skeeterp

Hey Techo, NitroNick and I were out on the Rock yesterday but we fished from Kings to Campbells Point area. We did well also in the morning with the wind. We had several keepers but nothing big. I have twin boys that are 14, so I took one of them and Nick took the other and we would go to creeks and start on opposite points and work our way to the backs. I caught several on jerkbait, Nick caught em on crankbait...samo samo. Forecast for Satruday AiA isn't looking to good but the fishing should be good. I'll see you over there. SkeeterP

Hey Kevin, my partner and I are fishing AiA on Saturday, depending on how we do, we may come over and fish the U.S.A. Bassin tournament. We are going to be there for about 4 days before your 4/26 tournament so we were thinking about fishing that one also. I've never launched from Aunt's Creek ramp. We are coming from Bentonville, Ar. We come through Roaring River and HWY 86 through Eagle Rock. Can you give me directions to Aunts Creek coming from that way. I appreciate it.... SkeeterP

that is frign awesome!

Wow, I can't believe how hard this site is on the FLW boys. Same thing got started after the event in November. Bottom line is for the most part, the big majority of the guys fishing the FLW have an awesome apportunity in front of them that many of us would like to have and they are humble and just good ol' boys. The guys that get up and talk about the ones they caught in practice and the ones that got away...BIG DEAL. They are up there, this is their stage, they say what they are thinking, its not different than any of us doing it we are just not up on that stage. There are definitely the premadonas, but they are on the Elite too and they get up and make the same excuses. I did hear plenty of guys on camera say, "i just couldnt figure them out". Anyways, NitroNick and I did fish the Heartland Buddy and only had 2 fish, both 3lbrs but didnt weigh them. We did see the camera boat for Anthony Gagliardi spin his boat out going around the shallow hazard point across from point 17. When he spun the boat, it ejected the driver. Nick and I were the first ones over there. Gagliardi figured out that his camera boat wasnt with him and turned around and came back and retrieved the boat while Nick and I pulled Larry into our boat. Water temp was 48, he was a little disoriented and had no strength, it was tough hauling him into my boat. He was ok though. The guy was probably around 60 years old and pretty good size boy. He said he was ok, but I'm sure he was hurting on Sunday. I had never seen anything like that before, Nick and I were a little jacked up for awhile after the dust settled. We'll be back over for the AIA in a couple of weeks..... SkeeterP

38lb 12oz, I'm going with Robbie Dodson to win it all.

$15 wow. I ordered mine online from landbigfish.com for 11.50 each, had them in 4 days. I ordered 5 different colors, they had to back order one which was shipped 3 days later. Good option unless you need them today.

whackem, no i dont fish in the Mill Creek night series. My buddy and I live in Bentonville, Ar. and love to fish on TR, and fish the AIA and have fished some of the winter series. We plan on fishing OMTT and Heartland also. I've been fishing it for about 20 years and would rather drive to TR than stay at home on Beaver Lake. We love to fish night tournaments and fish a lot of night tournaments here locally. it's just a little hard to drive to Mill Creek and fish and night and drive back in the early hours of the morning. I do love to come over to TR and night fish though and throw spinnerbait when we stay for a few days at a time.

Very nice Eric, thanks for the information. I put together a spreadsheet of all heartland, OMTT, AIA, and a 2 local clubs I fish, with all the dates and fees so I could plan out my fishing season, I also have twin 14yr old boys from previous marriage so I have them every other weekend, so it helps me schedule out my tournaments with my regular partner and fish the others with one of my boys. I wish i would have done this last year. Anyway, thats good information...thanks.

