Bill Babler

P. You must have had the hammer down to get home by 3. Took us 1.5 hours just to get out to I-70. We parked at the engineering building parking lot. That’s about a 35 minute walk from the tunnel. We were also on the West side and that added time to just get to the tunnel.

Huge round trip to Columbia. 4.5 hours from SK each way. I stayed at the Drury hotel in COMO. Didn’t get back to the hotel till 12:30. That’s late for an old dog. Florida is not good. They played like they were against us. They are just loaded with athletes and speed. Remember these guys are from a No. 3 recruiting class. Could not stop the misdirection and multiple offensive sets. Florida was full of eye candy they had not used in any game this season. Missing T. Hop. at line backer hurt as our freshman got really gap fooled and the two Florida backs are speed personified. Gave up more yardage to them than either Jajaa or Tenner. Your not going to beat Missouri playing power football. You try and line up a RB or a QB and run them straight up against this defense and you will not get it done. You have a good OC that can create misdirection and eye candy and you can make plays against the Tigers. When Missouri came to the SEC they really didn’t know about playing 4 quarters of football. They do now. They will play as tough on the last snap as they do on the first snap. To beat Mizzou, no turnovers, a great offensive coordinator and you have to really want to for every minute of 4 quarters. If they get you down they are not going to let up. If you get them down it’s going to fire them up. They want a New Year 6 bowl and an 11 win season something fierce. Good luck to both teams Friday. Hope for a great game and no injuries.

It’s exciting. You get to wear a uniform and play with very fast expensive toys. What young man or woman wouldn’t want to do that There is also the video game aspect that is now so much involved, adding more fuel to the fire. Let’s forget about the money y’all are so concerned about. It’s not a problem. Parents and Grandparents have money. Lots of money. Letting the kids or grandkids play with a 1/4 to 1/2 million is not worrying these folks. We live in a different world. Couple that bought our lodge and 40 acres have 10 plus million in it now. The are only 50 years old and have 9 kids. Gave the lodge to the 3 youngest girls. No biggie. There are lots and lots and lots of those folks running around. Go to Florida, Texas and even Lake O. and look around. Money is not a part of the equation.

Son and I are going to the Florida game. I’m guessing by game time it will be a sellout. Only I believe a couple of hundred tickets remaining on Monday. We play LSU again we win that game. Not sour grapes, Mizzou just didn’t realize how good they were. Mizzou has at least 4, maybe 5 NFL draft picks thru 3-4th. round. Here is a name to watch Marquez “Speedy” Johnson. Young man is one of the fastest players in the SEC. And, he can really catch the ball. Only a true freshman that is getting snaps and really helping a team that has a wide receiver room loaded with SEC caliber veteran receivers. We win this week against Florida we will probably go to the Arkansas game. I’m guessing there are plenty of tickets. On another note as I told James last week. Mizzou and Arkansas are not really rivals. Mizzou and Tenner are the rivals. We hate them they hate everyone. Most delusional fan base in the history of sports. All time series is tied up now vs Tenner.

Mizzou totally crushed Tenner and LSU hung 50 plus on the Gators. Florida at Miz next week. Tigers should roll over them but who knows. Todays power ranks have Mizzou 8th. Nationally. 3rd. In the SEC. When the next poll comes out I’m guessing 9-10 or 11 AP Coaches Poll ranking. Mizzou is loaded both sides of the ball. 4 draft picks not counting Burden. Im in a deer stand. Bucks chasing everywhere in middle Mo.

Yes the clip will work but you have to keep it on at the minimum of 24 hours for the O2 to be absorbed. Have tried it. Joanne, Ralph and Judy at Kings Harbor were doing this in the 70’s and 80’s. Always had a tank of deep caught bass that they were prepping for release. You could also use a hyperbaric chamber if you had one handy. Fizz releases the air from the over inflated bladder do to rapid depth change quickly and heals fast. You got to know how to do it right the first time. No multiple holes. Not hard.

Really depends on what the Tigers do the next couple of weeks. Starts this week with Tenner. Mizzou had owned Tennessee like they do the Hogs, until the last 4 years. Tenner has won 4 straight. If you took the recruiting by Arkansas and Mizzou and put them together they would not be at Tenner’s level. They just have not had a coach. Got one now. They are the 3/4/5 best team in the SEC. We’ll see which this weekend. If Mizzou beats Tenner and walks all over a very bad Florida team the Hogs will have their hands full the last week of the season. Who knows in college football. Cook is going to have to stop giving it to the other team in the 4th. quarter. Mizzou is legitimately good.

