Bill Babler

Lots of possibilities out of Galena on the James that time of the year. Watch the forum and you will see guys talking about catching limits of whites up the James from the bank. Probably the best bank fishing on TR lake.

This is correct. Most all deep water fisherman use sonar. Myself, not only do I use the 2d, but also real time which is on the extreme right hand side of the screen that works like the old flasher units. On my HDS8. I can tell in a second how far each target is not only from the bottom of the lake but from the bottom of the boat. I can see my bait and line at all times I can move it into the correct position or into the correct area of the water column the fish are in. I see the fish take my presentation about 95% of the time and most times can tell my clients just as a bite occurs. I can see the thermocline and also see any movement the fish makes to or away from the bait. I can also see the fish and the bait inside any cover that is present. I have tried down scan and cannot see nearly as well, or fish as completely as I can with the sonar. I'm not ordering either down or side scan on my new boat.

Great point if you mess with it probably forget sending it back. Really you would be extremely lucky to send it back to Megabass and get a replacement. If it were a Spro, you would get 3 in return. This is really a pretty good topic. I have had a blast following it. I will sometimes use suspend dots, but I have a hook weighting system . I can completely change the baits weight in 3 minutes on the water after I see how it's depth is on any particular day. 99% of the people that look at the bait cannot even tell its weighted. I hate sticking dots on custom painted baits and for the most part just don't use them. On a 3 hook bait a weight near the center of the bait will cause it for the most part to fall in horizonal manner. It you want it to fall sightly tail down, like most dying shad then you can place the weight further back. If you like it head down, you know the answer.

I would bet is not rust but has some calcium build up on it, as it has probably leaked at some point. The build up is probably at the rear of the channel and kind of grabs the weights. It would also be hard to see. Great sugestions, but if it is calcium you probably won't get it fixed so take one of the other measures. You can also add a weighted hook to the front of the bait and see if that will balance it out. Right now if our baits are not falling, we are not getting bit, so if it will sink, that is not a problem in this cold water. Good Luck

Very, very good stuff Bo. Thank you so much for participating in the board. You are more than a welcome addition. This is one of the most honest helpful fishing boards in the country and it is all ours on beautiful Table Rock Lake Moderator

Merc, you might have something there about the crawpappys. Still when you put a bass fish in the boat, he usually depending on the time of the year is packing several on board. Winter before last, Bill Beck and I won a buddy derby out of Kimberling City in November. We caught all our fish on the bottom 65' We weighed in 5 LM that weighed 23 pounds. These were not suspended fish, but were on the bottom. 65feet. I don't mean we caught 1 fish that deep, we caught all our fish that deep, and were throwning out 3.5 pound K's as fast as our spoon would hit the bottom. Merc, Sounds like you been a round a while, and for sure it is different that it used to be. For me however when I am fishing or guiding the rock, it is just about bites. I could really care less if it is a 2 pound bite or a 4 pound bite. Makes no difference to me at all. They are all goin back regrardless. On your open water theory, I agree whole heartedly. Also a few years ago, the float n fly came along, as we started seeing fish that were having nothing to do with anything else. We caught more 4 to 9 pound LM in 3 months than we had caught in the last 5 yrs. Just simply fishiing a 1/32 nd. oz. bait to suspended fish on 4 pound test line. Oh. This old pond has changed a bit since I started here in 1976. I believe more in the last 4 or 5 yrs. than in the previous 37 yrs. for me outside of the fish kill in 90's. It is just a wonderful offshore fishery.

