Clay Goforth

Thank you... Any changes you would make? Personally, I'd like to find some smaller eyes.

I took the current logo and redrew the fish from the logo. I didn't want to get too far away from the current branding, since that is what everyone recognizes.

Personally, I like C. I like calling ourselves an "O.A.F." Ozark Angler Forum-er I can see the conversations now... "Oh! You're an 'OAF'! Nice to meet you!"

Hey everybody, So I talked a bit with Phil and expressed to him my desire to have an Ozark Angler's Member Decal for folks to put on their boats, vehicles, tackle boxes, etc. There are lots of times that I am out on the water and feel like a recognize someone from the forum but am not quite sure. This would be a way for other OA members to know you are on the site and active. I put together some designs for the decal and would like everyone to vote on your favorite and also let me know if there are enough people that are on board for this that it justifies having some printed. If nobody else is interested, I won't bother. I am planning on paying for the stickers to be printed, maybe with some help from Phil or maybe not, we haven't completely decided I don't think. Then, depending on what the COST is, if you want one, you pay the COST back to me. It looks like I can get 50 stickers printed for about $1.25 each, and if we go with 100, they come down to about $1.00 each. Anyway, review the designs and vote on which one you like and give feedback. Thanks!

Welcome to the Ozark Anglers family, Jeff.

Personally, I think the 20hp or 50% loss estimates are a bit high. I run a 30hp yamaha jet and have run alongside or passed many 20hp prop motors on the river. Also, I have had 2 Supreme boats over the last 16 years. They are awesome boats and if you go with one of those, you can fish the Shawnee/Supreme tournament in the spring every year.

I thought I'd share this jig I made for white bass and see if I could get some feedback on the color pattern and whatever else. I know the forum has no shortage of opinions Any other white bass patterns you'd like to see or think would work? Let me know what you think. The Vitals: 1/16 oz aspirin head - white White blood quill marabou Peacock blue blood quill marabou Hologram eyes Plan on fishing it on 4 or 6lb test line.

Jamie, Call me if you want to talk about fishing this with your kids. My girls 3 and 2 had a great time, no waders, no incidents, great time.

Welcome, Jamie. Let me know what tourneys you are fishing this year on Taney.

Thanks! I was just testing it out and I think it turned out pretty neat.

Of course, Joe. Here you go. I'll let the trolls eat. Unfortunately, the quality is not great because, at the time, we just had a camera phone with us.

I am going to be taking my girls over there, hopefully a lot, this summer. They love being in the boat but from a fishing standpoint, they are a bit young to be spending full days on the water. I imagine we will hit Dry Run a lot, trying to get them hooked on fishing... (see what I did there) We missed you at the Supreme Tournament. I let out a yell for you when they were announcing the boat ticket... They gave the first three numbers, which every ticket matches, and I gave them the "YEAH!"

I remember when that happened...literally. And thanks for the kind words, buddy. When are you guys going to start White Bass fishing? Hint Hint to call me...

Ha. I gotcha. The thread started as a topic on whether or not people were seeing the walleye move into the river arms of the lake yet and then I mentioned I was fishing a tournament this last weekend and hadn't had a chance to go back out and hunt for them again. Someone asked details on the tournament and the thread got derailed.

Another short video with some footage from the weekend.

What is going on is the 24" limit on browns. There hasn't been a keeper brown weighed in in 4 years. We catch lots of browns, but most of them are 18 to 22 inches...Fish that would have been weighed in years past. This tournament is the Shawnee/Supreme Boat Trout Tournament.

Careful with the compliments, Ham. I don't mean to go too existential on you, but we are all students of the game...or rather, should be. The day I catch every fish in the river is the day I hope to be done learning. I still definitely have days where the fish win, but those days are just becoming fewer. And know I don't have anything against fly fishermen...well, maybe I do have a little something against the pretentious purists. I fly fish, myself, and understand that it is not all about the numbers. I just think it humorous when you run into the guys that ONLY fly fish and look down their nose at spin fisherman or the folks that throw rapalas and crankbaits like they aren't true fishermen. These are the guys that will talk about the "incredible" days on the water where they caught 12 fish over the course of 8 hours. You know, the type that stand in the deepest channel of the shoal and refuse to move as you are trying to make it up river in your boat. You know, the ones where I fill their waders with water from my jet as I pass by. Anywho, I really think we should try to get together. I'd love to see what you do while jig fishing and try to learn some new elements to include in the technique arsenal. I think BFT might be on to something with a "Jig Fest." I propose we call it "Jiggers Anonymous." I laughed out loud at your football coach with fins line, by the way.

Gentlemen, I should clear something up. Mr. JD Dudley is a good friend and was just giving me a hard time. He used to be an avid trout fisherman but has switched over to primarily bass fishing. He even won the Central Pro-Am a couple of years ago. I was just joking around with him. Slidergrub, I am interested as to what makes you assume I am a novice? I was trying to figure out how to respond to that assumption, but rather than get offended, I'd rather open up the conversation and maybe we can learn a little about each other.

