Bill Babler

How in the HE double heck did you know this Flysmallie? Man I need to get out more.

Correct AMUNDO Fly smallie you need to wear a skirt. Great job, you got that quick.

WRONG SO FAR. If one woman sees this she will have the correct answer. There is complete information here. My wife said the correct answer in 10 seconds. Good Luck

Here goes. I have a national rep. deal with a particular tackle company. My usual discount is 40% I have enjoyed this for almost 20 years and its on fly fishing equipment and tackle. In April they ran a special and the add said "Enjoy an additional 30% discount on these select items. Of course you all know me and I went and ordered these fantastic goodies at what I thought was a give away price. When we got the bill, it was not what I thought. It was way more. My wife knew exactly what it was and told me in so many words that I needed to get out more and learn about percentage discounts when shopping. Still a great buy. A fantastic buy, just not what I thought. If the retail price on the items I purchased was $1000.00, what was my final price without shipping and tax. Ok guys, put me in my place along with the lady of the house.

You are going to think I am full of it, but we were catchin those the other day on that small jitterbug. Off dock corners.

For that remark you are prohibited from using a grub a tube or a redfin for the remainder of the Summer. Jackie will get some work out of you now.

I'm always a little skeptical about the boat swing. (See Article years past of Redfins in boat seats and clients legs.) If anyone is going to get it I want it to be me. If I sling one it is really hard to prevent the client from doing the same. Man has that caused problems for us Guides. I do try and grab them with pliers by the hooks if possible. On the boga grip, I do have one. Quite possibly I am using it wrong, but I have injured fish with it, by splitting out their lower lip and also by disengaging the outer ring of the fishes lip. May not hurt them, but it really bothers me. If the client is keeping them ie White Bass it is a wonderful tool. If we are releasing them, I just worry to much about the damage. Buster just uses a brown cotton glove and says its the deal for White Bass. I have been very lucky "Knock on Wood." Just a few cuts and bruises noting worst yet than an MMA fight. Thanks and Good Luck

Guys hit the correct answers on the topwater with one exception. If the wind continues to blow, they will continue to bite. When that sun gets into the very high mode, its best to dig a little deeper. Yesterday with the clouds and wind it never ended. With the clouds they even bit on flat water however we had a lot of follows. When it gets flat, look about a yard or two behind your topwater bait and you can see them just trailing it. Time to change the pattern. Also on the swimbaits anytime reguardless. If you can get rid of a triple hooked bait when dealing with White Bass your body parts will look better at the end of the day. I was leaking red fluid after the 1st. White on that JBug and it continued the rest of the morning. You just have to be so very careful. It is truly dangerious to handle them. A fish cleaning glove might help.

Been trying to avoid that, but you have to believe they would just take the rod out of your hand.

Ya, really its kind of comical. I learn something I already knew just about everyday. Another deal on the Bug. I will say I believe they get the fin just abit better with the 3 hooks and it rides lower in the water. The fish will knock that bug 2 ft. in the air sometimes It rides on top rather than in the water and as far as strikes, will get you just as many as the fin. The small one will get you more. The little one is to deadly on the fish and the big one although it runs perfect every cast is perhaps just a notch or two below the fin because of the hookup ratio. Fun deal to try however Good Luck

Cannot take credit for the JBug. Denny's son really caught them on it last year. He used the jointed one. Best deal is to replace the hooks as they as usual are crap. The Jitterbug is of course the original wake bait. You wind it really slow and it just gurgles its way to a fish You have to be careful with the little one. Bass will swallow it before you have a chance to do anything about it. It is just great for the White's, They just snot knocked it yesterday. . Big one with a articulating tail is the deal. It runs perfect every time. Have really seen no difference in the bite using it or a fin. Made no difference yesterday at all.

Photo's from Bill Babler, Buster Loving and Rick Lisek Just a super week if the weather will let us fish. Fish are starting to get done with the Spring Fling and headed out of the main lake sections to put on the "Feedbag." Little cloudy weather and a slight breeze other than blowing rain and hurricane winds and you can put a very nice mixed species bag together. Really hard to tell what is going to blast that topwater right now. Anything from a catfish to a perch and all the black bass species inbetween. Enjoy. Who needs an A-Rig? There are 3 hooks on a Redfin! No Foolin. Topwater LM by Rick Lisek Another from Rick yesterday. The big ones were a bitin Over 15 doubles yesterday on the fin and jitterbug The White's are Big She liked the Big K's The Big Post Spawners were a snatching Buster's Client had a Firm Grip on Big Jaws And Another Had Room for one more

In all my years on the Rock, I have never seen the numbers of Threadfin Shad. This lake is bursting at the seams with forage. I fished one of the Mill Creeks today and was blacked out most of the day, from 50 ft. to the surface with shad. They are about the size of a dime and there are simply Billions and Billions of them. The other boys reported the same conditions on each lake section they were fishing. Lots of food for those hungry Mama's. Good Luck

From Aunts Creek to Long Creek is just about CRAZY. Buster had close to 80 fish this morning and Beck and Lisek report unbelieveable catches. i fished out of Kimberling City and we had between 50 and 60 topwater fish with a few whites, but loads of Smallmouth and Largemouth. The dropshot is close. Our best 5 would have been 18lb+ I boated about a mile total this morning. My lady Mindy about 10 oclock looked back at her husband after 3 unsuccesful casts and said " They have stopped biting, lets go do something else." He mentioned we could take her to the bank and put her out at anytime. She caught one on the next cast so all was well. I don't believe we had overy 4 cast in a row without some kind of bass. We caught all 5. Matt was the photographer and as soon as he sends me some I'll post them. Good Luck

We had zoom make us some soft-plastic's a few years ago on a color that they had in other worms. They said at that time the minimum run was 600 bags. We bought a thousand bags and they jumped right on it. I only have about 10 of my share left. I sold them to my clients after our fishing days. Wish I had been a little more frugal. I had 200 bags. Long winded way of saying to put of a group of guys together that wants a product and you can probably get it.