wow, the FLW boys sure do get beat up a lot on here. My opinion, these are guys who have a very rare opportunity to do something they love to do and have an opportunity to make a living doing it, that's awesome. The FLW has brought a lot of awareness to the fishing industry and a lot of corporate sponsorship into the fishing industry that didn't used to be there. I would love to have the opportunity to fish for a living but I never will so I fish the regional buddy tournaments. I will probably fish the Heartland, it would be nice if both tournaments weren't the same week but pfffft, you go fish, hope you find fish and have fun. You're still fishing. I think for the most part there are few FLW boys that think they are bigger than life but the rest are just like you and me, they love to fish and they have an awesome opportunity to make a living doing it. I don't believe most think they are entitled to a local spot or have dibs on a spot over a local guy, they've all done this enough to know they get what they get and just hope somebody isn't on a spot they were counting on fishing. Cut em some slack. These big tournaments bring a lot of money into the local economy too, and they don't "hurt" the lake or fish, it's a testament to the great fishery that Table Rock is, sure it's zoo out on the water, but doesnt even compare to the zoo of summertime local idiots on the water....just my .02 worth.

yeh, the bite was tough for us. We had 2 keepers in the livewell at 7:15 with one of those a 5lbr and didnt catch another fish until 11:00. We lost two good fish of course, one really nice one at 2:00. We ended up weighing 4 fish that weighed a little over 13lbs. Caught one dink smallmouth on jerkbait and only 6 bites on the wart. We flipped a jig and I dropped a spoon for a bit but could only get the few bites we had on the wart. We talked about drop shotting but we were too stubborn thinking we could get enough wart bites......pffffft. Great day to be on the water though.

Anybody fishing the winter series out of Ahoys tomorrow? I'll be there in a Maroon Skeeter. Gonna be a great day to be on the water, hopefully the fishing is good.

typo: I only use the black "light" when I'm slow fishing

I use the tournament night stalker. Works fine, a black light is a black light to me. I haven't tried the more expensive LED lights, could be nice if they didn't draw as many bugs, but not sure if that is the case. I use the stren flourescent line. Yes, you do need the flourescent line, you cant see just regular line with the black light, but since you are used to no black light at all it might not be as much of a big deal, but if you're wanting to get the advantage of using a black light then I would use a flourescent line. It definintely makes a big difference for me and I don't believe it hinders the fishing at all. I've had bass jump out of the water at my black light and hit it or hit the side of my boat before. The only other down side, it does attract a lot of bugs which attracts bats which will dive at your flourescent line and hit it and sometimes tangle in it. I only use the black line when I'm slow fishing, I dont use if obviously if I'm throwing spinner bait or buzz bait/crankbait/or buzz bait at night. SkeeterP

did you do any good bass fishing? Are they on a stick bite yet? Thinkn about headn out there this weekend, supposed to be back in the 50's. I haven't been out since the water got back to normal. I was also thinkn about headn over and fishn the Table Rock Winter Series this weekend. How's Donna doing? Hey btw, my partner and I stay on the Table Rock forum a lot and fish over there more than Beaver but we also live in Bentonville and fish BV quite a bit, I cant wait to get over on Lomond with a little scamp or something in February. The last time they had Lomond lowered it was really good in early spring about 15 or so years ago. Good luck in your tourney.

NitroNick and I fished the winter series Saturday. We came in 3rd place with 19.70 and had BB at 6.57. We were going to run to the Kings and decided not to because of the strong winds, so we stopped in Baxter area. We fished 2 creeks all day. All fish came on the wart. We started with the green wart, only had one keeper. I broke it off, so switched to the brown wart and did much better. Not sure the color really made a difference but it seemed to. We had about 8 keepers total and maybe 15 fish overall. We had battery problems at the last AIA tourney, so we brought 2 extra batteries Saturday, good thing we did, we had to switch them out about 1:00. All of our fish were LM that we weighed. The second place team weighed a nice 5.5lb smallmouth.

Hey guys is there still a topwater bite? We still had a really good buzzbait bite and chug bug at the last AIA tournament. Just curious if anybody was still getting a tw bite before this cold snap? Thanks, SkeeterP

Ah, Hey capt. Don that was me you guys passed a few miles before SK bridge. NitroNick and I ran past you as you put er' down into your first spot we ran into the Kings. We had 12 keepers on the day and of course we lost a few good ones that might have put us in the 15lb range. We weighed 11.79. Our bigger fish came off of the buzzbait. We caught fish on it until about 12:00 as long as we could find shade or had the clouds. Had a few on chug bug and wart and spinner bait. I was hoping for some more wind also, there were a lot of good bags weighed in this one. We came outta the Kings about 1:00 and caught a few shorts working our way back to weigh in. Nice to talk to you Techo. I may fish the TR winter series or White water buddy in a couple weeks.

