Bill Babler

When Becky and I were dating in college we were fishing off the KK dock below Branson. We were using crawlers on a tight line and she hooked a huge fish. Lots of instruction and laughing during the battle. We kept seeing gold flashes I think we were using a yellow Eagle Claw rod with a Mitchel Reel and 4 pound line. That limber rod was bent double and the old reel would grudgingly in short bursts give up line. We just knew from seeing those brown/golden flashes it was a record Brown. Of course it was Mr. Bugle Mouth and that was really funny. We got it in and let it loose. Not 5 minutes later she had another one she could not turn. Finally got it to the dock and it was a huge rainbow, I'm guessing 10 lb. range. Of course that one got off at the dock. Both fish still make me giggle.

JD, we have done the same thing as you since the beginning. When we went in 42 yrs. ago to our pre-martial classes the minister told us to always maintain separate bank accounts as it not only held monetary disputes and misunderstandings down but gave each party a since of worth and accomplishment. To this date we have never shared a bank or savings account and have never had any kind of a spat about money. Of course we are on each others accounts but that is it. I have absolutely no idea how much the gal has, and could care less what she spends it on. On the other hand she knows what I have as I have to give her a financial statement quarterly. Just kidding, on the financial statement its once a month. Minister also said there are only 2 things you should ever buy on time and that was a home and a car. We have never deviated from that either, until the cell phones came in and they want to include the price of the phone in the monthly bill to keep you from buying unlocked phones that you can change companies with. At this point in our lives, thank the Lord we don't have to worry about the car payments, and I have been extremely fortunate with my guide boats as the team deals when I first started thru today have given me the ability to write a check for them. In 1991 Smithville Marine furnished me my first guide boat. It was a 1992 Stratos with i believe a 235 Evinrude. I might be wrong on the HP but I think it was a 235. Their regional sales rep was Gary Clouse. "That name seems to ring a very big bell." My job was to put as many butts in the boat as possible and work 3 shows a year for Stratos, that was it. I could use the boat and would turn it on August 1st of the next year when the new models came out. I just had to pay to have any glass work or detailing done when I turned it in. ie was never charged a dime. How friggin sweet was that? I'll tell you now there are NO deals like that out there today, NONE. That was back in the day that every 5th. Ranger off the line was a freebie. This went on for about 8 yrs. and in 2000 Stratos went to a cost program for not only their guides and team guys but also the pro-staff. We could buy the boats two ways, one was a floor plan that we ran it for one year and then purchased the boat at dealer cost and the other was we bought it outright for 17% to 20% under what the dealer had to pay for it, or manufacture cost. You could also get them for even less if you had trolling motor, main engine, and electronic deals. There were a ton of REALLY CHEAP engine deals as all the Pro's were getting free engines instead of cash to represent the companies. Not any more as that put engines on the market that the dealers had to compete with. Both Buster and I bought Johnson engines thru Guido Hibdon out of Smithville Marine that were about a 1/4 of manufacture cost. Joanne always had engines from Denny and Guido I absolutely could not have started my guiding career at a better time. i was totally blessed and Gary Clouse and Joanne at SVM were pretty much the reasons. But, I regress. My sister was a big Christmas spender and she used to tell me she worked most of the year just to buy gifts and vacations. Her husband had a magnificent job to run the household budget and her job was just money they used as play money. Regardless of our individual financial situations, I thought $4,200,00 was a pretty steep one stop at Target. Merry Christmas All

Just finished up outside of buying my wife an oil change for her car which is her big present. Lady at Target in the line in front of me spent $4,200.00 and change and told the cashier that several more days of this and she would have it all done. She had twenty, $100.00 gift cards in her poke. Cashier asked her if she was buying for business or corporate giving and she said no just friends and family. I always get a kick out of the car commercials as you see a Lexus or a Caddy with a bow on it and one spouse giving it to the other. Of course they are usually in their late 20's and coming out of a million dollar house. What say you?

