abkeenan

Don't sell yourself short Dave. You're a tremendous slouch.

Something else to think about is that with the high water from December could have washed any sort of debris into the cove you speak of. Could be part of a dock, cables or a zillion other man-made sharp/rough/abrasive thingies. Not ruling out Zebra's and really hope that is not the case here. On another note I did notice last time down a few weeks ago that either the MDC or COE spray painted a warning sign on the ramp pavement at Old 86 informing launchers to be aware of the Zebra's. First time I've seen that on TR.

Maybe check the line guides on your rod to see if there isn't an issue there?

Nice report.

Great report Bill. Don't mean to laugh at others misfortunes but I kinda equate your story of your client to watching America's Funniest Home Videos of people hurting themselves in idiotic ways. Hard not to laugh at them even though you know the person on the other end of the camera might need medical attention.

Yep that appears to be exactly it. I've never caught one and didn't even know they were in Table Rock. Thanks for clearing that up.

Interesting. I've never seen anything like that????? There's the meanmouth........I guess that would be a smartmouth?????

Nice smallie and great report. With those fish in 20-25 ft of water and hovering 5ft off the bottom could be grub scrubbing time?

Aside from being a great catch with great pics, another great thing is that this is about the 5th instance just this year that I have heard of a 9ish or better fish caught. I don't believe I have ever heard of this many giants being caught within the last 10+ years whether that word of mouth, local news articles, social media or posts here on the OA forums. Hopefully the LMV that killed the population of quality fish in the late 90s and early 2000's is all but forgotten and new crop of bigguns' are swimming around in our healthy pond. It certainly appears that way.

Yes. Someone here posted it and it is a MO state record I believe and weighed 30ish pounds.

By next year ole Johnny Morris will probably have bought most of the property from Long Creek to Baxter and you can have another weigh in site on one of his mid lake properties.

Awesome pics Phil and Bill!

I don't think you will have a problem locating turkeys. When I was down a few weeks ago they were all over the place near us around Old 86 Park. Crossing the road on the intersection of our neighborhood and UU at the top of the hill on two separate occasions with about 3-4 gobblers and about dozen hens with them. Fired one up out the window with a TERRIBLE rendition of turkey gobble. Brother and I had a laugh about that. Good luck in both the hunting and fishing chase.

Nothing in Beardsley. I thought I've made that abundantly clear. I think these really cool nights the last week+ has kinda thrown the fish a curveball. When this weather get back on track and more consistent the fish should fire up soon.

Fantastic report and NICE hoodie!

Hey now! Pinkel is the man! Probably having a jumbo glass of wine as we speak.

And the staff refrigerator. After his firing booster donations and vending machine sales plummeted and poor Turner Gill was left with the aftermath.

The Huskers have been a mess (Yes I live in a Mizzou glass house and throw stones) since Tom Osborne left. When they fired Pelini I was perplexed as to why after a 9 win season. I didn't and don't have privy to behind the scenes communication between the Nebraska chancellor, A.D., and Pelini, staff, etc but he seemed like he at least was keeping them competitive and possibly moving upward. Kinda sad to see them as the laughing stock of the Big 10 and completely irrelevant.

Like Alex mentioned most of this seems to be around the KC to Dam area. I found it to be the worst in Cow Creek. Probably from all the blood, sweat and tears I put into the lake with nothing to show for it.

I don't believe he owned a boat. Said that he has been fishing out the back of his friends for years. Looks like he will now be calling the shots from the front of the boat now. Pressure is on!

I have my white Mizzou hoodie for after that....I'm covered.

It was just BRUTAL on Sunday. I don't even know what it was....post frontal from Saturday...yet in the middle of another front blowing in....so it was a post-current-pre frontal conditions????.....apparently those are a real humdinger and shut the fishing down pretty quick. Last year was later (mid May) which is typically better in terms of #'s but not necessarily size. I had no problems catching fish last year, just not the right ones. Typically I catch the most fish in the dam area from mid April to the beginning of June. Water temps I saw were 53-57 in the dam area. Most of the water was around 54-55 but Jakes Branch was the warmest of the bunch at 56.7 to 57.1 on my temp gage on Sunday. Maybe a reason why there were 37 boats in there on Sunday afternoon. I did see some surface shad activity in the back of Beardsley and thought I might get a early morning biggun' on a jerkbait but that didn't happen. Topwater should be in full swing in 2-3 weeks one would think. Maybe earlier up the river arms. Well as long as we don't have back to back nights of 30 degrees like tournament weekend!

I was going for the pity bite from the bass.

The winner (Buck Keltner) was called up to the stage and was asked to tell the how the winning fish was caught. He said that the fish was caught in the Kimberling City area and caught pretty much right off the bat in the early morning. Said he caught it slow rolling a white Strike King KVD (naturally) Scorcher spinnerbait. He was the co-angler in the back of the boat with his longtime fishing partner. Said that the fish had made a few runs under the boat and "rolled" on the surface and his friend said "Dang it, catfish!" assuming due to low light conditions and seeing a lot of white belly. The friend had been crappie fishing the week before and forgot to put the big net back in the boat so all they had was a small panfish hand dip net. Said that after the fish made a few runs under the boat the friend finally, after much difficulty, got the fish into the net head first and pulled it aboard. This whole time Buck thought he had a catfish at the end of his line. Said he yelled "It's a bass!" when he finally got a glimpse of it after being landed. The rest as they say is history. Funny story I'm sure he has told 100 times already and will probably tell every time someone new enters the new rig he won and how he came about owning it.

30lb flathead on bass gear....at night...sounds fun. Although, I might be afraid to pull that up from the depths to see just what the heck I had in the dark.