Thanks Ham! We should get together and fish sometime. I think, with our jig fishing powers combined, we could boat 300 fish in a day. I learned jig fishing 20 years ago from some of the first jiggers on the river (Jerry Dudley and Jim Hall) and have spent the last 20 years patterning fish and learning the bite. I love when people accuse you of lying when you talk about 100+ fish days...If people would just listen and learn, they would be opened up to a whole new world of trout fishing. I try not to burst peoples' bubbles when talking about trout fishing because I have a lot of friends who are fly fishermen. They talk about having "unbelievable" days on the water where they caught 10-15 trout and a "big fish" that was 16 inches. All I usually say is, "Yeah, that's a good day and that is a big fish...you should let me take you over there some time." The last time I did that, I took a couple of fly fishermen with me and they started out fly fishing and I was jigging. It wasn't long and they were borrowing equipment and asking questions. I even landed a 28" brown that weighed just under 10lbs that day. Their minds were blown.

You know, we fish super light tackle. You bass fishermen wouldn't understand...did you know they make line lighter than 12lb test? And our lack of ability to catch fish at Cotter with low water is attributed to the 97 boats located between the ramp and Millers, at any given time half of which are motoring. That and Osama. And global warming. 97 boats, Osama bin Laden, and global warming makes it very difficult to catch fish at Cotter.

It was tough fishing for big fish. We pre-fished Friday with two units and just hammered fish. We boated 112 total fish on Friday, with multiple in the 2lb range, so I was thinking we would have a respectable bag. Saturday, we got minimum flow so the big fish shut their mouths for the most part. We finished tied for 3rd with a 4lb 3oz bag of 4 fish. We lost out of 2nd place by 2 ounces. The winning weight was 6lbs by Carl Jones and they were fishing with minnows. We still had a great time and caught a lot of fish, they were all just the same size.

First off, let me say this will in no way be anything like Mr. Berry's report. His is much more thorough. I will be very brief with mine. Friday, my dad and I fished the State Park area of the river. We had two units of water and put in at 8am. We fished from 8am until about 12:30pm and boated 78 fish. A black 1/16oz PJs maribou jig on 3lb test line was the hottest setup. We also located a few browns using a white 3/32oz PJs jig fished a little deeper and slower. We stopped for lunch and put back in on the water at about 2:00pm and fished until 5:00, boating an additional 34 fish, still using the black PJs jigs. Saturday, we fished the Shawnee/Supreme Tournament. Unfortunately, we only had minimum flow so the pattern from the day before had to be tweaked. We put in at Cotter and motored up to Wildcat Shoals and fished our way back. Again, the hot color was black but in a 1/32oz size fished very slowly. We boated 63 fish over the course of the tournament and finished tied for 3rd. Sunday, we only had a couple of hours to fish before needing to head home so we ran down to Ranchette and fished our way down to Rough Hole. Minimum flow at Rough Hole turned out to be quite the combination, as we boated 37 fish from 10am (got a really late start with the time change) until we took off the water at 12:45pm. Again, black PJs in a 1/32oz seemed to be the ticket. I do have to give a shout out to Mr.Dietl (sp?) and SwingOil baits. They are more levered toward bass fishing but they do produce some jigs and I borrowed one from a friend on the river who was raving about them. I plan to order some in the near future. They seem to hold their feathers a lot better than some other jigs and take the abuse of catching lots of fish. On Friday, I set up a GoPro on my net to test the POV and cut together a short video of some of the fish we boated. I think the perspective turned out pretty cool and the video showcases the beautiful coloration on the browns we caught. They were so bright this trip with lots of seemingly glowing red accents. Make sure the settings on the YouTube player are up to 720p so you can see the fish in higher definition. All in all, it was an excellent trip with good fishing. Again, all black was the hot color and I would imagine it to remain that way for the next few weeks at least.

We put in at Cotter and motored up to Wildcat. The fishing at Cotter is really a lot better when there is a bit more water. The water is so still there when there is no flow that it is hard to get much to bite. The fish are really spooky when they are like that. We went up river and found some deeper water with a little chop on top so the fish wouldn't be quite as leery. Good luck to you next time. If you ever see me on the river, feel free to pull up and say hello. I don't get over here as much as I used to, having two young ones at home now, but if you catch me, say hi. I used to fish over here a lot and miss it. My family had a cabin at Buffalo City for many years and we used to be over here all the time. Take it easy and tight lines!

Cartney, you should have stopped me and said hello. I always like to meet fellow OzarkAnglers forum'ers. Glad to hear you had a great time. I was so excited for the tournament this year because we fished yesterday and just hammered big rainbows on the 2 units. Then we get up this morning and it is dead low... We ended up tying for 3rd this year.

I haven't been back out. This weekend was tournament weekend on the White below Bull Shoals. Hopefully this warm weekend and first few days of the week will really kick start them. This coming weekend could be good.