Bill Babler

From the looks of the extended forecast with the rain and wind and the next 10 day temperatures this water will blow thru the 50's really quick and it will be just all over us. For Blue Eye, Table Rock Lake I'm showing mid to upper 60's and mid to upper 70's with high 40 and low 50 degree nites, in the 2 week extended.

Yep, it was an 11 footer. I fished it 10' deep and was just not getting bit, so I extended the leader to 15' and it worked. Dock can help me on this but it seems most of the fish are in that 18' to 30' range either suspended or on the shore. Dock figured out KC I had to get away form the dying shad and birds. From White's Branch to Big Cow you can scoop the dead shad in a net. As soon as you get away you get bit. Dock might have been upstream from the bridge I didn't go that far, so I don't know how many dead shad are up that way. It's funny as soon as you pass Spring Branch no more dying shad. Ramps at Indian Pt., Moonshine, State Park Cow Creek and Schooner were all busy. Bfl usually brings in the 200 boat range plus the non-boaters are bring their's for a week of practice. Then, this time of the year Anglers will Probably have close to 100 and of course that is a buddy so that usually adds another 50 or so. Bfl is out of State Park and Anglers out of Kimberling. Weather is going to be wicked so that will hold the practice down some. I'm losing a trip this morning. I had Wed. Thurs. Friday booked. Hope I at least get Friday. Good Luck

Table Rock Lake Kimberling City 3-11-19 Report Launched at Cow this morning to a cloudy grey sunrise with surface temps at 42.7. Boated down to White's Branch to see if I could catch any of these big A-rig fish that are showing up in the tournaments. From Schooner Creek to Cow Creek the lake is full of dying shad and gulls. Thousands of dying shad and enough gulls to scoop them up. I will tell you, if you see this Run. Don't even drop the trolling motor, cause they ain't havin it. You have to get away from those shad to get bit. I fished for 3 hours right in the middle of it and got ZERO BITES. At 10 o'clock I came to my senses and got away from this buffet and it got good. Surface temps were like a Rocket Ship today and were on the rise, big time. Even with that the fish wanted it slower than slow. They ate a stick bait on flat water and another deal. I put a total of only 7 fish in the boat but they were all solid keeps and lost one around 8 lbs. at the boat. As a matter a fact she hit the side of the boat twice but when your using a 15' 4 lb. leader and are by yourself its hard to capture those biggens. After the crazyness I put her through she just decided to dive down and wrap me in a tree and be done with that foolishness. Word on the lake today was the A-rig was just not working, it had to be slow. Bottom Ok on the Ned, but not quality fish. Jerkbait in the trees and the floater were on them and they were all good. Surface them at 2 PM when I pulled was 48.1 at Cow Creek with gin clear water. Visibility in that area is 15' on the white spoon test. Just about to get good, these fish are starting to stage on channel swings and spawning cove mouths. Good Luck This post has been promoted to an article

Quick report. Folks said if they could eat 3 meals a day at Flat Creek and come back for in between meal snacks there, they would. Thinking of moving from Dallas just so they could be close to it. Really there are few adjectives that are truly good enough to say about that place. I think the best would be to say they are consistently delicious.

I think these guys are just staying in the Branson, KC area due to the lodging and both derby's take off from down here. Don"t worry, I'm sure they will get up that way.

BFL and ANGLERS IN ACTION this coming weekend the lake was simply full of power pole boats from KC to the dam today.

Number 2 couple went to Flat Creek tonight. Quite a drive from here, 50 minutes and then a 1 hr. wait. If they gripe about that food NASA there will be a problem as we have been there dozens of times and it is always simply fantastic every time. It is truly a place that if you build it they will come. It has no equal in the area except for maybe DeVito's in Harrison. The new Flat Creek in Republic is packed starting 1 hr. prior to opening, till closing. Just incredible to produce food in that quantity and quality.

