Bird Watcher

Just awesome. Way to go DD.

I'll give another vote for the Wally Marshall Tuxedo Black spinning rods. I picked up a couple in 7' last spring after I broke my Falcon lifting a 12" crappie in the boat. I was really happy with the sensitivity and balance and at 45$ they were a good value.

I've only had two of them come through the spread and they both happened the same year. I think it was 2007. One landed in the hole about 20 yds. from me, but I had already limited and was sitting with a junior trying to help him get on one. I'm trying to control my voice and tell him to "shoot the one on the end with the big white stripe across his chest." He never could pick it out and ended up shooting one right in front of us as the flock started getting nervous and walking out of the spread. Coincidentally, the next flock we landed had a green neck collar in it and I couldn't get him to pick it out and shoot it either. Yeah, I would love to shoot a Quill Lake bird, but I haven't seen one in a long time. I haven't bought an Arkansas license this year. Maybe I need to get on that.

That's exactly what I did last weekend. Great minds think alike. I'd rather shoot geese than ducks anyway. It's all about the THUMP baby.

That's awesome! Good for him. It's weird that there are already migrators in the area, especially with the lack of weather. I'd bet you'll get bit tomorrow.

Well, we managed our 6 geese but it was sloppy. The big South wind was giving us fits. We were all the way on the South end of the lake and the geese didn't want to fight the wind to get to us and kept sitting short of the spread. No ducks. There were some there, but we were hunting a 30 acre lake that is only about 1-3' deep and the ducks wanted a grassy spot out in the middle. Could have taken a couple shots at ducks on the swing, but we didn't. The good news is that we got our geese and got out and watched the pond fill up as geese were filtering back in off a winter wheat field they fed on all morning. That has to be the biggest flock of geese in the area. There must be somewhere around 500 birds in it. Marty, I have some intel about ducks in your area. Friend of mine flew the entire area in a small plane last week. There are ducks there, but you can't see them and they aren't moving until late in the day and into the night with the full moon.. They've been heading out at noon and shooting their birds in the afternoon. Scott, let's see some striper pics.

Weather doesn't look great for waterfowling, but season is open and I have a pass from the OL. Dad and I are going to hit up a local pond holding some honkers and ducks. Hopefully it works out. If it doesn't, it's better than going grocery shopping which is what the wife and daughter are doing tomorrow morning. Anyone else?

I think the catfishing is pretty solid, but I think it's mostly all channel cats. I'm sure there's a stray blue or flat in there somewhere though.

Hmm. I didn't know about the one Mid lake, but yeah, those standing ones by that bluff end are dynamite from early spring through late spring. There's also a sizeable pile in the back of that creek where the little cove cuts off to the East. If the crappie aren't in one, they are in the other in the spring time. It just falls under the statewide crappie regulations. There are no special regulations for the lake which means no length limit and you can keep 37. The best fishing on the lake is for bluegill though. That's what the locals go nuts for down there is the bluegill spawn.

That creek arm that comes in on the South side is one of my favorites if that's the one you are talking about. it has some of the only standing timber on the lake. An old, old, timer told me they left 6 trees standing when they made that lake and two of them are in that cove side by side. Those locals down there are mostly Indians. They don't give a fry if it's owned by the State or not. They'll cut those trees down in a heartbeat. Nice cranks. Those should work. Eucha is also the only place I know of that you can sight fish for spawning crappie most years. It sure is a lot of fun to sit over the top of those big coontail beds and tease male crappie into biting your jig. Not to mention the limit is 37 fish on that lake. You can get a mess of them in a good day of fishing down there. Also some of the biggest crappie I've ever caught came off that lake.

Good job Jeff. I saw a flock of about 20 mallards on a farm pond in Barry County this morning and a similar flock on a farm pond in Jasper County. First flocks of mallards I've seen in SW corner this year.

you might already know this, but on Eucha, look for recently cut (~3 years) stumps on the bank. There will be a brushpile near by. The locals just go out in the middle of the night or on a cold day and chainsaw down an entire tree and then throw cinder blocks over it to sink it. It's no secret, but if you are fishing the upper lake, over behind the old water intake dock there is a ton of sunken brush. If there's not a boat already in there you can usually catch a fish or two. I do most of my fishing on the lake on the lower half from Rattlesnake to the spillway. I just like it down there.

