Whack'emGood

Yeah. Let's make sure his head doesn't get too big!! We may never hear the end of it!!!!!

I congratulated Leonard at church this morning when he showed me the picture... but I figured he also deserved a posted remark also. Way to go Leonard!!! It really is an amazing feat to have landed that fish on ultralight with that light line. That fish couldn't have eaten the lure of a nicer guy too! Congrats! Whack'em (Lance Knight)

You know what... I think I have changed my mind on this subject. I am gonna buy a 100 foot yacht with a hull just made for making big waves and a stereo so loud that you can't hear your fishing partner yell "FISH ON!" and drink beer and ride up and down the lake all day just under plane speed. I will weave through the fishing boats (making sure to make several passes between the fishermen and the bank) and laugh as everyone (for no apparent reason) gets mad and tells me to give them room. I have decided to quit fishing and do this from now on because it looks like so much fun, and apparently you can do these things and be as obnoxious at it as you want and never get in trouble for it... because no law can be made against it... period. End of story. You know, in all seriousness, nothing aggravates me more than seeing a guy do something illegal and/or something to harrass someone else and get away with it again and again-- him knowing that he will never get in trouble for it because there is nobody there to enforce it. Especially when I always try to obey the rules and laws just because you are supposed to (obeying rules is the right thing to do). I guess most people in this world don't live right because it is the right thing to do... they only live right when they are made to, and they know it can be enforced. They are like grade school children. P.S. A bass boat with a 225 going full tilt barely makes any wake at all. You could run one within 20 feet of another boat (not that you should) and barely make his boat rock at all. You are right though... i would hate to be in a collision with a bass boat going 65+ mph. It would be all over. Yes, bass boats need to be responsible on the water too. I hardly ever run into one out there that isn't though. But, rarely, I do.

Good luck! Post a report to let us know how you did.

That may work too Whodat, but you wouldn't get nice clean filets out of your fish if you did that. You could throw all of the pieces-parts together though and mold it into fish sticks. I'll bring the ketchup!

My deal is the size of the boats. There needs to be a size limit. I can see both sides of the bridge thing, but I don't fish bridge pillars for that very reason (traffic gets too close by necessity). I just don't understand why ocean-going sized boats need to plow up and down the lake at half speed (or any speed for that matter). TR is looking more and more like LOZ every day. If there is anyone out there that isn't worried about it becoming another LOZ, make a trip up there to LOZ and remind yourself what you don't want your lake to turn into. Also, pay attention to the papers and online about all of the people that get killed on LOZ every summer. We don't want that kind of tragedy happening on our lake.

You are probably right Bigredbirdfan... Its a shame that money talks louder than safety, but unfortunately it may be just like everything else in this world has become-- the thinking among lawmakers is "As long as the rich are happy (and stuffing lawmakers' pockets), who cares what everybody else thinks or has to deal with."

Good post Skeeter. I'm always saying that they have no business bringing those ocean-going size boats to the lake. The waves from those boats are extremely annoying-- thats one thing... Well, I guess you can't make a law against being annoying and inconsiderate-- but the safety issue is a much more serious thing. If you aren't watching, you can be ejected from the platform of your boat and (at worst) drown. I fish with my dad alot, and I don't know how he would do if he got dumped into the water. I'm always telling him to hang on when the swells from those massive boats approach the boat. Also, there has to be a capsizing issue on alot of the smaller boats. I can't see my Nitro sinking from a series of waves, but there have been plenty of times where if we had been in a lesser (less sink/capsize resistant) boat, that I figure we might have been in serious trouble. I don't know what can be done, but if something can be done-- I'm in. Whack'em

