Bill Babler

That is one super fish, Congrats. Seems like they are where they are and stinky on the other locations. That's the deal on early season fish, you find the hangout and it usually has a small pack and you can go and come back and tease up another or two. Nice day and excellent report.

Dave, lots of folks feel that way. Kind of astounds them when I pull up in a cove mouth in 190 ft. of water and tell them to grab their topwater junk. Table Rock fish for the most part are happy weather they are in 1' or 90 feet, makes no difference to them, depending on season and conditions. After the middle of June fish suspend all over this pond the drop shot and the flutter spoon are your friend. Most all the guides simply ask each other, " How deep are they-- over what?" Usually hanging around the thermocline and not just where it hits the bottom, but anyplace. Lots of times people are so close to the fish its just scary. they will set the boat exactly where the runout or the rolloff dumps into the channel and throw up on top. This is very good and I do it all the time this will more than do the job. BUT, and this is a Big Butt. When there is a thermocline and even this time of the year, they may be just suspended 50 yrds further out. Same depth as where the bank drops into the channel, but just are setting in nothingness. Oh and by the way, they will bite out there. Shad are all over the lake and crayfish don't have a depth limit, especially in Table Rock. Driving down the lake here in May and seeing acres of fish blowing shad in 150 ft. of water will pretty much teach you that they don't care how deep it is. Good Luck

No, and that is a very good question. A lot of time these areas are like escalators or stairs as they climb from the deep channel onto flats or cove mouths. You can see it a lot where bluffs give way to heavy rock and then flats. Same thing happens off shore. Up the White there are some very good examples. One of them is the point across from Roaring river. Sometimes it has a bouy on it and other times not. Long portions of it are just flat edges that gentle taper into the channel and there are other sections especially on the up hill side that there is a very sever drop that transitions into the more flat gentle roll off. Above the bridge all the way to Beaver town there are mid lake transitions like this. If you go up in the Winter you will see the walleye guys fishing these locations and also fishing the middle of the channel. Lots of interesting stuff out there in the briny deep, especially from Holiday Island to the one lane bridge. There are other places like this at Baxter. Think about the long runnout off the Swim beach on both sides. They transition from very steep and pointed to flat. Same deal. Think about all the places like this that you know. Some have pole timber and some don't. Fish are not always there, or will not bite sometimes there, but it can be a simply magical spot when they are there. For the next 12 weeks its the very best. Oh my gosh, so many places to look and so little time.

Plus 1

Those are nice fish. What area did you all fish Sunday? Did not know you were out or would have yelled at ya. Did you guys have any stick bait fish and were you eating oranges? I pulled on 3 different spots yesterday that had fresh orange peels floating in the water. Either someone was trying to make orange juice or they were leaving a crumb trail to follow back to the ramp.

They don't always bite. Greg Wood fished deep structure transition yesterday and had a very nice bag in the dam area. His day went quite a bit like mine in the fact that his fish came off of a single location. His were A-Rig fish, but regardless. I will swim a grub or throw a jerkbait in this type of location. They do like that Rig. Between us fishing totally different ends of the lake on similar type structure we probably fished 30 locations and only caught them off a couple. It can get really discouraging fishing off shore if you don't have confidence in it. You always feel like you can run up and fish a point or a piece of bank and get a bite or two. You are back in your comfort zone. It is really hard to get out of that comfort zone. You take a day like yesterday when I hit that many locations and caught every fish on one spot and it makes you think.

