Bill Babler

Ya, Smallie I agree with you 100% Really the problem is the weather cast should be above that kind of stuff, but oddly they have just as much sensationalism as the talking heads at the anchor desk and the producers. It has just gotten out of hand. I would not believe anything I either hear or see on any of the Springfield news stations. It is all about rating, and facts don't come into play in the slightest.

I called the corps last night after the 6 PM news and Taney had dropped 7' at that time, so I got a feeling the new Show "Window Cast" may be over. It is really silly that all the Springfield stations keep reporting the lake level at 932, they really have no idea what the Monkey Bread is gong on down here and try as best as they can to show it in the worst light possible.

Why wait, seems the fishing is pretty good right now. Only place I know you can fish in your PJ's. Best one cast ever.

That is the trouble with some of the smaller resorts, is that they do not have enough dock space for 25 boats or they don't have launching facilities. I believe at Shell Knob, either Big Creek or Play Port can handle that many. Hardman's Hollow also has a big dock, but his launch is pretty sketchy. I think that Charles over there usually launches the boats for his visitors and they probably would not work for derby guys.

You can really dress that up with either red or black shrink wrap. You can also get that at Lowe's or Home Depot.

They need to get off their lazy rears at Harper Valley and pad their dock stalls, only scratches I have had the last 3 years have been off that durn dock of theirs. Really nice folks, but that dock is a biter. Schooner is probably nicer and has a much better dock. Ramp is right beside the dock. You are however getting away from the Baxter area with these Kimberling City Resorts, so that is something to think of. If you have been staying at Indian Hills in the Big Indian at Baxter, you will be very sorely disappointed at any of the Kimberling City accommodations. If you have not, you now have the best option. A docking facility that handles in excess of 40 boats with all the electric you need and a launching ramp right by the dock. It is located off H Hwy with access out of Shell Knob. Very good restaurants and grocery. This is a premier resort with all the amenities including a magnificent clubhouse that handles over 100 people and some of the very nicest guestrooms of any on water lake resort, including Big Cedar. Indian Hills Resort 417-858-6243 Schooner Creek Resort 417-739-4417 If you want to go the other way and fish out of Shell Knob, there are a multitude of resorts up there that have excellent on water facilities and cabins overlooking your boats Guys gave you a great example of places headed down stream. Good Luck

Last day I fished was Monday. Couple of tips that may work. Crank bite at Campbell Pt. Daylight to 8 AM. Flat gravel pts. Boat in 15 ft. As soon as any wind. Same type of locations with pole timber or cedars A-Rig. Throw it where you are lucky to get it back. Jerk bait same locations. You don't get hung up 30% of the time your not going to do as well. Nice SM in those shallow gravel trees but you got to have wind and throw it in there tight. Good Luck

The Mag Wart is a lot bigger profile than the Crawler. I have thrown it for hours and hours and it is not a great fish catcher here. IT is however great for salmon, but as far as bass, I'm not a fan. There were some issues with the baits taking on water at the start of the production, but I have not seen this in the baits I have been throwing since June, and I have been throwing it all Summer and now all Fall into Winter. I believe Alex has thrown one probably more than anyone as that guy is a crankin machine. He has just caught some huge fish and huge bags on the RK. For me it works a bit better than the wart. I have tried to throw them side by side and see which is my favorite and it is by far the Crawler It throws so much better, and tracks to perfection every cast without any tuning. Only glitch so far has been breaking a few. It is like everything a guy has to try one and see what he thinks of it. If you decide to try one get either a green or brown phantom and give her a test drive, on a windy day. It is kind of like throwing a megabass and then throwing an old style rogue. We all know what bait throws the best. Good Luck

Couple of the biggest things he said were the casting ability of the bait. It almost flies like a jig. I was throwing it in the wind yesterday and I mean straight against the wind and I don't think that I had to pull line off the reel a single time. It throws like a dart. Mike and I had discussed the depth of the RK and he said thru video evidence that the bait will get to 13' on 10 pound line. I'm saying it for sure is a good 10' and under bait, where the wart when casted will at times sail and will also spin when throwing into the wind and can get you a pretty good boo-boo to unsnarl. It also is probably a 6' to 7' bait. I know a lot of guys that used to fish the wart on as little as 6 pound line early and late in the season to get it down. The RK will get down deeper than the wart, no question. He also mentioned Falcon's CC-4-17 Cranker This is a split grip micro guide 7' casting rod that is a Medium with 12 guides 8 to 12 pound line test and up to 1/2oz. lure weight. This is perhaps my favorite rod. I use it for 3/8th and under spinnerbaits, redfins and other wake baits, square bills and traps along with the crawler and any of the medium depth cranks. It is the only casting rod I use on the wobblehead or the Bifflebug and is also my favorite for the flutter spoon up to 3/4 oz. If I had to pick only one casting rod, this would be it. Thankfully I don't have to.

