memorial Day, we didn't see other floaters. How do you handle situations like this one? Post spawn, post flood, high pressure, high wind, and high water (but pretty green tint). I feel like I hit every part of the water column and tried all the likely spots like slack water, heads of pools, tails of pools, pools, wood, rocks, etc. I had a hard time navigating the faster riffles and fishing them, but that's really the only area I neglected. Aside from that I fished my tail off and my girlfriend did too. What can I do differently next time I'm faced with these conditions?

You can't fix stupid. Many many folks just don't respect what water can do. I had to prosecute a very young mother in West Fork who tried to cross a low water bridge during a flood. She stalled when she sucked water into the intake and fortunately she and her two very young children were rescued. She had a mimimal amount of alcohol in her system, but that might be due in part to the fact that it took a long time for the police to get her out and test her following the rescue. She had an angel looking out for her for sure. Those babies were very nearly washed away for good and by some miracle I got to deal with her instead of the coroner. There will always be morons trying to float the hailstone in an inflatable canoe, loading five people in a canoe, or trying to cross low water bridges. I think a combination of ignorance, intoxicants, and "it can't happen to me" is at play in most of these scenarios.

The Westboro ilk remind me of a guy we used to call "Moses" on campus at the UofA. He would preach fire and brimstone and spend most of his time calling the young ladies harlots and generally all college students sinners. Come to find out the guy went campus to campus doing this to incite folks into assaulting him, or to get the Universities to restrict his speach in an arguably illegal manner for the pupose of generating lawsuits. I guess that's just how he made his living. I have a hard time believing any of these Westboro people are doing the horrible things they do out of faith or some misguided system of beliefs. I have to think there is some ulterior motive they are serving by spewing hatred that is completely unrelated to faith. Unfortunatlely putting up with these kinds of people is just part of the price of freedom in this country. If somehow we could manage to ignore them and frustrate whatever purpose they have in life, maybe they would just go away.

On of the lawyers in my firm and I took off yesterday morning to head up there with all the bottled water, work gloves, and tarps we could fit in my truck. We read that they were asking folks to stay away and just head to one of the universities up there. We tried that but no one seemed to know what was going on, so I typed in Academy Sports in my phone (unfamiliar with the area) and took the side streets to get there. I've never seen anything like it. I can't imagine how you even start to clean up the devastation or rebuild all of that. We heard kids celbrating when they found their favorite toys in the rubble. We saw the police arresting two guys that we can only assume were trying to loot the Academy wreckage. Anyway, we went to one of the command centers and dropped off our load there. I talked to the fireman in charge and told him we were willing to help in any way needed, but there were so many men standing around just waiting to be told what to do we figured we'd get out of the way. I know my Rotary club and a bunch of other organizations are rounding up supplies to send that way, so I figure the best thing my firm can do to contribute would be to volunteer our time up there for a couple of days helping folks with filling out paperwork for relief claims and insurance claims...something like that. It's just an idea, but I've got quite a few lawyers who would be willing to donate their time if anyone can help us figure out how to be useful.

Figured I'd give this one a bump. I've had it on my calendar for a couple of months now and I'm going to give it a go with my girlfriend. Anyone else fishing it?

I couldn't agree more. I like to fly fish and one of my fondest experiences was whacking a bunch of western trout on a panther martin while all the high dollar orvis goobs were trying to match size 20 nymphs.

Hope you guys do an open invitation if you make one of those trips again (the winter floater trip, not the trip likely to end in gunplay). I'd love to come with.

100% agree

Woke up this morning at 6 to a beautiful day and a beautiful girl beside me. Cool but not cold, cloudy but not rainy, breezy but not windy. Hopped in the car and drove down the pig trail, a drive worth driving for the ride alone. Got to turner bend at 8 or so - the Mulberry was at 4 feet. Floated 14 miles of EPIC whitewater and monstrous standing waves in two hours - flat. Made it through in one piece. Drove back to Fayetteville and had an old crow and ginger ale. Girlfriend went to a country concert on campus at the U of A, so I called a buddy, hooked up the flatbottom and headed to Oklahoma. Cloudy had become sunny. Cool had become warm. Breezy had become dead calm. Went to my favorite lake in Oklahoma and found only a few boats on the water. Caught a dozen bass including a 6lb largemouth and a 19 inch smallmouth. Saw a family of otters. Made it home, posted about the awesome day, about to snuggle up with beautiful girl and sleep in tomorrow. Doesn't get much better than that.

on CC the fish that have already spawned are unaffected, the fish that were on beds when the water hit got blown away, and the fish that haven't started yet I imagine will start when the water drops out. Can't imagine any fish trying to spawn at 20000 cfs, but the big flood water is gone. The fish know what this feels like, and they know how long it will be until the water starts clearing up and they can get back at it. I would say that the spawn would be largely unaffected other than those that were on beds definitely couldn't stay on them. It may even be that some that were ready to go could tell this was in the works and held off a bit. I think you'll just see a later spawn, plus the water never really got that warm before all this anyway.

I also posted this in the BS forum - sorry for the double post but figured I'd try to make sure it was in front of the right folks. I'd like to understand what BS and Norfork are going to do over the next two weeks. Seems to me that BS is the big holding tank for all this water. With the MR flooded, and TR and Tanny jamming water to BS, what does the Corps do? It looks like they're steadily running one unit today with a little bump later, and two units tomorrow. Not much generation. Will they keep holding water in BS until the MR is out of the streets of Memphis and Tunica? We had a plan to do a buddy's bachelor party in Tunica, but it's being evacuated, casinos are being ordered to close, and the golf courses confirmed to me on the phone that they would be under water soon. Plan B is to head to the Norfork/White confluence, but if there are flood gates open or 8 units running, that seems less than desirable. I was thinking the flooded MR might mean low generation next weekend. Any thoughts?