I fished 16 locations that I have not only caught walleye on this time of the year, but also they are great early season locations for LM and at times I will catch a K or two off them. Every location had breeze on it and I fished each to the best of my limited knowledge. I did get a late start and there was not a cloud in the sky, but I'm not pinning all my woes on that. As I told Ham on a PM this morning, I caught 7 fish out of a spot no bigger than my Bass Boat. Why were they only there? Why were they feeding hard there? Had to be something going on. There were shad on the surface most everywhere I went, they seem to be really active now, no more there than any of my other stops. It was also one of the coldest water temps of any place I went. By the way, I really don't remember ever seeing such a huge difference in surface temps. It was 50.1 at the ER Ramp, It was almost 54.5 across from Devils Dive Resort and by the way the Ice Box is gone. It was 47 at Roaring River and 46.5 up by Rock Creek. This is all main lake transition fishing and all the temps are main lake. From 46 to 54. I can see the difference if I would have been fishing pockets, but these are just main channel temps. Had another good laugh as when I came back down stream and passed the swim area and ramp at ER. I'm going to say about 2 PM there were 3 ladies with their pants rolled up wading in the water. They had 2 kids in swim suits setting in the water in front of them just splashing, laughing and having a great time. The ladies waved as I passed. 50 degree water is hypothermic, and these cats were having a big day in it. To each his or her own.

I'm not superstitious, I want my bait back.

Currently you have to wonder about the availability of trout to stock. I don't know what they have in reserve after stocking so many early and with the death that occurred. Be nice to know what type of schedule and numbers they will be on this Spring. I have just gotten to the point, that I am really very hard to deal with on folks keeping trout. I don't need a sworn and notarized contract, but I pretty much tell folks that you need to consume them that evening if your staying at Lilleys'. I am also not a believer in catching fish for others to eat. You keep what you will consume when they are fresh, and call it good. We had a party of 6 clients yesterday that their main reason for coming was not only the camaraderie by a fantastic fresh grilled trout dinner at the resort. No problem at all with that. Just don't want the housekeeping gals at Lilleys', throwing them out of the freezer when people decide that they did not really want them.

Bo, soon as I catch 1/2 as many as you have I might start thinking I have somewhat of a clue. Appreciate the kind words. After you all read my walleye blog today you won't think so much of me.

That trout had its travelin shoes on. It is a whole long ways from anywhere that it might have been stocked. Either up Roaring or up the White at Beaver. You were correct in releasing it, as a stamp would have been required to have kept it. On another note did you all catch an walleye or crappie?

Becky gave me a reprieve at 11:00 this morning and I loaded the boat with 2 and only two rods and headed for Eagle Rock. As you can tell by the title of the blog, this is not going to be pretty. Quite a few rigs at the ramp, but really did not see many people on the water and was able to fish where ever I wanted. I did not chose wisely. Day kind of started on the rough side. Dumped the tub in and immediately sat down to tie on a new McStick in Old Glory. I really like this color early up the river for walleye. I'm not the expert or have half the knowledge that RPS or any of the Holliday Island walleye crew have, but this time of the year I can usually get one or two tricked on a suspending stickbait. Shucked the bait from the box and removed the center hook. I wanted a little more weight and I have weighted hooks at the ready. Installed the Death Trap, and bit the tag end of the 8 pound maxi off and tossed the bait over the side to stand up and get at it. You can pretty much guess what happened here. Of course I bit the main line off and the 9 dollar bait plus my weighted hook slowing at first then with more speed than a flying locomotive headed for the bottom. Tomorrow at the ramp, I'm just going to wad up a 10 dollar bill and throw it in. Should take care of things. Not to be discouraged I quickly tied on a Megabass 110 plus in custom painted Tim Hughes colors and made sure my chompers bit the correct line. I did not however throw it overboard. Pulled onto the first location at 11:47 and started the flinging process. 3 hours and 9 locations later I was still wondering when my first bite was going to come. I used to know how to fish a jerkbait, might have forgotten. About this time I saw a very nice and very short piece of transition bank that had some surf pounding on it. This location is about a 3 cast spot, but you do what you have to do. Flung the megabass for the 100th. time and jerked it down. Paused 20 seconds and touched it. Thump! Could it really be a bite? My gosh it is and it is a very nice 16.5 inch White River K. I'm more than happy. What a beautiful fish, not a walleye, but I like her. I'm going to try this again. Whir goes the Lews Tournament Pro. and splash goes the megabass. Jerk, jerk, pause. Thump again. It is a twin to the first. Deep green and white with a huge belly full of eggs. She is a beaut and I'm giddy. I'm thinking now, OH Ya, I'm the man. I slung that puppy back out there and had a drive by on this cast. I knew I missed one, but it never touched the bait, I just lost contact and my line slacked about 2 inches. I think they move the bait in the water when they miss like that, and yes I can feel that. I would not believe it either if I were you. True but scary. Fourth cast, bump, bump, twitch, twitch. Thump, another K, just like the last two. Everyone has been identical 16.5 inch and a solid 2.5 pounds. I did not do a Mike Ike deal, but at this point, I'm pretty proud of myself. You can tell here that it does not take much to make me happy. 10 more cast and nada. I moved on. Did not go far and fished 3 other locations, and had to go back. First throw on my little slice of heaven and low and behold, I felt that wonderful tick. Of course it is another K just like the first 3. I'm starting to think at this point that I'm catching the same fish over and over, but that is not happening. Next throw and bang again the same deal. That is a solid limit of K's that would get you a very hardy handshake for your donation in any derby. Few more cast and nothing. I move on again and go down to Rock Creek. Fish a 1/2 dozen more locations with no bites and decide to head in. Of course as I'm passing my windy Honey Hole I have to stop a 3rd. time. First cast and thump again. It did not fight the same, but it was a fish. Low and behold a very nice crappie on the jerkbait. Well, I like crappie almost as much as walleye so I'm just going to try that again. Same time same station and another bite. This time its a 14 inch walleye. I'm pretty much a walleye catching machine. Ooops that was it. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself and enjoy what the providers gives you. I would not change today for all the walleye in Table Rock lake, I had a ball.