Your right it was just crazy good. I think it was the pizza oven and the smoked chicken oven that burned the place down. I always ordered the same thing that Marsha Lilley ordered when we went. That girl just knows whats good. On another note we used to get nothing but raves about the Worman House, it was expensive but the food was always top notch. Another was the Candle Stick Inn, never a complaint. People would plan their vacation just to go there. Becky and I used to do our anniversary there every year. Fried Lobster or their grilled smoked Lamb Chops were simply crazy. Best restaurant bar drinks anywhere, mixed to perfection.

Both Google and Trip Advisor have them with 3.5 stars. There reviews are for the most part 2's on the food. With enough 5's as they get high marks on the view and the other amenities with people just raving, if they did not have that view, the canon and the bag pipes they would have been out of business long ago, as the food is usually a nightmare. Becky of course is a lot kinder than I am and she says they are much better in season. Off season they are in trouble. I could easy recite a dozen stories at least, that are just flat belly shakers. If we go we usually just go to Devils Pool. Their lunch menu is very good. It was truly a shame that Top of the Rock burned, I thought it was tremendous. They have been pulling this the last 3 years at the Osage house, screw it up and give you a piece of pie to share. We have got so many stories from our guest its simply amazing. It's only about 10 minutes there from the lodge and we will send a couple of hundred guests a year there easy. Or we did. They also changed their entrance policy. Now its $10.00 to get in and they only give back $5.00 credit if you make a purchase. I believe they call it a resort fee. The second couple that did not get the wine were dressed to the Nine's and also got valet parking, another $10.00 so that just added to the peed off factor. Never had a single complaint about Chateau and only a few about Level 2 and that is because Level 2 tries to sell you the entire menu plus the silverware. That second couple was pretty much prepared to spend $300.00 and not think a think about it but the screw ups were just to much to overcome.

You never really know about the service you will receive or the quality of the food at any of Bass Pro's restaurants except Hemmingways as it is most always good. The Fish House in Branson can be fair to good or a total mess. 90% of the time Arney's Barn is not going to be good. They just have problems and you can see it from online reviews. Their signature joint at Big Cedar is the Osage House. This is at the top of the price level for the Branson area and the views, cannon and bagpipes are 4 star. The food and service can be down right 1 star or even less. We send people there as do the VRBO's in the area but the biggest group and now us are not recommending it any longer which is a crying shame. For us last night was the nail in the coffin. We sent two different couples and they both had just about the worst experience in dining that is possible. Couple number 1 celebrating their 10 th. 1 steak and 1 chicken entree. Service was very slow. Steak was ordered medium rare and it came extra well done. Fried chicken was ordered done and it came rare with blood on the inside. Second steak came medium rare but was solid gristle. The chicken that was sent back came hot as fire on the inside with hard crusty edges. Wonder how that got reheated? They were offered a free dessert to share. No price change on the bill $90.00. They left the food and went down to Hollister to Little Hacinda had a great second supper. Couple number 2 celebrating 14 yrs. Both ordered the fillet and Caesar salad with a bottle of very expensive Cabernet to go with the steaks. They were enjoying the view and just visiting. They received water and not 7 or a 8 minutes later there entree arrived. No salad no wine. The waiter apologized and said he would be right back. 10 minutes later he showed up with 2 house salads not Caesar and no wine. They again asked for the wine and he said he would be right back. They then ate their cooling steaks which they said were good but more Longhorn steak house quality than 4 star restaurant quality. They were cooked perfect. They were never checked on again until the waiter came back and asked if they would like dessert. No water refills and no wine. They at that time asked for the bill and of course on the bill was the bottle of wine and the Caesar salad. From what I understand it went ballistic at that point. According to our friend that owns the VRBO she has had worse luck than we have. I'd say we are 60% fine with them and 40% really bad. We simply cannot be 40% bad especially on that type of deal any longer.

Word from the tournaments yesterday: 24 pounds to win Joe Bass, that was an A-rig derby. 19 for OMTT which was NO A-rigs. Lots of the field in OMTT caught them on under spins, small swim baits and some I'm hearing on stick baits. Most all fish were caught in staging locations is the word on the street. Good Luck

If you don't have a boat or want to wade fish right now, go just below the park and you can fish to the Bass Pro Fish House. You can use most anything and catch fish. Fly rod with a dry and a midge or a Y2K under a float. Spinning rod any small 1/8 to 1/4 oz spoon or powerworm. It really does not matter, there are 1000's of fish in that 200 yrd. stretch.