I'm posting this in the White River forum too, but figured you guys might have some knowledge, so please excuse the double post. I'd like to understand what BS and Norfork are going to do over the next two weeks. Seems to me that BS is the big holding tank for all this water. With the MR flooded, and TR and Tanny jamming water to BS, what does the Corps do? It looks like they're steadily running one unit today with a little bump later, and two units tomorrow. Not much generation. Will they keep holding water in BS until the MR is out of the streets of Memphis and Tunica? We had a plan to do a buddy's bachelor party in Tunica, but it's being evacuated, casinos are being ordered to close, and the golf courses confirmed to me on the phone that they would be under water soon. Plan B is to head to the Norfork/White confluence, but if there are flood gates open or 8 units running, that seems less than desirable. I was thinking the flooded MR might mean low generation next weekend. Any thoughts?

Dying to fish today so the girlfriend and I went out to Lincoln Lake. Not sure if you guys are familiar with it. Anyway, the island with the main ramp was under two feet of water. The creek was roaring chocolate milk at the put-in. We went all the way to the back of the lake and it was the same story back there. That creek is MOVING. Water is almost over the top of the drain in the middle. It's still clear-ish in the middle, but very muddy on both ends.

Al: There may be no reason to offset the first guide. The guy's advice I was working off of was to place the third guide directly on the bottom and make it a single foot micro, sort of like a choke guide on a spinning rod - the guide where the line path changes. From there, he said to work backwards with two double foot guides placed in such a position that the line path is interfered with the least. To do this I started the line off the right side of the spool, and rotated the guide to the left until I'd gone as far as I could go while keeping the path I wanted just to make sure it wouldn't be interfered with in the most extreme position. For me, that put the first guide left of the top. Not sure if it's exactly at 90. I'll have to look when I get home. The only real advantage for bass fishing as far as I can tell is it lets me use fewer guides and smaller guides without the line contacting the blank.

I posted a while back about my first spinning rod build. Probably not the most aesthetically pleasing custom rod, but it outperforms any rod of similar dimensions I've ever fished with. Anyway, I tried my first casting rod build on an MHX blend blank. It's going to be a crankbait rod. It's 6'6" with a split grip that is probably a little too much of a "split." Long way from but to reel. Since I like the size 3 micro guides so much on the spinning rod, I figured I'd give them a shot on this rod too. When trying to figure out guide placement with the micros, there was no way I was going to be able to keep the line off the blank when it was loaded since the clearance of these guides is so small. I could have done it with a dozen guides, but didn't want to add that many wraps and that much weight. Anyway, I started looking into spiral wraps. If you don't know what this is, the line comes off the baitcast reel as usual, but the first few guides (three in this case) rotate it to the underside of the rod. There are a number of theories as to how to do this best while keeping line from piling up on one side of the reel, but my first guide is offset close to 90 degrees to the left, then the second is probably 135 or so, with the third being the full 180. Basically I routed the line from the right side of the reel (most extreme position) to the underside guide by going around the left side of the rod, then placed the two double foot guides in such a position that they would disrupt the path of the line the least. The first two are double foot bait cast rod guides, and the third and all the rest are size 3 single foot micros. I didn't know how well it would cast, and it's tough to tell without doing the full wrap with micros (you can use tape on larger guides). This thing will chunk a wart into outer space. The spiral wrap didn't affect casting one bit as far as I can tell, plus the tip being redirected 180 degrees into the down position seems like a more natural path for the way I fish crankbaits (often from a canoe without the ability to point the rod straight down). I liked it so much I went ahead and finished the rod and stuck em where they were. Not sure if anyone here has ever given a spiral wrap a chance. It look strange, but it only takes one cast and retrieve to see and feel the difference. I'm told the biggest application for this is on big game rods to reduce the torque applied by trolling or by fighting a fish since a normal baitcast rod naturally wants to flip over to put the guides in the down position. Not sure how much of an impact that torque difference will have on just retrieving crankbaits and fighting bass, but it's pretty cool at least. If you haven't fished a rod like this, I'd recommend giving one a try. I'll post some pics when I can.

Yes, it was the HS9000. Sorry about that. The guide sizes were 16-10-7 then I used a micro 4 for the choke guide, followed by another 4 then 3's out to the tip. The tip was a 4. I test casted it with flurocarbon line and had horrible results. I didn't try braided line, but when I switched to 6lb mono, it does indeed cast into the next time zone. You don't even hear the line rub the guides on the way out - it just stays straight as an arrow. If you're going to be fishing with mono and won't be using it in sub-freezing temperatures often, I'd strongly consider the micro guides. I can't believe what a difference they make.

Oh wait, I think it was the HS9000 - I'll have to check my shipping order

caught all my bass on a crankbait. It was indeed bad slow. The wind was brutal on Sunday. Muddy, that's my normal campsite you're talking about - just upstream from a house with a cross on a bluff. That's a good hole too. I got out and walked around and could tell no one has camped there since I did in October.

Yep, it was the SJ9000.

That was us. When did you pass us? We saw one canoe that flipped over - I grabbed their paddle for them when it made it down to our hole. Then my buddy saw a solo. I was passed out...I mean asleep in a hammock until about 9:30. Glad to hear it wasn't just us struggling...no offense.

Trophy, if I recall, the little creek you're talking about is right by my house. If you want to hook up and give the carp a shot some time, let me know. It's about a 3 minute drive for me. I didn't realize there were any carp in there.