Bill Babler

April is a great time. Most all lodging has boat parking easy to just inquire if they have electricity hookups for battery charges. Moonshine Beach by Chateau on the Lake excellent ramp, State Park and Old 86 all fantastic ramps in the dam area. April is 2.8” Keitech month Gizzard or Threadfin Shad with a 1/8-1/4 oz ball head. Also a Ned Rig in 1/16 to 1/4 is a killer for Small Jaws. Green Pumpkin and PBJ are lake standbys Brown and orange also really works great Suspending stickbaits will also wack them. Not even close Table Rock Shad in the Megabass Lineup and Blue Bandit in the Spro offerings, are the best colors Smallmouth on the Rock love gravel run outs and transition points going into spawning coves. At the dam don’t be afraid to keep the boat in 25’-35’ of water on these gentle run outs. Water will be 10’ to 20’ of visibility unless it floods. Rain really doesn’t make much difference. It stays clear down there. Expect the bite to be in 10’ to 15’’ range. Also use your electronics. If you see suspended fish on your 2D sonar under the boat, BACK OUT. If you have Live Scope or Active Target. You will see them. If you don’t move along. I’m sure you’ll get some more tips. Good Luck.

Buddy just sent me this picture. Sticker on the White River above the SK bridge. Megabass +2 French Pearl. 7.7#.

Son and I got out about 8 am yesterday. Lake here at Baxter was totally packed with boats even at 33 degree air temp. Steven just flat hung it on the Ole Man. Fished till noon. He had 17 out of the back of the boat and I had 2 yep a Duce. He was throwing a Megabass plus2 in TRS on 10# test line and I was throwing a Megabass plus 1 in TRS. on 15# line. Made a WHALE of a difference as he missed more than I caught. Kid is good with the Jerkbait. He’s fished with Buster and Beck so kind of has an idea how to fish it. Fished by myself today starting at 1pm. Fished for 3 hours on mostly flat water and a sky that went to Heaven without a cloud. I chased wind the best I could and caught 4 on Steven’s outfit. All keeps just big Fatty K’s. Neighbor started at the same time and did the exact same. We launched together and loaded out together. He had 4 keeper K’s on a McStick, chasing wind too. Surface temp at H ramp when I trailered at 4pm was 55.4 on flat water. Good Luck.

Y’all are having a wonder Winter. Congrats

Good friend launched at Big M yesterday. Said they had 46 bass and 1 walleye. 14 keeps. Nothing big. Mostly LM with their biggest fish being a Jaw. All on a Megabass Jerker. 15’ and under. Said they watched the major of them eat it on live Scope Surface temp was 53/54. Good Luck

McCelland and I did a program at Nixa High School for their fishing team week before last. Every team member had either Live Scope or Active Target. I asked about competing and I’m guessing at this point, ALL High School teams are using it to be competitive. Truthfully I have not seen a boat at the ramp or the lake without one of the two in quite sometime. I’m going down to Lake Grenada next week with a crappie guy and long pole them on a Live scope. There are enough scopes on LOZ and Truman to make Garmin solvent. Garmin really cut their Pro-staff and employee discounts this year. Don’t need to give discounts anymore.

I also have the old one. My buddy has a new one and my machine is so fine tuned neither of us can see a bit of difference. I am running a Sea Clear cable and that did make a HUGE difference.

I have as good a picture at 12.7 to 13.1. Yes I agree the more power you have the better, but 12.4 plus you are going to see everything you need to see to be amazed. I’m only looking 100’ and under but I did see the 5 pounder I caught last week at 70’ and then went and caught her.

Yep, happens every year. Field and pasture burning in Northern Arkansas.

You can make those handles look new in about 30 minutes

Had to he fun. Congrats

That fish of mine was just a smidge under 24” too. Really nice fish.

The LM Bucks really moved up today. Believe my jerk bait was probably in about 12’ to 15’ when they started eating it. Saw quite a few of them on Live Scope and throughout the day saw a bunch of fish charge it and refuse it. Believe they probably would have eaten an RK Crawler but the moss is really bad at Baxter out to about 12’ Tried to throw a jig on some of the fish that refused the jerker but greened up with that green slime about every cast. I’m betting by Wednesday we’ll see low 50’s surface temps pretty much lake wide.

