Clay Goforth

Alright. Fishing report is in. Put in at Beav-o-rama. Got mud all over me and my boat. Caught two white bass right off the bat, followed by a small largemouth. I'm thinking, "this is going to be pretty good..." Don't ever think that. I went two more hours with two bites, the sun went behind the clouds, and I got cold. Just got more mud on my boat and in my truck. I'd say with as cold a winter as we have had, the fish may be another few weeks away from a good run. Sidebar: a fellow fishing next to me, trolling live minnows, pulled up a real pretty 15-18lb striper. Looked like fun.

J-Doc, that's what I have said year after year in the past and then I'll wait until the middle to the end of March and go out and somebody will say, "Oh, we've been catching walleye out here for a month. The runs pretty much over..." Not this year, sir. Noooo, sir. If they are there early, I'm going to be there waiting for them. They are too delicious to miss. I am still skeptical but I'll post an update tomorrow when I get back. You are probably right. Let me know what you see in your neck of the lake.

Don't make me sad JD. I'm planning on the wild outdoors being so ingrained in them that any dude that doesn't hunt, fish, hike, and canoe is immediately seen as inferior and not worthy. I refuse to raise yuppie girls.

Thanks Ron. Good luck with the news.

RPS, where are you talking in regard to Big M? I am talking about the river system that feeds into the Blue Springs area of Beaver and winds its way up to Twin Bridges on HWY 45. I was planning on putting in at Blue Springs and heading up river just a ways to see if any of them are staging in the deep holes at the mouth of the river.

J-Doc, I'll be out there. I'm probably going to put in at Blue Springs and head up the river a little ways from there. If you are out in the morning, say hello. I'm in a 2000 Series Supreme with a 30hp Yamaha jet. You can tell me where all the fish are.

The tournament this year is next weekend, March 8th.

Sorry, I forgot to watch this thread. You can put in anywhere between the C&R at the dam and the C&R at rim shoals. You can't put in at Rim Shoals though. And yes, all fish have to be weighed in at Cotter at the end of the tournament. It just means that once you put in, you can't pull back out. You have to get to Cotter by boat once the tournament starts. So, for example, we have put in at State Park a bunch of times, floated our way down to Cotter for the weigh-in, and then had someone run us back to our trailer at State Park and then driven back to Cotter to pull the boat out.

Thank you, Phil. It is good to be back. I literally took a couple of year hiatus where I didn't do much other than work and spend time helping my wife out at home with these girls. They are getting old enough now to start going along and I imagine I'll get back into posting more again. Thank you, too, for the tournament last weekend. We had a blast fishing in it again, even if it was a sub-par performance. As always, though, a first rate operation at Lilley's. Thank you for the kind words, everyone else. If any of you will be fishing the white bass run on Beaver in the coming weekends, stop me to say hello. I'll be in a Supreme 2000 series with a 30hp yamaha jet. I like visiting with folks on the river that are members on this site. It is a fun community.

Has anyone started to see walleye moving up into the river yet? I am really really tempted to go out tomorrow morning and just wondering what people were seeing so far... I can't wait to smell the white bass too!!

Since I had my first daughter, almost 4 years ago now, I have longed for the day when she was ready to visit Dry Run Creek. The addition of our second daughter, now 2, slowed the process, but finally in December, we had the chance to fish The Creek. The two year old was not as impressed as my 3, almost 4 year old, but we still all had a great time. My 3 year old caught her first trout, casting, working a jig, and fighting the fish almost exclusively by herself (I had to make sure the fish didn't jerk the rod out of her hand or pull her in off the bank). Here are some of the pics from our outing. You'll understand the shotgun reference when you see these sweethearts.

I have fished this tournament almost every year for the last 10 - 12 years, save a couple. A LOT of people fish Cotter and a lot of people trailer. It is really split. The fishing at Cotter is good, after the initial launch settles down and people disperse up and down the river. If you want to fish out of Cotter, you need to know exactly where you are going and get there fast in case others have the same place in mind. Another consideration is the water level. If the water is really low, you can't get very far up or down from Cotter but people also tend to be less enthusiastic about trailering and trying to get their boat back down to Cotter for the weigh in so you sometimes have a large concentration of people sharing a small area right around Cotter. All-in-all though, the tournament is really enjoyable and fun. It is always good competition and the weigh-ins are always exciting because you just never know what someone may have caught. Hope this helps.

It was a sweet trip...and Justin, those Cubera are mean. I imagine its because they have all those teeth and no toothbrush.

Some pics from a great trip I was able to take with my dad down to Panama in December. We had some incredible fishing but even better memories.