Sounds like you boys had a great day. Thanks for that super report. You did better than we did, but we did chase a few around. Was that you boys setting off the point west of the H hwy ramp and had that brown on brown ranger go between you and the bank? If that boy was any shallower he would have needed an ATV, instead of a bass boat.

When it starts to break loose, that usually means it is going away for the season. It is late this year and it was not nearly so bad today on the bottom in the dam area. In a couple of weeks it will have broken loose and floated to the top and dissolved. Always has since I can remember and probably now always will. Sometimes in February you can see it trailing off the dock ends. it will be gone soon.

Is BP carrying Yamamoto baits? I know they were the best place to find them and then suddenly they disapeared for a few years. I know they have Kanami. Is that Gary's Son's company. I have ordered some stuff from Gary's site and was really not very satisfied with the time it took to receive the merchandise. On three different orders. TWarehouse gets it to you NOW.

Nice post. Thanks for the excellent informantion. Welcome to the forum. Good Luck

Mark at Table Rock Tackle and Marine has the best colors of Yamamoto in stock. I hope. I know he has went thru hundreds of bags the last month. Might give them a call. He will also order them for you and have them to pick up. I'm pretty sure you can order from BP or Cabelas and get them in a day or two. This grub bite is not going away thru June, so might want to get geared up. Also you can order direct from Chompers. That smoke black fleck is pretty good and the salt and pepper is as good as it gets. Good Luck Table Rock Tackle and Marine 417-339-6735 9 AM to 5 PM Monday thru Saturday

There is a huge difference in a 5 inch and a 4 inch. The difference is in the rate of fall. At only an inch, the size really does not matter. For Once. It is the rate that the grub gets to the desired depth. If it is windy, it is very hard right now to get that 5 incher down to the 18 to 22 ft. range that is required. The 4 inch with not nearly so much tail or soft bulk will drop to the desired depth much quicker. Say you have a 15 to 20 MPH wind as we had today and you have to fish with the wind which I hate, but sometimes have to do. You would with the line bow and the bulk of the 5 inch grub would have been in trouble. For suspended fish on calmer water the 5 inch is great, as it stays and falls slower thru the strike zone. Again that inch is not a problem K's here have no problem snarfing a 7 inch swimbait at times. The rate of decent is most of the difference on the 4 or 5 inch. Good LUCk

Hummmm! Me thinks the Man Dost protest to much. Lucky for me I have both.

After a warm day yesterday and a 50 degree night, I had my crew, Friends of Brent Frazee of the KC Star meet me at 6:30 hoping for a topwater bite. Even at that hour there was not a cloud in the sky and the surface water was still as a church house mouse and covered with pollen. While waiting, I caught a total thumper K behind Rock Lane's dock on a fin. It just slurpped it down by the back hook. Mike and Gary fished a grub most of the day in smoke red. If I got my boat under 35 we were unsecessfiu. Had to keep it out. Down baits in the dam area right now are struggling. Unless you can keep them out the moss deep. Moss is out to 25' in most locations. Ended the morning with 31 total and that includes about 10 gogs. Had a solid 10 keeper bass most being really nice Post Spawn K's with 3 nice Jaws in the mix. KC to Long Creek K's are just a different fish than the White River K's above Shell Knob. Lots bigger and thicker. We were fishing powerline and on several casts when Mike set the hook on the K's, I could see him turn their bellies up. Probably about 20' deep and 30' from the boat. Just unbelieveable clear. Easy to see the bottom in the point 5 area in 30' of water. Had lots of fish swimming together following the hooked fish. Got really tough for us about Noon and only caught 2 more from then till 1:30. I had 6 pretty nice fish throwing the tube out into 35 plus feet on the lake side of the boat while the boys swam the grubs on the shore side. Seems to be a no moss line and have heard some of the Big Cedar guides are dragging a french fry in 35 to 45 ft. and catching really big Post Spawn K's. My guys were not draggers they were casters, so we went with the grub, which is always in good taste. Good Luck

They were total pigs. Probably could have geared down and caught some if we would have wished. Caught the Gogs, across from cedar Little rascules keep moving up stream.

Sunday with good friend and client John Dickerson. John had friend Paul and we had to work abit at first, but sucked it up and put the boat in the wind and cold and caught their rears. Paul led the way but we put close to 40 fish in the boat with maybe 12 keeps. We had the Table Rock Slam with one of everything. 'We fished the Dam area from point 2 and there about. All our fish came on the 4 inch smoke copper grub. Most time I had the boat in 40ft. Fish were suspended and on the bottom in the 16 to 23 ft. range and ate our grub with gusto, as long as we were in the coldest locations we could find. Taney on Monday with Stef and Jean Steffon long time friends from St. Louie and then today back on the Rock out of Shell Knob. Picked up Brian, John and Chandlert at the Timbers Cove. and fished a 6 hr. tour. We used the same grub and fished the same type of water, keeping the boat in at least 30. No wind high sky and flat water did not help, but we caught them anyway. 37 bass 5 crappie and 2 gogs with 10 solid Shell Knob Keeps. Fished from the Timbers up to about Cedar Creek. We looked for wind. When we could find a riffle, we caught fish. Most on transitions leading into spawing pockets. All our fish the last two days had not spawned and were full to the gills with eggs getting ready for the deal. Water temps at the start were 57.4 and at the end 59.8. Had my first fin fish of the season a 15.5 inch LM that sucked in the fin.