NitroNick and I fished a tournament Saturday. We started on the bluff outside of Ford's Creek. There were Stripers blowing up out there, Nitro hooked one on spook, fought him for a few minutes and broke off, when we rounded the point and got inside of Fords, they were coming up pretty good, we hooked up 3 more times on chugbug but they all came unbuttoned. They schooled up for about an hour right in the mouth of Fords and on out towards the middle, another boat was in the middle chasing them.

I think I heard there were about 35 boats in the tournament. My partner and I ran to the kings, we hit a wall of fog shell knob bridge and had to fish the bluff there until we could run on into the kings. We had 6 or 7 fish on topwater off of the bluff, one keeper. We had been on a spinner bait bite in the river but it wasn't on with the high sun. We ended the day with about 20 fish, we weighed 4 squeaker keepers. We lost a few good ones but we wouldnt have put us in the money. We ended up catching most of our fish on Topwater early then gitzit and jig flipping boat docks or pea gravel banks.

I'll be fishing AIA also. I will not have been on the Rock for 2 weeks, hopefully we get some clouds/wind. I have to prefish on Beaver on Saturday for another tournmant or I'd go then. I'll be in a Maroon/silver Skeeter, would be nice to meet some of you guys if your fishing this one.....

yeh the matching shirts...nice touch huh? Thats what happens when you get the free shirt offer from Flueger and you tell your buddy about it. All of our topwater fish came on chug bug. I did throw a gunfish and caught one on it and a couple of other blow ups. Also threw buzz bait, nothing on it.

Well NitroNick and I picked a great day to go to the rock. We put in at Viola (only boat there..awesome) right before daylight. We started fishing the bluff on the right downstream from Viola. Nitro caught several good fish on chug bug and I caught several throwing a McCutchen spinnerbait white/chartreuse. We had 16,17, 19 1/2 fish in first 20 minutes. We caught about 15 topwater fish and 7-8 spinnerbait fish total. We ran to Big M, flipped docks, caught several on jig, hula grub, gitzit. We then started point hopping with 5/8 FB jig, didn't seem to matter what color combo, the fishing were killing the FB jig from about 2-5 p.m. on points between Big M and Kings River. We ended the day with 47 fish caught, 10 over 15 inches, the one nice largemouth that went 19 1/2 inches. We missed several fish on topwater and several on FB jig. I also threw swimbait, had some hits, never hooked up. I've attached a few pics. We only saw 3 boats all day, awesome day on the Rock.

also forgot to mention, many of the fish we caught spit up about 5-6 small 1-2inch bait fish, but one of the fish nitronick caught spit up a huge crawdad on the deck. attached is a pic of it, you cant tell but the crawdad was bright orange, good to know if you're jig fishing.

NitroNick ( fishes outts a Nitro ) and I put in at Eagle Rock at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday and we went directly to the bank across from Eagle Rock and caught 5 on Chug Bug, the fog was rolling in so we headed towards Owls Creek, we stopped at the bend before Owls Creek and caught 4 or 5 more on that bank and they started schooling out in the middle, we chased schoolies until about 11:00, we had 42 fish total all on topwater accept for 2 on a grub that I threw at the schoolies. We then went to Roaring River and caught 8 more to round out 50. 48 TW fish and 2 on grub. We left at 11:30 because it started raining and I had to be home by 1. I did the same thing 2 weeks ago with my 13 year old son, same places, we caught about 15, he missed several, so did I, he is just learning how to throw Topwater. We only had one keeper LM, 1 keeper spot, 1 nice smallmouth and all the rest were spots from 8-14 inches....lotsa fun.