Well, I haven't been on here in a while and decided it was time to start back. Although there are no fish in this series, it is close to the Buffalo River so I hope everyone will let it slide. I will post some pics from a recent fishing trip next...

Yes. It does not sit on the water. And if we learned anything from the last two years it is that you might not actually want a cabin "on" the river but one that is at the river with easy access to the water. This way you don't end up with a cabin in the river. Even with the "100 year flood" we had a couple years ago, where you had to take a boat to the White Buffalo Resorts front desk, the cabin was safe...but with a beautiful view of the "river." The description on craigslist does however specifically say that the cabin sits about 150 yards off of the river.

thanks! And the address is www.missionphotography.wordpress.com

Looking through some pics after my last post, I found these and thought you all might like to see some of them as well. On June 25, I left to go spend 17 days in China on an earthquake relief trip to the Tibetan Plateau. We hit some "touristy" type stuff while we were there as well, but these are a few pictures from that trip..If there is some interest, I have some other pics I can post too. This is a tea that is popular in the Quinghai province. This is from a wall in the Forbidden City This is a lion guard outside one of the inner walls of the Forbidden City Great Wall of China Fried Scorpion, starfish, or seahorse anybody? Andybody? No? My favorite picture from the trip, I think. This is the Xining nightscape from our hostel.

Well, the newest addition to our family has our world spinning, but in a good way. Ari, my beautiful baby girl, is 4 months old now and I realized I haven't shared her with my Ozark Anglers brothers yet...A little sappy and searching for compliments maybe, but what is a proud new father to do? Anyway, these are some pictures I took last week on her 4 month birthday.

I thought some folks might be interested in this craigslist item....It is a great deal. http://fayar.craigslist.org/reo/1880526645.html This is my family's cabin so, message me with questions. Price is negotiable of course! Thanks! Clay

The arkansas baptist boys ranch out of harrison might take you up on some stuff...

oh yea...and if the line is green instead of clear, we tend to have better luck...the water, as I am sure you are aware, has a pretty good green tint and the green line really helps. The clear line, to me, stands out more than the green does. Okay thats it I'll shut up now.

I fish this stretch of water considerably more than the rest of the White because it is so close to where we stay...it is stellar for producing large numbers of fish. I always fish a 1/16 to 3/32 oz peach and olive PJs maribou jig on 3lb test maxima mono through the catch and release area. Something else which you can do (I may get run out of here for this ) is to take a Rapala jerkbait or a Rogue Junior, REMOVE the treble hooks, and replace the TAIL HOOK ONLY, with a single barbless hook. In 2-4 units of water, you can get some outstanding strikes in the C&R area ripping a jerkbait (recommend 6-8lb test). Up above the C&R area is excellent fishing as well. For the most part, if you stick to the north side of the river (the one with the docks) and cast jigs, jerkbaits/countdowns, and rattletraps behind docks and then out into the middle onto structure, you will pull fish off of there. This is also a big long wide gravel bottom stretch that would be ideal for dragging corn and the like with very little significant structure to snag up on. If you go down below the C&R, you will be in one of the most productive areas of the river in my opinion. The straight stretch above where Crooked Creek pours in is one of my favorite stretches for producing quality fish. In a couple of hours one day, I had a boat that landed a 24inch, a 22inch, 2 20inch, and a handful of 16-18inch browns. There are also some very very big fish in the stretch. hope that helps and hope you enjoy your visit to Rim Shoals...If you really want to get specific with what is working at the time when you get there, go into the little store there and talk to the man behind the counter.

Oh, yea, I understand...I just thought people, if they didn't, should know the reason behind the product plugs (pun intended). I would also LIKE to see a show that left the fishing propaganda out of it. This is why I have encouraged our show owners to go after sponsors like Coca-cola, Miller Brewing, and Chevrolet. This way, we drink Coca-Cola throughout the show, we have a celebratory beer at the end of the day, and we drive off in our Chevrolets. The fishing gets to be the star of the show rather than the supporting cast. (again, pun intended)

Oh, yea there may have been a few slips... Jeff did have a bad day...He has the craziest luck, both good and bad but it is never just okay. The line class records turned out great. I set two of them, one at 4lb and one at 6lb. They are catch and release line class records and they are not IGFA, just National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. They share some, but some are different. It is kind of like Pope and Young vs. Boone and Crockett. Steve, the other guy fishing with us, broke the 12lb test catch and release record. All of them for King Salmon. We were back up there just a couple of weeks ago filming another show. I was going to try for 2lb test but the opportunity never presented itself...Instead we caught tons of chums on a 7 wt flyrod.