KY3 news out of Springfield reported on their 10 PM news last night that there will be continued road closures over Table Rock dam in the up coming weeks. Usually 1 day at a time to work on the power house. For what its worth. Spoke to a guy that fished the Landing yesterday and he said it was stupid on the Powerworm. At times 3 fish on at once, really nice stocker rainbows. They were drifting a pink PW about 7' under an indicator.

I kind of alluded the same thing. I told him we were not getting out or even going to tie up, just sit out the lightning. Still was a horses Pa-Tute. Quite a few years ago up at Shell Knob I stopped at the old Bass Haven Resort to clean a dozen crappie. This dock is at the bottom of a huge bluff going into the Kings River. A voice from above asked me what I was doing and I said, " I just stopped to clean a couple of fish in your sink if that's Ok?." Never answered me back and never heard another word so I have no idea who or what said it. I'm still a bit spooked as there was no camera we could find and no speaker. My client thought if was divine intervention. Kind of like Wrench said for the first 26 years of my life I probably walked a huge percentage at the time of docks on Lake of the Ozarks in the Winter crapppie fishing. Never had anyone squack nary a peep about it. I will tell you there were not near the amount of full time residents living there in the 60's 70's and early 80's. Most times then there were no boats in the docks either, as there were very few lifts. Most everyone stored their boats in dry storage or took them home.

I've probably posted this but a few years ago on Taney a really fast moving lightning storm blew up and I pulled into a dock. It was raining cats and dogs and the lightning was terrible. The dock owner rushed down with a shotgun in his hands and a huge dog foaming at the mouth and demanded I take my two female clients back out into the rain and lighting. I told him to just go ahead and shoot me and feed me to the dog cause we were not leaving till it stopped lightning. Dock was totally empty with nothing but a stall and a roof. He yelled profanities at us and went running back up his ramp saying he was calling the police and we would be arrested. We sat there a good 30 minutes and he nor the police never made a second appearance. On another note. at our dock at Shell Knob my brother in law had his tarp cut with a fillet knife to remove a lure. It was easy to see where the trebles got caught in a top seam of the tarp and the guy used a knife to cut it out of his tarp. Why?

Water is super murky in front of the lodge. I can see it is reaching down to the dam.

45 degree here this morning at 8:45 and it looks like a race track out there. Wish I could go but tied up with Lodge work, Got to stay away from Becky as she has that Spring Cleaning look in her eye. Weather is saying for Blue Eye that it is gong to start raining late this evening and not stop till Sunday. I sure hope not. We are totally saturated down here.

Exactly

I have broken 3 Sea Star hydrolic lines trying to fish below 32 degrees and I'm not gong to pop another.

You know it had to be tough with your line freezing just about every cast. Couple of buddies went down to Grand week before last to pre-fish for a Nicholes tournament. They fished the entire day in cold muddy water and did not get a bite. They have won $1000.00 of dollars there in the past this time of the year, and it was just terrible. Tournament was cancelled. I told McClelland they went down and before I told him how they did, he said it would not surprise him if they never had a bite. Dude knows Grand Lake.

0630 with an air temp of 12 degree, a bass boat came out of Big Cedar Hollow headed toward the dam. So cold a heavy steam was coming and is still coming off the lake. You have to be pretty mad at them to get out in 12 degree weather. Right now we are up to a balmy 26 so it is getting a little tiny bit better.

I was thinking maybe they were going to have a crane up on the dam lifting something from the exterior of the power house. But, that for sure might not dictate how long it would take to fix or install anything after they reopen the road over the dam. Longer the merrier.

Last week there was a Mo-Dot sign on the dam that said the hwy across the dam would be shut down 3-11-19 for the day. Don't know if they changed that or not, but I think I mentioned it to Phil and it said one day. One day usually means multiple but since they are shutting down the Hwy, I bet they think they can fix it fast.

Absolutely.