Guided Taney 3 days this week and just had a ball. Spent two days in the restricted zone and yesterday amidst the armada in the catch and keep area above Lilleys' Thursday and Friday my clients were mostly newbies and we dragged a variety of patterns on a drift rig in the upper restricted zone. I kind of divided it into sections for the best results. Big Hole thru Clay Banks were locations we had a shad fly on and from the bottom of the Clay Banks run thru lookout Island we ran a combination of egg patterns, san juan worms and scud patterns. Lookout Island is just alive with fish. I believe from talking to Phil for those of you that are wade fishermen, that might be a pretty good location to beach the boat and give it a whirl. If you are dragging on two units thru the lower restricted zone, man has that changed. It has just filled with bottom obstructions. Go as lite as you can on weight. I was using 1/16 for the best results. You will learn pretty quick where to and not to drag. Yesterday we had folks looking for a trout dinner, so we fished from Fall Creek down. Lots and lots of fish. I have never caught them this well in a crowd, never. I had 3 guys and we used Night Crawlers to catch 60+ fish in a 4 hr. trip. Rick Lisek did the same, catching over 40 in 4 hours. Wish I would have taken a picture, but from Trout Hollow looking up river I had 47 boats in site from TH to just above Short Creek. Now that is some competition. It did not matter, they were snapping. With this many folks I really was worried about the catching. I have seen these fish bite well the first pass but when the boats come they can completely turn off. I had my guys keep their limits to quick. They went into catch and release mode on the first drift. We however caught our best fish after 10 AM. Our last pass we caught our best 15 fish of the day. Rick said the same thing. We should have been more patient putting them on ice. Just before 11 I got a call from Guide Tony Wedele, he was fishing the lower restricted zone and he said it was simply stupid. Said they would bite anything he threw at them. I told him we had keepers in the livewell and I could not come up there. Rick had a second trip of catch and release, so he went up and fished from Andy's down. He called and said Dude, it was completely crazy. His party caught and released over 70 fish in 4 hrs. on a pink San Juan bead head, under a strike indicator. This simply cannot go on forever like this. Probably one of the best prolonged stretches we have had here in quite sometime. Come on down and get ya some. Good Luck

Very nice report. Thank you guys.

Did I hear someone say Float-n-fly?

You can fish above the 86 bridge to the Arkansas line. You don't need a full lic if you fish on either Bull Shoals or Table Rock you can get a Border permit for 10 bucks. If you catch trout up the White you will also have to have a Ark. Trout tag.

Boys, has that water cleared up any or is it still on the full color side? I have not had a chance to get to Baxter. I might run up to Eagle Rock this afternoon if the boss will let me escape for a little while. Kind of like to see if I could trick one of those White River Jack Salmon.