Bobby, Chris Tetrick and I fished yesterday and the fish in the guts we had been catching prior to the rain event were no where to be found. Fished 5 guts with zero results that had been holding both fish and shad. There were some shad, but a pittence of what it had been last week. Only saw a few marks and they were scattered. Chris did catch a giant blue gill on one of the marks at 50' on a white spoon. Got a little breeze and pulled up on a 45 degree bank in one of those creeks and within 30 minutes caught 5 on a jerk bait and 1 on a Ned. Chris had told me the day before yesterday they were right on the bank on a jerk bait up the James. He and his dad had caught 30 or so in a morning of fishing, with most fish being in the under 10' range. We pulled onto the main lake as the wind slacked and started looking out there and we did find some of our better fish of the day. There were city blocks of shad on some of these locations with the shad being tight to the bottom. This was up in the morning around 11 and it was bright and slick. They were really deep on the main lake for us from 80' to as shallow as 65'. The balls of shad were extremely tight and at times were 15 ft. thick. We could see no visible marks either above or below the schools and at times we could make out marks in the schools. These are the fish we caught. It was impossible to tell where the bass would be in the shad ball, at times right in the middle. and we popped about a dozen out of the middle of these shad balls. Nothing big but several nice keepers. By far the Ice jig was the best bait in the shad balls. Seemed to us that the creek fish went to the bank a bit and if you can get any type of wind in there they are all over that jerk bait. There are for sure bass now at just about any depth level a guy wants to fish, finding them and finding the right condition to catch them is the trick Good Luck

I have taken braid completely off of everything except frog-fluke and top water fishing. Braid really floats and makes the top water stay on top and works well. If you are a hook setter its not good as it also has no stretch and if you snap at it on the strike your going to miss a lot of top water fish. The mono is way more forgiving. Just to many problems with snags and for sure knots in the reels both spinning and bait casting. For folks that don't fish it much it can be a disaster on over runs and once it does good luck in digging it out. I just have a really hard time with clients using it and they have just about zero problems with either mono or carbon. If you have to join braid to either mono or carbon it is just another knot you have to deal with. I hate to hear it going thru the guides. If you are joining it a triple surgeon knot will hold and never come loose or break. Really have no problems with knots and braid as there are multiple that work well either attaching to a bait or joining lines of similar or different sizes. I have absolutely no problem with mono on spinning reels, none at all either lite trout to 2 lbs. with 1500 series reels or heavy up to 10lb on 3500 series reels. I mostly use maxima 5 to 8 pounds however BP excel is really good in the 4 and 6 pound line class. Much bigger excel or BP carbon and it goes to heck fast. As far as A-rig fishing I have also taken braid completely out of the equation. Tired of the braid sucking down in to the spool and looping on the casts. I'm fishing 25lb.Invizx on the rig and it is totally a God send compared to braid. I'm using a Falcon MMC-7-176 or a CCM-8-175XH with a Lew's Super Duty for the A-Rig. Entire wt. of this outfit is under 10 oz. You can throw it all day. If your fishing a flash mob Jr. use 1/8 oz. heads and that bait is going to weight under 2 oz. making the entire outfit about 10 to 12 oz. Way easier to throw and retrieve than a DD22. My spinning reels are either 1500 series Daiwa Certate or Tatula for lite stuff or Shimano 2500/3000 Stradic or Stella for the heaver stuff. Folks that have never fished a spinning reel with 5 minutes of coaching will never get a loop with these reels with the above mentioned mono. Good Luck

We have some guest that just got here that said they had 6 inches at Omaha Ark the last 3 days. Also have a set that came in from Harrison Ark. last nite and they had 4 inches there. We are kind of rain gauge junkies and have two one in the front drive and one on the deck. Both of them had 5.5 so I think that is pretty accurate.