Not pinning that on the new guys. Fishermen on the Ozark Highlands lakes have been catching and fizzing fish since the 1960’s.

8 penalties didn’t help with several being pre- snap. Yes, PowerMizzou was on Drink also for the lack of calling time outs in critical situations. Drink thought Cody was out of bounds but a replay clearly showed his elbow hitting inbounds. Drink screwed the pooch on that one. As far as clock management they all really struggle with it. Probably the worst clock manager in football is Andy Reid. Enough said.

Lots of these walleye guys have been fishing a grid or a contour grid for years. I also said the best bass anglers I took when I was guiding full time were Northern walleye fishermen. The Canada and Northern guys showed out. Wrench is right on annoying them. Works when they’re on a bed but out in the abyss they will scram or ignore you. Singles are super hard to deal with. The Toyota guys said a wolf pack or any number over 2 and it was on.

Cook has done a great job this year, but has came up very short in both the LSU game and the JaJaa game. 2 pic’s in the 4 th. In both games. As far as the Chiefs they have basically already won the West so they are in the playoffs. They are currently the number 1 seed in the AFC. No way they’re not in the playoffs.

Dustin Connell prefished a tournament year before last. MLF I think in Minnesota. He said he never took a rod because he would be tempted to fish. Stored 135 boulders with smallmouth on them on his Lowrance GPS graph. Won the derby going away, and never made a cast prefishing. Wheeler has said many times he doesn’t fish during prefishing. Just locate them. If you catch them prefishing you don’t catch them during the derby. These FFS guys don’t need to catch them to know what size they are. Some of these crappie guys can tell you how big they are by ounces, just looking a crappie on a livescope. Different world.

Thanks for posting. That was terrific. Rock Creek was very, very good to Mark

Sorry for multiple posts I know y’all are tired of me but there is another aspect at play here. This is not the MLF or BASS guys here for the most part. There were some carry over, but for the most part these are kids. This was not the TW invitationals. This was the step at or just above the BFL. These are the guys coming on, the 20 something’s. Makes Connell, Wheeler the OG’s. Scary.

Emil Wagner fished most of the locations I love. He fished where big smallmouth live. I followed him for 3 hours. He was fishing a Dimiki rig. I drag or stroll a football jig. He was going in a pattern with his boat at full trolling motor speed. He would slam on the brakes flip the tiny bait out and reel one in. Never made a cast that he wasn’t looking at one. He was literally fishing a grid with the GPS and the Livescope. I’ll tell you where. The flat at Coney Island, Berganns, the bouy point across from Cow Creek. The flat at point 7 and the flat in front of Mill Creek ramp. Totally took them apart with GPS and FFS. Used the track function on GPS to create the grid. He wasn’t out in the deep blue for the most part catching suspended fish, he was fishing my junk, way better than I have ever fished it. Raber was doing the same GPS Grid on cemetery I bet zero to none of us have ever fished that through, I know I have not On another note I don’t want to do that.

Time of the year had a lot to do with it as we all know our Fall dispersal is in full swing. You can catch them in a foot of water or as I learned on the bottom in 120 ft. Of water. We always wonder where in the heck do they go. Now we know. What got me is the style of I don’t see them or it I don’t fish. Also how adept they are with FFS fishing shallow. I can remember Heartland banned Aqua View. In layman’s terms Aqua View wasn’t $h-t. These kids can tell you if it’s a perch, crappie or a crawdad in 1 ft. Or the deep end of the pool. As for Co-Anglers Dakota Ebare apologized to them saying it had to be terrible for them. I think what’s really going to tell is next Spring when guys are cranking and throwing jigs. If this FFS has progressed to the point that you just cannot be a go down a great bank power fishing anymore regardless of depth. A very scary note is that even theses kids are saying they have not unlocked the total technology or capabilities of their Garmin and Lowrance machines. As J. Lu said power fishing with finesse has changed the tournament game.