Caught a good one this morning on a Dimiki rig. Exactly 5.0# Got on the water late at 7am at Baxter. Surface temp 47.76. Caught the good fish and 2 squeaker keeps right off the bat. It got tough then till about 9:30 and the wind started blowing. Picked up a jerk bait and it was on. 1st. point with the boat in about 30’ tossing at the bank I caught 13 straight. Not a keeper in the bunch. All buck LM. Next windy flat point, same deal. Had 7 in a row. Again all male LM. No Keeps. All these fish 14” to 14 3/4”. Hit two more points and had 4 more total all LM short. Another crazy deal was every fish I caught was back to back. If I failed to catch one it was over for that location. I guess what was one each spot was going to bite. Last 2 trips not a single K. All LM. Quit at 11:30 surface temp 48.4. Goid Luck

Wrench the Garmin 62 transducer is all the buzz 200’ range, way more power and a bit bigger angle. They are seeing these fish a lot of times 200 ft. away and running them down. Last week in the PBFL here isolated singles on or away from structure were the targets. Multiple targets were avoided, as these guys were saying they were grouped up Kentucky’s. Singles in open water or on structure were LM, Brown fish or perhaps a magnum K. The further away you could see them the better. Thats why the salt water transducers One of the guys in the top 10 said on every fish counts over 2 pounds he would have had 70 plus pounds. Every bite on a Dimiki rig. They’re scoping them on Santee Cooper too.

MLF had his Active Target on a split screen for about 4 minutes today. Really interesting, regarding picture and target identification. He had his gain set pretty much like Justin McCelland. And believe you me, Justin is a Wizard with Garmin Live Scope. I’m going to say every bit as good as any of the touring pro’s and probably better than 3/4 of them. DC had a ton of grain in his picture as does Justin. The clearer and cleaner the picture the less definition. For those wanting a spot free picture on either AT or LS y’all need to rethink. The best in the world are running that gain really high. Really cool watching that this morning.

Snagged I don’t have any medium 7’ rods. I do have 3 Mike McCelland jerk bait rods new and 2 Head Turners new.

If you guys had 2 more rods on the front of that boat you might have even caught more. 😁😁🤪🤪🤪😂😂 Those are just super fish. That’s the kind of day that gets us up early

C4F, A great rod for most application is either a 9’ 5 or 6 wt. tip flex rod, and yes I can get you started with an outfit that is very reasonably priced in either Orvis or Temple Fork. I also have several Lew’s reels available. I’ll PM you some info. Thanks for your interest.

Wow. Y’all just went and did it up right. Congrats

I’ll check. I might have a 7’ swim jig rod that’s new. I do also have a bunch of Lew’s reels that I’m thinking of parting with.

Thread has gotten a little out of hand and off track. PBFL is a stepping stone for folks with higher aspirations. It’s also one of very few events you can fish without qualification. Just a derby if you like competitive fishing. Money is a TOTALLY NON-FACTOR. No one’s business how you spend yours or how I spend mine. This board is comprised of mostly middle class people both retired and mature but still working. What some of us deem as lots of money others can see as disposable or fun income. Shoot for that matter I have a very good friend that spends several hundred grand a year in Vegas. Who cares, he sure doesn’t. What’s the difference? As far as the technology, VanDam and all the rest could in no way stop progress. The World is not staying the same, it’s changing every day. Really I don’t think there is anyway we’re going back to yesterday. Divide and conquer, adapt and prosper. Professional fishing as well as most everything is evolving, whether we like it or not.

Yep I had 19 degree here at Shell Knob on the lake and that wind is just absolutely Biting. Now at 10 am I have 24 BURRRRR

Met Blaukat a couple of times at Kings Harbor Bait Shop when it was open years ago. I like most everyone but he was pretty hard to take. I remember when he went out the door one of the owners said she hoped that arrogant P$$$k would never come back in her shop. He always wanted something free or at a discount. I remember her saying for some guy that’s a pretty average fisherman he thinks he’s God’s gift. The ladies that owned that shop and I will say it was a fantastic store. Better than any we have on the lake now, were pretty out spoken. Beck and I have to giggle said never P!$$ off Jonie or Judy. On top of that, those gals could flat out fish.

It looked like LOZ on July 4 weekend at Coffman Bend this morning. I mean the race was on. Just about as many boats as I’ve seen making that turn. They must have found them good up the White as I sure would not have wanted to make that run this morning at 19 degree. Results will be interesting.