Since Thursday starting at about Noon, to this minute we have had 5,5 inches of rain here at the Lodge. Not all has been warm as it was 39 and raining at 0500 this morning. Be interesting to see if it clouds and raises the temps in the creeks and moves the deep fish. Lake level has not changed much at this point. Several years ago when we got all those December rains, the deep fish deal was just getting started really good like it is now, and in a matter of a day or two they were totally gone with the temps raising into the middle 50's and the water becoming a lovely chocolate brown. That was the end of it. Going to be out all this coming week, weather permitting and it will be interesting to see if there is movement and where they go. Just have a feeling that A-rig bite will start in earnest and not stop. Already hearing reports from the couple of nice days we had last week that there were some Biggens caught on it out of Cedars Good Luck

Fantastic crappie. I was out on the Rock early this morning and in the Dam area of Table Rock the surface temp is 51 degree. At Campbell Pt. it was 50 when I pulled off yesterday and Quill up the White had 48. Reason for my post other than to say you did good was 41 degree on Beaver is really cool. Most usually those lakes will be a little closer at times with Beaver warmer by a degree or two. Again, great job on the slabs.

Quite a few of the deep fish I caught at the Knob were full to gills with crawdads and very small shad, dime size.

Nice report and beautiful photography. I know that location.

Stock, that is one bait I leave alone. That little center treble is sharp as a death trap.

Quick addition from reading Bobby's post on the bite. Usually you can see fish at times when fishing deep follow or chase the spoon up or down. This did not happen yesterday, you pretty much had to fish the bait extremely still. I tried and tried jerking the spoon or quivering it, to get them worming, but the only worming was when you had one hooked and the others would follow it almost to the surface. They wanted the bait extremely still. The bite was more of a whisper than a thump and at times even on a tight line with the bait suspended it would seem as it was resting on the bottom, and that was the bite. I could see the fish move in line with the bait and then the line was just a bit slack and that was the bite. Also like Bob said, I lost several fish on the journey to the boat, they just came unbuttoned, mostly on the jig/grub combo. They don't come off that Ice Jig, if they get near it. The C-tail grub is an excellent deep fishing tool when the bite is this lite. The C-tail continues to swim when it is in a sitting vertical position and really gets their interest. Good Luck

Bobby, there are as many mallards as I have ever seen on the lake from SK bridge to Big Creek. On the flats across form Campbell point they were in there by the hundreds. Don't know if you hunt that area and have never seen anyone duck hunting there but the birds are thick. I am presuming they are flight birds, traveling thru, but they flew all day up there with those blue skies. They were magnificent with the sun hitting those green heads.

Man, what a beautiful morning and just no one to be seen. It had been since Thanksgiving that I had been on the Rock and wanted to see what was happening at the Knob. Launched at 0700 to Ice Fog and 28 degree air temps. Its been quite a while for me since seeing the SK Bridge parking lot empty but I liked it. Sun was just coming up as I pulled under the bridge headed down stream. I fished 5 locations and caught at least one on all 5 but for the life of me I could not find any decent fish what so ever. Had close to 40 bass with perhaps a dozen to 15 keeps and they all were young. Had the slam but again the quality was just not there for me this morning. Most everything I caught deep was either on the Ice Jig or the C-tail on a 3/8th. head fishing up and down. Could not keep the camera lens from fogging so most pics are a blur. Surface temps were at 49 when I started and just over 50 by 2 PM. You can see several fish up and scattered all over the water column. I caught 2 busting shad on the surface and saw several what looked to be nice brown fish coming out of the water chasing them. I did catch 2 on an A-rig when the wind started to blow. Had several blow up around me while fishing deep, they seemed to be scattered thru the water column from 20' to 70', and that 20 was over deep water. Ice Minnow was by far the beat deal but for cripes sakes when fishing or messing with it be CAREFUL..... That bait not only wants to catch fish but it wants more to catch you. It is as deadly a bait at hooking the fishermen as I have ever fished and is needle sharp. L This post has been promoted to an article

Those are fantastic deep fish, thanks for the report. Going to get a bit nicer next week so out I'll go, hoping to do something similar.