You're welcome. Just remember... when you put your lights down, sometimes it takes an hour or so for the shad to start circling good. When they do, you will be able to not only see them on your graph, but you will see them circling as you look down into the water. They will circle around the light continuously. You have to stay stationary and not move or the microorganisms that they feed on will lose the light and you will lose your shad. When they get packed in there circling, the fish will set up right below the deepest shad. When this happens, you should be able to drop your minnow, jig, spoon, or whatever lure you choose down to that depth and catch'em. Once you get the right dept, just fish that depth everytime. If they are relatively near the bottom of the water column, I like to drop my bait all the way to the bottom and then count the number of reel turns up from the bottom. When you get bit, note how many reel turns you made from the bottom-- this is easy to replicate, and then you know exactly how many turns up from the bottom the fish are and are always fishing where you can get bit. If you are catching them, then they stop-- adjust your depth because they may have moved up or down. Also, if you are catching fish but they are small, the bigger fish may be just below them. I have experienced this alot. When you really get the shad going, you can really clean up. I have had plenty of nights when two guys can catch over 100 fish (mostly crappie, but also walleye, white bass, and even a cat or two). Oh, and another thing... If you're using minnows, make sure you are always using a good, alive and lively minnow. They won't touch it if it is dead. Use a little ice in your minnow bucket to keep them going strong. Too much will put them into shock, but a little works like a charm. Good luck! Whack'em P.S. I oughta be shot for giving out this much information, but as much help as I have received from this forum-- I want to try to help guys when I can.

Good report Crappie5. Thanks! We have been finding similar results as well. Our best times have been right before/at dark, and then there is kind of a lull until later. Lets keep the night fishing talk going boys!! Whack'em

Bigfish, You can tie up to bridge pillars. Look for pillars that have a rope already tied around them. If there is a rope, you can bet a brush pile has been dropped right next to the pillar. Also, there doesn't necessarily need to be brush next to a pillar for it to hold fish. Sometimes the pillar alone is enough to hold a nice school of crappie. I haven't been this year yet, so I don't know if guys have set up new ropes though-- with the high water, the old ropes are way underwater. If there is not already one, you can tie your own rope to it, but it aint easy. It is much easier if you have two boats to set up the tie-on ropes originally. When there is a rope to tie to onto on the pillar-- just tie the front of the boat to the pillar, and then anchor the back so it doesn't swing. Also, there are some creek channel ledges that don't necessarily have to have brush that hold alot of crappie. Just study a good topo map and look for these channel ledges. The best ones are usually on an outside channel swing. Just look for places where the creek channel runs up relatively close to the bank and turns away quickly and runs back out into the middle of the lake. Fish can be positioned anywhere on the outside turn, but sometimes you can find a subtle irregularity in the curve that will be the sweet spot-- maybe a small drainage ditch or depression that runs off the ledge, a rockpile, brush, or a small part of the ledge that sticks out or cuts in. Sometimes these subtleties show up on the map, and sometimes you just have to find them with your electronics. It will take some exploration to find these spots-- but once you do, you have found a spot that you will be able to use regularly for years to catch them-- the work to find them is worth it. Don't forget also-- the depth that the fish are holding at is always a key. Find the depth that a majority of the fish are holding, and find good spots at or near that depth and your chances are pretty good. Usually if you anchor (1 anchor in front, 1 in back to keep from spinning) right on top of the ledge, near the dropoff you can get into them. If you are fishing at night with crappie lights (I like the old fashioned lights-- the spotlight type set in styrofoam-- i don't care for the submergible glow lights), all you have to do is get somewhere in the neighborhood of the fish-- once you bring in all of the shad with your lights, the fish will come to you. I hope this info. helps. Good luck. Whack'em

You should've used the crappie lights.

Fishrman, We were down yesterday late afternoon/evening and it was like a ghost town compared to the typical weekend afternoon/evening crowd. Remember though, that is relative to what it is on the weekend. There were some, but it wasn't bad enough to aggravate. Hope this info helps. Whack'em

If it is a night tournament... I would find out if they allow crappie lights. If so, you can't beat fishing under a crappie light with minnows and/or jigs. The guys that do that (if allowed) will smoke everybody who's not fishing that way.