Jeff, I believe Taney was as busy as I have seen it in years. It was almost to the point that you could not move from location to location. Kind of funny however as the fish were just tearing it up. I was guiding a party with and for Rick Lisek I had 3 clients and so did Rick. We had a combination of rainbows and browns to the boat catching a total of 63 fish. Rick had 44 to his boat. We were fishing the open regulation area as our clients wanted to keep trout. A fellow guide was in the restricted zone and said it was just silly up there. Rick guided the catch and release zone in the afternoon on his second trip and caught and released 73 trout. To say they were biting might be a bit anticlimactic. Just unreal fishing over there right now. I know this is the TR forum, but if you ever wanted to just go catch them one after the other and have a great time on lite line, get over to Phil's right now.

That is the second good report we have had in that area in the past week. It had been just dreadful in that stretch. Glad they are getting it going.

I also wanted to point out, that I'm not picking or fussing at anyone for the way they chose to fish, not at all. I just wanted to point out that we are so lucky here to have fish in a wide range of locations, especially this time of the year. Someone mentioned seasonal patterns and that really set the hook, these fish are creatures of that to a huge extent. I have folks fish with me in Spring and say, " well you showed me where to catch them I'm going to have a great year." Sometimes I'll see these folks 2 months later fishing the same locations and they will tell me they just don't do as well on their own. Main reason, is the fish are not there. As James pointed out, most often if you can get around them you can figure it out. Trouble is getting around them, especially Table Rock fish that are constantly on the move. We are currently setting up with this lake level and if it will fall a bit more for a fantastic March and April. Devils Backbone is just one of a thousand deep to shallow transition locations on this lake. As Randy said, it is a huge location and sometimes fish are only in a single spot on it and as M&M pointed out, it will see some activity. What a great plan M&M put together for yesterday. You fish like that and you will be successful regardless of how many other Stinkweeds are out there. Good Luck and lets see some pic's of Biggins.

Now that is a good plan. Nice pre-lake work. And yes. There are variables. If you can keep Jeff off your junk it really helps? James told it way better than I could. You can tell who has the edumacation. My point is. Set some new boundaries this year and fish with purpose. Find something new. Try something different. Good Luck