I think there is a saturation point, if were not at it we are getting close to it. From our deck we can see a fantastic amount of Table Rock. We can see from Old 86 to Long Creek Bridge and all of Clevenger Branch and Emerald and Paradise Point along with Big Cedar Hollow and Persimmon Hollow. and part of Jakes Creek. Not uncommon to see between 15 and 30 boats actively fishing, not running but fishing. It's a rotation from location to location on a continuing basis. Of course people are fishing the shore, but in the last 10 yrs. they are also fishing the offshore ridges, humps and channel swings that hold concentrations of fish year round and had previously been untouched. This is pretty much knowledge and technology have exceeded the natural reproduction and life cycle of the fish. Have the fish adapted to more being in deep water and off shore or are we just exploiting a resource that was for the most part untapped? Maybe a little of both, but evolution and I know some folks don't like the word, cannot at this juncture keep pace with the technology Climate change and slow subtle environmental changes can be adapted to by nature, but we have seen in the past 20 yrs. a revolution in mind numbing electronic innovation that has really changed the course of evolution as far as our fisheries are concerned. It is time for the forces that be to be pro-active instead of re-active. This lake has a fantastic forage base and can hold an nurture a larger predator population. For that population to grow and sustain with out added recruitment "ie stocking" it needs to have the ability without constant pressure and handling to be allowed to do so

April, 2001 caught and released Viney Creek Table Rock Lake Replica, Wild Life Creations. Buster and I have spoken about this many times. We both believe it is mostly due to extreme fishing pressure. Fish on TR or even some extent on Bull are fished 24-7, 365 days a year. Smallmouth have an extremely aggresive nature especially when shallow and are subject to repeatedly getting caught. Even with catch and release these fish are in peril of swallowing hooks and being continually handled. MDC is saying now that a smallmouth in TR will be 6 yrs. old to be 15". In that first 5 yrs. the fish will see hundreds of presentations and just the likely hood of staying alive to get to 5 plus pounds at perhaps 10 plus years is just astronomical. May 2011 5# 3 oz. Table Rock Lake Cow Creek Area caught and released This past Summer I went up to Northern Wisconsin and was going to fish Chequamegan Bay for SM. It is a 42,000 acre bay on Lake Superior, it is totally catch and release for SM. Unfortunately it rained the day I was going to fish but I had a great visit with my guide. He says there are literally packs of 5 pound SM on the flats in the Spring. Fishing starts mid-May and ends in October. He told me most days even on weekends he will see no one fishing for SM. Most everyone fishes salmon and walleye. May 2011, 5# 3oz Table Rock Lake caught and released Combs Ferry area You have a bay the size of TR that is 18' deep that is catch and release and you have maybe he thought a 1000 people a year fish it for SM and that is how you grown them big. He said they live and can be caught in the entire bay as it is full of grass and structure clumps. There are more fish off shore than on and most never see a lure in their lifetime. Smallmouth here really occupy in numbers a much smaller area of the lake. Yes they are lake wide, but the major concentrations are from Point 9 on the White to Long Creek. This of course is the most fished area of the lake so the continued pressure is just obscene. Saying that my biggest jaw a 6.1 pound was caught and released near at Big M. 2001. As we are starting to see the professional fishing tournaments change to a completely catch and release small impact format, we are going to need the conservation departments to take a similar stance as far as limits and fishing pressure on these bodies of water. Perhaps a season, lower the limits and regulating tournament size and the number of tournaments on any body of water per year. May 2011, 5# Table Rock Lake caught and released Combs Ferry area What was once thought to be of huge economic impact to resort communities is not so much anymore. The preservation of the fishery is much more important and its time MDC moved in that direction. Our no stock catch and kill was OK in the 60's and 70's and early 80's but this is a different time. Knowledge, pressure, and equipment have changed the game. Yes the fish still have to bite, but finding them has become much simpler and catching them has followed suit. Bo and I are catching the same fish during the year that we were 20 plus years ago. How many of you are now catching those fish? I'm gong to say a bunch if you have been reading. Fish that were never available to you are now just a sonar shot away. Education and equipment have given everyone the chance to catch those fish that but a very few were catching. Now everyone has a screen shot of schools of deep fish that once were pretty much unmolested from November to March. Indeed times have changed and yes we can keep up with them but the same old same old needs to not only change but move into a more forward thinking wise use of mentality. Good Luck