I on the other hand had simply a wonderful year up there with my clients. Cannot tell you the number of days we drove over from Branson to either launch at Shell Knob or at Viney or Eagle Rock. Fished mostly from the mouth of the Kings up to Roaring River. Caught and released thousands of fish. Probably one of my best Walleye yrs. up there. I could accually take clients out and pretty much catch 2 or 3 quality walleye on every trip, with lots and lots of quality Kentucky's and lots of short stocky LM. Did not catch the brown bass I usually catch up there this year, but did do well for a time on a DD22 and a swimbait that I don't usually fish much up there. Fished a spoon early in the year more than ever have. Fished the dropshot later in the year than ever. The fish are up there and in good numbers, but if you are a bank pounder, it is hard. The majority of fish I caught on the Upper End were a rifle shot from the bank and most were suspended. It is kind of like fishing a derby. Everyone has a different take. That is what I love about TR. Even if you are not catching them, you better bet someone is, in pretty much the same location you are. The bank area from Owl Creek to Beaver Town really fishes small anymore, just due to the sheer number of fishermen. Those banks are just hammered, and people know about transitions drops and runnouts and creek channels. It is getting harder on such a small area, even though there are quite a few miles there, to fish that way on a consistant basis and do well. You have to move out and look for structure away from the bank. By structure I mean drops and channel swings in the main White River Channel. These are the fish that are not wearing a helmet from being pounded on an everyday basis. Gives you a much better chance at gettting nipped. Really to this day, I don't see alot of people out there. You get down the White River from Campbell Point to LongCreek, and you will see guys fishing the main lake, just not so much up the White River. They are out there all year. You just have to make the right decisions on how deep and where to look. People drive past me all the time up there, I guess thinking I'm crazy and then they pull onto a bank that 3 boats have just went down and wonder why they are not getting bit. Try something different. You are probably not going to catch 6 pound LM out there, but you will catch plenty of K's and enough Walleye to keep you with a smile on your face. Good Luck

Ya, he has been going down quite a bit and yelling at me to go with him. We pulled the trigger yesterday. He has caught some nice ones this Winter, but it is hard work and you really have to be a fisherman. Like I said you are going to get 4 or 5 bites all day and you had better make the best of them. You need to concentrate on every cast as they are by no means hammering anything. It is a very gentle bump at best. Everything we caught were on custom baits and we spoke to two other boats that had not had a bite. Buster caught a short eye while we were visiting with them. They went nuts. I was completely worn out when we got off the water, we worked about as hard as shoveling ditches. Still I had probably the best fried fish dinner I have ever had with those fresh eyes out of 40 degree water. Good Luck

Talked to some guys today while I was fishing Bull Shoals. They had fished Kimberling City yesterday and had done as they said, Really, Really Well on the Arig. They had heard there was a walleye on every point on Bull Shoals and were trying to capture them. They found out pretty quickly if they were on every point, they were not interested in neither the Arig or a jerkbait We eneded the day with 3 eyes, 3 bass and 2 crappie in 7 hrs. That is about 2 man hours per bite. Pretty tough. Got to have some time on your hands for this type of fishing. If it had not been for my partner today, i would be licking my wounds instead of a Walleye fillet or two. Bass were really nice 3.5 pound cookie cutters. 2 of the walleye measured is about all we can say. Surface temp on upper bull 42.1 Good Luck

If you have a Rice Burner, they are as good as it gets down here. They are the Mid-West Regional Service Center for Yamaha. Good Folks.

Good info by the Gnat. There is some great crappie fishing either up Cricket or LongCreek. Crappie this time of the year seem to love the mud flats just past the mouth of LongCreek. You will need to be carefull with the low water. Swimming minnows work super up there, usually on a 1/8th. or 1/4 oz. jig head. The Lament color of black and silver are just killers. Don't be afraid to push out from the bank a little, putting the boat in the channel and throwing up on the flats. You can also at times see crappie with your locator in the channel if you know how to use it. Have some minnows handy and if you see them, drop a minnow to them. When fishing the flats up either of the creeks let your jig fall to the bottom and slowly reel it back following the contour of the bottom. Lots of time the crappie will cling very close to the bottom. Read this forum. Folks seem to help out alot here during Crappie time. February and March, if the lake gets some water you can motor up to Youcum Creek, the split with LongCreek has produced loads of crappie for us with the same tecniques. March and April start workiing your way out of LongCreek and hit the pockets and gravel with structure on the spawning banks clear out to Brushy Creek. Crappie up LongCreek are something you just need to work out on your own. It is always a changing situation, and what a guide might show you today, would be of little help in a month. Go slow, catch one here and there and then remember how you did it. It won't be fast. Also remember LongCreek is not very big and it is the hardest hit lake section for crappie of its size on the Rock. You will have lots of help. Good Luck

Sold. 7 minutes. Thanks Mike, I look forward to meeting ya next week.