Guys, we are starting to hear and really have all Winter heard of a shallow bite. Yes there has been one. We see a few fish being posted caught on a RC or an A-Rig or any of the bottom baits and I really think we are pushing in a little to early and a little to fast. We are on the fringe of staging time. This is grub swimming, stickbait fishing and A-Riggin at its best. Trouble is you need to fish where the fish are, not just set in and start down a bank. I'll put this in print right now, I have not fished down a stretch of bank on TR in the last 20 yrs. I just don't do it and I see folks do it all the time and then they whine when they are not catching them. Even our resident shallow fishermen like Champ and Donna who may fish shallow, do not for the most part just fish down a bank. They are fishing locations, cuts and pockets. He is moving and shaking and trying his best to fish productive water. Most often just fishing a bank or fishing shallow is not it. Why would you pull onto a location, and then just throw down the trolling motor and start cranking and winding? If the bank is 500 yrds why do you assume that they are there and for that matter where are they on that stretch of similar depth and structure? For me. every cast that a client throws and does not catch a fish is time. Time is all you have and it is so fleeting that you need to utilize it for the most production. Every time I catch a fish, I extend the amount of fishing time I make on that location, weather it be changing a bait and fishing differently or just expanding the area I'm fishing. I don't make repeated cast in a location hoping to activate the fish or hope that I get lucky. I'm from Missouri, they need to show me and show me pretty quick. We are getting ready to see some very nice weights come to the scales in the local tournaments, these will not be bank fish. These will be transition fish. These will be fish that are suspended or staging off the spawning banks. Guys, suck it up and move out a bit. How many of you are stopping at locations and making a cast that if you did that 3 consecutive throws end to end you would not hit the bank? Right now, is the very best time to use that high dollar TV that is sitting getting dusty on the bow and console of your boat. Almost every cove mouth and runnout still has pole timber located sometimes a 100 yrds. off shore. This time of the year the fish will move into these location and rise in the water column and start moving or staging toward the spawning pockets. Not so much moving toward the bank, but moving up in the water and cruising. From Eagle Rock to the Dam these locations are everywhere. Look for these big multi finger coves. Anyone that believes one side of the lake is better than the other is off his or her rocker. I have heard fish the East Shore as the West sun warms it faster. Not happen here. You find the right location and it will be on either side of the lake, makes no difference. Don't make it harder than it is. We are all seeing now that the coldest water on the lake is producing the most fish. Clarity and breeze here is more important than temperature. Don't fall in love with thinking you are seeing lots of fish and just not making them bite. You want real heart ache, go down to Bull Shoals and your graph looks like a Christmas Tree 12 months out of the year. You see lots of birds flying and on the water and then see fish on your graph in huge numbers, 99.9 percent of the time you are looking at gizzard shad. Once the bass move off the bottom they disperse for the most part and its very uncommon to see schools. Most often you will see multiple singles moving thru the water column from 10' to 50'. Hopefully in the 15' to 25' range suspended as if you are seeing them and you are out from the banks a couple of casts, that means they are also between you and the bank. THEY DON'T HAVE TO BE ON THE BOTTOM. Someone mentioned Rock Creek in a post today. Those fish are biting. The runnout from the Rock Creek Bluffend goes out within 200 yards of the bluffend on the up lake side. That cut falls off into 90' of water that is the main channel and also the main channel that goes into Rock Creek and the big cove that is just upstream. RPS, don't kill me for this. How many of you all are stopping out there with the boat in 90' and throwing up on the end of that pole timbered bluffend? How many of you are sitting your boat in the channel in over 100' and throwing up on that bluffend from the bouy out to the end of the runnout ? Those are major staging locations, as the fish move from the main lake to the big Rock Creek and its big Spawing coves. Up the White River from Big M, how many of you are fishing the river channel edges? There are miles and miles of timbered channel edges that still hold fences stumps, trees and brush. Again, Sorry RPS. Use your electronics to see and follow the channel. There are ditches and cuts that you can see on your map that are just unreal this time of the year. One of the best is above the bridge at 86. Your boat can be sitting in 55' of water and you are throwing into 25 ft. right on the channel edge. There are fantastic fish up there. Won't always catch them, but you have a chance. Places like this hold late Winter and staging fish, They are not always there and it is for sure a good place to get caught up in the pole timber, but it is also a place to catch a fish of a lifetime. Put your thinking cap on and think outside the box for the next month and catch yourself the biggest fish you have ever caught on the Rock. Good Luck I

Reports are starting to roll in about some pretty nice walleye catches coming between the Arkansas line and Beaver Town. My best source is the fishing guide barber at Eureka Springs. Got both my hairs chopped day before yesterday and he said they were starting. Every one he had heard about came on a flicker shad trolled in that area, Said he knew for sure two different guys caught them, one with a limit and the other with two very nice fish up to 6 pounds.

Super report, your very lucky to be spending time together. Glad you all caught them like that. Gives the rest of us hope. They still got on their muddy cold water suits. I'm really surprised the lake is not clearing faster. Just seems that color is having a very hard time settling out of the water. They are just barley running anything thru and we have had all those cold nights. It has got to start clearing soon. Thanks Again.

Yes sorry, I really did not understand the question. I would just about bet you that Revo sells more during this type of sale than they do all year for the $189.00 Like most everything I'm kind of a quality freak. I have several pair of sunglasses Non-prescription that are in the $150.00 to $300.00 range. Most of these are Orvis, but I do have a Maui Jim. These glasses never go on sale especially for that kind of a price drop. The Revo's seem to be doing this every year, and it makes you wonder. If you look thru a pair of Orvis glasses and then try and look thru the Revo's its really easy to see why one cost more. They are just fine for the $29.00 bucks, but they are far from the quality of $200.00 glass. I'm on the water everyday and out in the Sun, so good glasses are really important to me. Don't think you will go wrong at the $29.00 price, but in reality that is about what they are worth.