Bo, that is the only fish I saw in the pic's also. Son and I went out for 3 hrs. TG morning and had 18, all keeps, dragging the big jig deep. He was the photographer and from what you see you know how he did. Only took 2 pictures and no screen shots but he messed that up, Tons of shad in Long Creek but the bass are not relating to them. Mostly on the bottom Thursday and quite a bit deeper in the 54 ft. range. We caught some on a Ice jig and spoon also, but they are really liking the same big Pig Sticker jig with the Big Nicholes Craw I was fishing this Fall.

Thanks Bo, excellent info and great picture.

Quill on Saturday and we had a great day, really way more than I expected, but the bite got really strange for us around 10 o'clock. The bite was really solid from about 6:30 to 9:30, they were just taking the rod out of your hands. Up later in the morning they would pick it up and put it right down. I mean you would feel a tug or a bang on the spoon and they were not there. Still tons of fish on the locations, and we only fished 2 spots in 5 hrs. but they got fussy. I'm sure they got a dose of us with all those repeated presentations.

Bo, post us a screen shot of the timber and the shad that you are seeing. It would really help most of us in learning the type of deep structure you are fishing. Would love to see how the fish are relating to the shad and how the fish and shad are relating to the timber. Most all the guides are catching them like the above shots without any shad or structure other than channel swings and rolloffs. Really appreciate your knowledge on deep structure. Thanks Bill

Congrats, great day on the water. Lots of nice Blackies. One of the local guides out of KC sent me a screen shot from a couple of days ago. He had 40 on this location with 30 keepers Talk about worming up for the spoon. You Bet Ya.

Took Jeff this morning out of the Lodge. Deep bite in the dam area outside of Beardsley is fantastic and as you know I have not purchased my Winter pass to go in there yet. We had 49 fish with 30+ keeps this morning. They were not bunched up as much to really hammer them with a spoon but the C-rig is just working out of this World. 1 oz. wt. size 2/0 hook and a Zoom watermelon candy centipede or a pbj centipede are just getting hammered. Probably the best rig bite I've seen in the last 10 yrs. We had 3 doubles on this graph location. I was throwing the big jig and Jeff the rig. He caught 5 keeps here and I had 2 nice ones and a 14.7/8. Surface temp was 56.7. Got some nice pic's of Jeff with real quality K's and a nice jaw. Had zero LM today. When he gets back to the Lodge I'll post his pictures if I get a moment and can get them off his phone. Depth was about 10' deeper today. Nothing under 35' and lots of them in the 45' to 55' range. Not nearly so many shad today and when we did find them there were no fish on them. One point we fished was covered on the South side with millions of shad. The North side of the ridge was covered with Bass. Go figure. On most lakes you tell someone you are catching bass 50' deep on a C-rig and a jig they would clear their throat and think you were bonkers. Not on this pond, catch them where their swimming. Good Luck and Look Deep

Was on the water this morning at the Dam after about 3 weeks in the deer woods. Bite was just stupid, 26' to 40' on the bottom and suspended over that 40' number. So many it would have been hard to try and count. Just fish after fish.. Did have 2 really nice SM I didn't photog. if a fish came off, no worries as another one would grab the bait, regardless what you were throwing. Was reeling one in on a C-rig and it came off and another one hammered it right at the boat as I was pulling it up to re-cast. Had several come off the spoon and another would hit it before it got to the bottom. You could bring them right to the surface if you caught one they would worm like crazy. From KC to Cricket Creek right now on the gravel rolloffs. You can really catch them on a C-rig, a 3/4 jig, a jigging spoon or a drop shot with a shad shape worm. Not hard at all. surface temps ranged from 55 to 59 degree. Water especially up Long Creek is stained. I was mining for an upcoming guide trip and fished 8 locations this morning and caught them the same on all 8 stops. Lots of LM mixed in with the K's and also a few nice jaws. Good Luck