I'm cleaning out the shed. I have 7 Falcon LowRiders, 2 Falcon Originals and a custom Rod Shop Drop Shot rod I want to move out. The Falcon's are BaitCasters and are 6' and 6.5' They are medium and medium Heavy. I want to sell them all together so I don't have to mess with them. $200.00 for all 10 rods. 417-332-7016 I will ship them for shipping and handling. Whatever that cost.

My advice and fishing information here is never to solicite fishing charters, it is just advice, or local knowledge as best I know it. Never feel I am owed for anything I do or say here. It is my privledge to be able to help where I can. Cooper Creek is a wonderful faculity to launch also, off Fall Creek Rd. Go up to Lilleys' and ask what they are biting on when you get there and the office staff will put you not only on the correct baits, but on location as well. Good Luck If you launch downtown, go over to Scottys Boat Dock and Marine just to the North of the Launch Ramp. Lamar will let you in on very good lake information. Good Luck

Joe a couple of the other guides have them. Seems the best application is when you have deep fish already located and you can stimulate them into some activity. Have also heard that the whites will respond to it in the same situation, if you have them located. No one I know has had it make a difference at all except vertical fish. You cannot just turn it on and go down a bank and get it to do anything or increase your fishing success. From what the guys are telling me, it is only for fish you already have found and it helps stimulate them to more activity. You notice I did not say bite. Good Luck

If I were you and had the young ones, I would not mess with the Rock on the Solo in January. That is a complete reciept for defeat reguardless of the info you recieve here. Lake location and so many other factors come into play. Take those kids down to Taney and have a blast. The trout are really biting. On my 2 trips right before Christmas, we caught and released about 70 fish per day up to 2 pounds. 4 hr. trips. You will just have to be living in a dream world to do that well on the Rock. Mater of fact, coming in Cold like that, your goal would be to not catch a fish, but just get a bite. Go down on the River and have a blast with the youngsters. Good Luck

This time of the year it is really quick. Send it in and tell them if you need it fast that you will pay the extra freight and you will get it next day if you wish. They will just send you a new one.

LM in the Rock is minimum of 4 yr. to be a keeper. Jaw is 5 to 6 yrs. Spot is 7 yrs. minimum to reach 15 inches. K's also have a life and reproduction span of plus 15 yrs. Mainly due to how slow they grow, they have a excellent reporductive life cycle that is much longer than the LM or Jaw. Longer life more eggs and hopfully more fish. With the no stock policy MDC has on Table Rock, its good to have these Mama's around repopulating the lake on such a long life cycle.

Nat, you may have a point, and the way you do things in your fishing are really quite abit different than 99% of us out there. Making your own lures and baits and just handling your trips like you have stated. We just don't do that so much. Really with limits we have now on the fish and the size requirements of course except for gills and kittys it is very hard to indeed fill that freezer, as not only are the daily limits on most species from 5 to 15 fish per day but the limits that you can personally have are only in most cases a two day limit total in your freezer. In speaking with conservation officers and lake biologist for the last 30 years, folks filling their freezer is really not how they are managing the resource. It is managed that if a guy and his wife keep a few fresh fish to eat on their vacations or a local wants to have a fish fry with fresh fish, there you go. With the ammount of usage these ponds get it is no longer designed to go out and put the Winters meat in the freezer. I had a game warden tell me several years ago to tell my clients as he told people "Think fresh, Not freeze." He was refering to pan fish. All our state agencies including the conservation dept is experencing cuts and you know what that means. As far as the Rock is concerned maybe not so much as it is a self renewing resource that is not stocked and has to completely substain itself, reguardless of what the corps does. God Bless all and Merry Christmas

Could not disagree with you more. I guided 269 trips this year with a large portion of them on Table Rock for bass. Never once did I have a person ask me to kill a fish. This is not the days of the meathunter. There is no way you can pay for a pan fishing trip with a limit of fish that would allow you to say "Well, what I'm eating paid for the trip." No Way. Even the the 1960's and 70's at our resort on Lake O. when we pretty much harvested everything we caught, not one time did I ever hear a fisherman or a guide client say, a limit of fish, paid for his or her weekend. Most often, the thought was, Now that is a really expensive dinner. If a person has to justify a day on the water or a day relaxiing fishing and make it a money making proposition, better look for some other recreation, and buy some steak at the grocery store, cause it is way cheaper than fish.