Durn I’m old. Followed 3 guys today Raber, Mrazek, Wagner. Scopers baby. Initially on Mrazek. He was struggling at 10 o’clock nothing in the boat so my videographer switched to Wagner. 50 Mile run. I’m not doing this again. Mrazek was fishing ditches. He calls them drains. Cuts coming out of the backs of coves. 10’ to 40’. Dimiki rig. Thrown, dragged and fished up and down. Wagner was fishing smallmouth flats. 10’ to 60’. Same deal with the Dimiki rig. Here is the caveat. They don’t fish…. Let me clarify. They don’t see them, they don’t cast. Every fish these two caught all week they were looking at them. It does not matter if the fish is in 5’ of water or 100’. They can see them shallow or deep. Did have one of the other competitors tell me his two best LM were on the bottom 120’. I’ll show some photos. Don’t know if you watched Live, but Justin Lucas gave the best explanation of what’s taking place. We all think of him as a young gun deep water guru. He said he is not. Compared to this generation of 20 something’s he said he has a lot to learn. He is 37. He said the best explanation is power fishing with finesse tackle. I watched 7 or 8 guys today and everyone was fishing a Dimiki rig. Wagner was fishing it at times under 10’. Here is the deal. They crank the Force or the Ghost up to 10. Set the livescope or the active target to 100’ forward and auto on depth and hit the gas. Constantly looking, just standing there. When they see one they slam on the breaks and catch it. Really the durnest thing you will see. They don’t catch fish, they shoot fish. I saw some guys early up the White fishing locations I would not have dreamed of. Boat in 120’ plus, catching them both off the bottom and suspended. All 3 bb varieties. Jaws included out there in the great expanse. Heard several guys saying the caught 40 to 70 fish today. Couple said 20 plus keeps a day, all 3 days. Yes they waded thru some K’s. Spoke to Raber’s camera boat operator. Jig, crankbait, topwater, dimiki rig. He said the guy will not and did not throw if he was not looking at a fish. Probably takes the guess work out but holy creepers. It is getting totally crazy. I didn’t get any pictures but I had them on the bottom 120’ coming up and shooting thru Shad schools. Had to have my graphs off most of the day to not interrupt their machines.

I’m headed in. Camera man stayed with Wagner. Sat and watched Raber for 30 minutes. His Camera boat guy says he easily has caught 50 plus. Don’t know who this is but he caught a huge fish Camera guy said Raber had 14 pounds. These guys have caught just an unbelievable amount of fish today. Simply crazy. More to come.

Wagner just culled one so if he already had 16 pounds he has a BAG. My camera guy is in his boat. I’m hovering and really could not tell how big it was.

Started with Chad Mrazek. Now on Emil Wagner. Says he has 16 pounds. Lost 2 big Jaws both said to be 4 pounders. Wagner is fishing the right stuff.

Well, I missed it. Thought a few would get 30 pounds and they did. Missed the cut. 25.12 was 25th. Thought it might take close to 27 the way they were catching them early. I have not gotten clarification on my camera boat for tomorrow. The thought was I would be with the second place guy. I should hear back in the next couple hours. There are 6 camera boats and one Drone boat. I asked if it would be possible if my guy or any they wanted a camera on was fishing up the White. I asked if I could meet them at either Shell Knob or Baxter. Would hate to make the 100 Mile round trip from State Park if it wasn’t necessary. I’ll give you a report on my day tomorrow. Going to be warm and windy. With so many guys over 30 pounds one of them should catch at least 15 tomorrow so I’m guessing 46/48.

Seems like some wild drivers. Still have 5 boats in sight from the deck. Regular 3 and the 2 in front of Basin Hollow. All 5 of these boat fishing DEEP. The 2 that were on the flat are gone. Might be totally off but from scoretrack there are going to be some bags today. Making my cutoff at 27 pounds. 13.5 a day. Going to be several bags in the 30’s. Hearing thru the grapevine there were several fish lost yesterday that would have totally changed the standings. Some of those might get in the boats today. Also heard comments the bite was strong and the fish were totally wild. Lots of jumping and quick line breaking deep dives right at the boat. The last second deep dive deal sounds like Jaw’s to me.

They’re back in the channel swing again today. Looks like the same 3 boats. If you make the sharp bend just upstream from Campbell Point, the channel is on an inside bend just prior to Hobbs Hollow on the South side of the lake. Depth is 100’ plus. This bend really attracts Shad. Don’t know why but they just at times fill the water column there. Both gizzards and threadfin. There are deep trees here, but close to the shore line. These guys are not fishing any structure at all, but targeting fish that are swimming in and around the Shad in open water, right in that deep channel inside swing. They don’t seem to be fishing up and down as much as throwing. I’m a long way from them but it looks like either a flutter spoon or a swim bait. Both are great choices out there. From my deck I can see 7 derby boats. 3 in the swing, 2 at Basin Hollow hump, 2 at the flat at Hobbs. About the same number up here as yesterday. I’m guessing around 30.

Going to be warmer with a little breeze. Not as cool tonight. I’m guessing 26 plus to fish Saturday. Maybe 27/28. Had some good buddies on Lake O. Today catch 10 keeps. Nothing over 3 pounds all on a pooper. Said you could walk on the Gizzards. Lots of blow ups by Whites.