Me and dad went night fishing in the Kimberling City area last night and fared relatively well considering the high water. We got 13 fish to the boat including 6 (5 really nice) keepers with a 5lb 1oz hawg LM (weighed on digital hand scale) to anchor the sack. We caught them on main lake points and pockets, all on jigs. Most fish came in the 15-20ft range. The fish were pretty much equally mixed SJ, KY, LM with 1 nice meanmouth. Boy it sure is nice to fish a nice quiet lake after all of the crazies (players) go home. Our best 5 weighed about 15-16 lbs. All in all we had a fun night and caught some nice fish. Dad caught the 5-1... I wish I could take credit for it!! Whack'em P.S. All fish were handled with care and returned to the water quickly and unharmed.

Yeah Lymore, I agree with that. Good times are ahead thats for sure. Me and dad are going tonight and hoping to scrape out a few fish after dark like we did last Sat. night. I am somewhat optimistic... confidence was gained on Saturday for sure. I'm hoping we can keep it going. Gonna try to swim the grub and do a little drop shotting before dark and hopefully catch some chunky KY's as well. I will post a report. Good luck on the water everyone, Whack'em

They look like Lake Fork bass to me...

Yeah. The same way the guides are gonna get busted for price fixing. You know... with Big Brother watching these days and getting into everyone's business... nothing would surprise me.

Because if he was like Carpenter he would be hurt all of the time and have to set out half of every fishing season!!! Just kidding. I'm a Cards fan too.

A copperhead eating a calf??? Really????

Wow. Nice job Bill... Those LM look just like the ones I have been trying to find!!!! I am very curious to know what area of the lake you caught them in... however, I would never ask you to divulge such information. Please do not. If I caught fish like that, I probably wouldn't even tell anyone what lake I caught 'em in!!! Man, your clients are very blessed to have put their faith (and $$) in you. They got a bargain that day for sure!! Sounds like you enjoyed it very much as well. Good for you!! Keep up the good work!! Whack'em

After dark we caught a few up in the edge of the bushes, but most fish came a little further out. We were casting to the edge of the bushes, but most bites came about half way back to the boat. I would say most fish we caught were in about 20-25 feet of water. Also, we spent alot of our time fishing this one secondary point/shelf that is just covered with medium sized chunky rocks. The point slowly slopes down to about 25 feet and then drops to about 50-60 feet. Those fish seemed to be moving just up on the edge of the shelf to feed, as we caught most of them on top of the shelf, but pretty near the drop. Hope this info. helps. Whack'em

My dad and I fished the KC area yesterday afternoon and into the night. I put the dropshot tips that I got from Captain Don to work and caught one really nice keeper Kentucky. I also missed a fish and then we got tired of fighting the rediculous player traffic and trying to keep our dropshots in view of the graph. I don't think I have never seen the lake that chopped up when no wind was blowing. We decided to go try a few not-so-main-lake main lake points that were somewhat out of the way of the players to try swimming the grub. We caught several fish (all KY) up to near dark... They were biting our grubs (4" smoke) just well enough to keep us interested, and well more than half the fish we were catching were keepers. We caught some really nice fish in the next couple of hours, including a 4lb. toad KY. Right before dark (as most of the player crowd was leaving the lake) we cleaned up the deck of the boat and got our gear layed out for the night shift. We fished the next three or so hours with jigs (black/blue) and plastics (black) and caught fish at a pace about like we caught 'em before dark... they were biting just fast enough to keep us interested. The fish we caught after dark were mixed SJ, KY, and LM about equally- and about half of them were keepers. As far as size, we had an excellent trip-- as we probably caught more keepers than shorts. I also had one really heavy fish after dark that I had hooked for about 5 seconds before my line snapped. I determined that my 14lb flouro probably had a fray in it that caused the failure, but the fish that broke it felt like a stud nonetheless. We had a pretty good afternoon, which I was pretty much betting on... but we were surprised how well we did after dark, after the bad reports we had been hearing. I am hoping that what we experienced was not a fluke, and that the night fishing is ready to really turn on. I can't wait to go again. Good luck on the water, Whack'em P.S. All fish were released unharmed.

Thanks for the replies fellas... I am going out this evening and we are going to try it some after dark despite no good news about the after dark fishing. I will let y'all know how we do. Good luck tonight Coyote. Good luck on the water everyone. Whack'em

lymorej, Crappie5, Coyote??? Have you guys heard anything? Lets get this night fishing thread going again guys...