Duck, after I spoke with you boys, I went for ZERO. That was it. I also started out in Viney at 8 AM and the first location was an interior point. Pretty nice LM that was just short on Arig. Next location on a bluffend, I missed two hits here and then caught a short 12 in K. Probably what I was missing. Buzzed down lake and hit a very nice bluffend and just let the Arig swim it's self back to the boat on a long cast. Had a double here on my third cast with two close but short K's. Kept throwing it and caught 3 more on the same location, all short but close. Really nice fish that fought the Arig as hard as they could in the 53 degree water. Went 2 hrs. with out a bite, fishing the same stuff and looking for concentrations of bait and fish on the flats and in the guts, up to the Kings River. Nada. Put it on the trailer at 12:30 without another bite. Both Champ 188 or maybe now a new Handle Ranger 519 and Stratos Demjac 202 both fished other parts of the pond. I think their numbers were about like mine, but they had some quality fish. Maybe they will give us their secerets. Good Luck

Pitching jigs to the backs of the stalls in the shade, and letting them fall back to me. Usually about 15 ft. This has been a killer method in the past, but no luck this year. Also swimmng that jig on the shade side of the docks. I have been catching more bass than anything on the 1/16th. oz crappie jig. Also as I stated in an earlier report the docks are still full of Blue Gill. Very, Very unusual to see Gill's in the docks this time of the year. Lots of folks using good sense remove their boats from those docks for the Winter and there are lots of stalls to pitch into. You can also use a Lake of the O. tenique and grab your jig and put a bend in the spinning rod and shoot it back in there under the boats. Works great with a little practice. That is if there are any crappie there. Good Luck

Yes, I caught them pretty good on the larger private docks thru out the entire lake system. I have looked at least 3 times on my best docks from last year and have only caught two. Seems the docks are much shallower. Some of the locations I caught them last year, the docks are setting extremely shallow. Have heard they have been catching a few in the deeper main lake pockets on pole timber in the 12 to 15 ft. depth range on either minnows or 1/16 oz. white jigs. I'm not giving up yet, but we had really stung them by this time last year to the point my Wife said don't bring any more crappie fillets home. Can't seem to find them this year. Yet.

Glad you got her done. Must have gotten a great deal to pass up the Z8 you were thinking of. They should have little problem getting rid of the Champion. Congrats on the New Rig.

Had a realator tell one of my best clients while he was looking at property down here that Table Rock lake was the best Walleye and Northern Pike Lake in the United States. It also held a very nice population of Lake Trout. Our Subdivision at Shell Knob put in a new 20 stall dock a few years ago, replacing the old 20 slip we already had. Total cost was $50,000.00 with a huge swim platform. We already had the land. Kind of like Farmin Middle man is making the money on most of these slips. Couple of friends of mine in the realestate business said 5 to 10 years ago you could make a 6 figure a year living on boat slips. They were as good as stealin money if you get to list them. Tim stated people are getting smarter though, they are not buying them like they used to. He said right now there are lots and lots of slips for sale. they are just in areas that no one wants to drive to or have not developed yet He also said now, people are not buying the property if you don't throw in a slip if you have it. If your paying for them like you used to, you are not doing well with your bartering. When we bought our property at Blue Eye 10 yrs ago, my realator asked me If I wanted to go into the slip business with him. He said he had between 50 and 100 slips of his own and it was a huge business. Since I have found out that there are lots of investors that have lots of slips. One guy below me has 8 right now. Only problem, demand has dropped and they are not selling like they were. Wonder Why?