I just finished doing mine this fall. I used Goof off and laquer thinner, then scrubbed with industrial scotch brite pads and cleaned up with towels. I can't say there's not something better though. The glue removal was definitely the worst part. I saved the pieces of carpet I removed and used them as templates. Laying the new carpet was fairly simple.

Trust me, you should. It's a fantastic Crappie lake. Unreal how many of them are in there.

I love some Eucha, just don't get down there as much as I did 5 years ago. When the crappie were missing at Grand for a few years, I went to Eucha all spring. The last couple years I've only made about 1 trip a year down there. Just a beautiful lake.

haha, something tells me you will be the one making the trip to town next time Marty. Good to hear a few made it back to the old honey hole.

Here we go again. It's good to everyone present and accounted for and the new names as well. Nothing fancy for us this weekend. Friday I went scouting for ducks but found geese instead. Neither morning was a barn burner, but good enough. Scratched 5 Saturday morning. 150 on the loaf pond the day before but we only had one flock of eight come back in before we had to pick up. I tripled and Dad doubled. We had to leave by 10:30 and get home for another Thanksgiving dinner or else maybe could have ground it out and finished Dad's limit, but 5 was good enough for us. Sunday Morning we hit another pasture loafing pond. There were actually a good number of Gadwalls, Teal, and Shovelers using the pond, but we didn't bring a single duck decoy with us. We passed a half dozen shots at close ducks, just content to watch their aerial display while we waited on the geese. The first geese appeared at 8:45 and we had our six by 9:15. Nice little groups. We each took turns doubling on a pair, then had a flock of 8 come in and we each shot one bird to finish out our limit. Back home with the family by 10. Not bad for the first weekend of regular season. We also saw a flock of little squeaker Canada geese on Saturday. That's about the earliest in the year I can ever remember seeing them around here. Hope everyone has a good season and it's good to see OA getting busy again with waterfowl reports.

Wow!. one of these days...I'm stil trying to break the 16# mark. 19#s is a giant. Congratulations. that's a beautiful fish.

nice deer

Yikes! Halloween Night? "trick or treat!, yeah, yeah, I get it, you are a mountain lion, come out of those bushes and give us some candy old man, wait, what?"

It's hard to have a pond stocked with crappie and they not become overpopulated and stunted quickly. These are a good option for people who would like to have a crappie population with the chance at some to grow some nicer fish without them completely taking over the pond. Interestingly enough, there's a lot written about the use of Hybrid striped bass to control crappie populations in ponds that become overpopulated. I think that's the model I'll use if I ever have a private lake in my backyard. a balanced, sustaining crappie population and a population of large hybrids.

Are you Black Bass fishing? I have been absolutley tearing the Black Bass up way up Spring River. Probably too far for you to run if you are fishing a tourney, but if you are just fishing for fun, it's where I would go.

Trust me, it has nothing to do with Arkansas and everything to do with the special interests here in Southern Missouri. The players change from East to West, but there are a relatively small group of people that go to the waterfowl meetings every 5 years and heavily influence the setting of MO's seasons and zones. They meet every 5 years. The next one is in 4 years. I know I will be at as many as I can drive and attend. I did this with group of hunters here in SWMO 15 years ago and 10 years ago and I felt that we made an impact. I didn't do this last year and no one I know of did either. The boundaries moved back and the season moved back to where it was 10 years ago. Last year in January I witnessed a couple 10,000 bird mallard tornadoes going into cut corn after the season was closed. Every other year of the last 10, we could have set up and shot them and had a North Dakota or Canada style field hunt. The reason Arkansas gets to open earlier and stay open later is the splits they have in their season. It's an option for Missouri, but the public has to ask for it.

That's a great mount Marty. He did a nice job.

To tell the truth, they hang just hang around outside of town, mostly on the North Side. You'll start seeing them from the highway. Best I remember the large concentration of them is about 2 miles north of town. You might check with City Hall, I think they have an "Eagle Watching Days" little town festival if I remember correctly. I think that 10 or 15 years ago one of the local chicken farmers would pile his dead chickens out in the middle of a section of land he owned, the eagles found it and started congregating around it. Eventually, the State made him stop the practice, so I've heard, but the birds are still imprinted on the area because they've been going there for a couple generations now. Usually January and February are the peak times for eagles in our neck of the woods.