I think that is the 5th. one I have broken. Most often I know they have not been thrown up on the bank. Yesterday both were new right out of the box. Yes I was hammering them on the bottom and digging them into shallow water ie under 5'. That however is what that bait was built to do. These baits cost $9.95.00 to $11.95 each. They are fish catchers for sure, probably better than the wart as they dive at least 2' deeper. I'm going to have a visit with SPRO and see what they have to say about it. Regardless I'll keep using them as they catch fish. You bust a couple of those puppies and then for good measure throw in a busted A-Rig and a couple of Keitech baits with jig head hooks and you have just burned up a $50.00 bill. Won't take the luster off my day yesterday, but I got to replace that stuff. I will say in all the years of using a wart, I might have broke 1/2 dozen and I can truthfully say everyone that broke was my fault. From throwing them onto the rocks or hitting trees or doing dumb stuff like slapping them on the water to get some moss off the hooks. The RK, breaks different than the wart also. When a wart breaks 99% of the time it is the entire bill where it joins with the body. In the RK, the bills crack in half or a hunk gets knocked out or just a piece of the bill breaks off. I know on some of the initial baits they would also leak and fill with water. That problem was quickly solved so I am going to ask about why the bills are damaging so easily. I think they may be a bit to brittle. I'll get back to Y'all on that one. It is 2:37 here in Blue Eye and my thermo. says 71 degrees with a very nice warm breeze. Just got to be fishin weather when it like that. Tomorrow is scheduled to be between 55 and 60 here, overcast and breezy. You all need to get out there and see how many bills you can break as they are going to be chewing. Good Luck

Table Rock Lake 12-21-15 Mid-Lake Report Fished both Saturday and Sunday, with Sunday being way better for me. I have several trips I can take in the next two weeks if I can get them going deep, but am still struggling. Saturday I did catch a few deep, but not enough to get really interested Did an absolute zero on the shoreline. Fished from Cow to Point 10. As I stated on another thread water is really clearing in that section, with visibility to easy 15'. Surface temps at 57+ Got my dander up by not catching them on Saturday and launched at Shell Knob at 7 AM on Sunday morning. Surface water up there was 54 degree at the start and there is a lot of color still up the White River. Visibility at only about 5' Fished from the bridge to Big Creek. There are quite a few deep fish in Big Creek, and they seem to be pushing to the top. They are really small and not so much worth messing with. I caught several on a Spro Phat fly and Ice Minnow, but got bored with that really quickly. They are not in the creek arms deep up there or in the major cove guts. They were there 3 weeks ago, but the shad went shallow and the fish followed them. I had a really big day for me yesterday, starting with 2 solid keeps on the RK in Phantom Green. I broke the bill on 2 of the durn things and that was a problem, but the 2 I caught were nice. I also had one pull of that was pulling drag so early they were right on the bank. Kept seeing shad flickering along the shoreline so I switched to a A-Rig and it just got silly. Seemed any wood or even the heaver chunk rock points where the wind was hitting held some very quality fish. I had 3 smallmouth all around 4 pounds off wood. I also had several really thumper K's that just hammered the A-Rig. Every bite I had was 10' and under. Not a single LM and for the most part outside of the midgets in Big Creek, all my fish were excellent quality. I have never had a fish break the arm off an A-Rig, and I had it happen twice yesterday. Same Rig so it was my fault. Had a big fish on out of a cedar that ran deep and was also pulling drag and it just went limp. Got the Gang in and it had an arm broken at the head and was gone. Should have tossed it, but I just rotated the opposite arm down and ran it with 2 live baits and two dummies and about 10 throws later it happened again. Fish hit it and was pulling good and then it went slack. got it back in and that arm was gone. Oh Well. Total for the day on equipment was 2 broken RK Crawlers and 1 Broken A-Rig. That would have been a pretty pricy day, but I'm lucky its not what you know but who you know and it did not hurt me quite as bad as it would have hurt some of you. Bite up the White was good on Saturday as Phil Stone reported to me he and several of the folks that fished in a derby out of Viney Creek had good limits. Phil had his on a stickbait in the Campbell Point area when the wind blew. He said most of the tournament guys fished shallow, cranking, A-Rigging and spinnerbaiting. I had told Phil last week that there was a ton of shad on the shoreline around the Wolfpen area and I had caught them good on the RK there. He said on Saturday there were shad everywhere on the shoreline once the wind started and that helped him find the fish. He looked for windy points with shad flicking and went to work on them with a stickbait. Said he had one on an A-Rig, but they really wanted the megabass. I did not have a LM on Saturday, everything was either jaw or K and that is silly counting the number of my fish that came off trees, and shallow docks. I quit at 11:30 to watch the Chiefs, and they were still biting when I pulled the boat. I'm thinking I might have had 16 pounds, but probably big eyed a couple of those big Jaw's. These fish are just super strong in this mid-50's water, both of the fish I caught on the RK tried to whip me and the one that pulled off, did. Both of the fish that broke the arms on the A-Rig where pulling very strong, and had me bowed up to the max. It was kind of an overcast Smallmouth kind of day, especially when the wind started. When those brown fish get to 3+ pounds, they try and hurt you and break your junk. It was really fun, but did not solve my deep fish dilemma. Good Luck out there and Merry Christmas

Yep, Jeff there was a tournament out of Viney on Saturday. Had about 20 boats. Phil Stone won it. I believe he said between 14 and 15 pounds. He caught them on a Stickbait. He said they were very, very shallow. Most coming under 10' on windy points. Said he was moving the sticker pretty quickly on a 3 count. Said it was slow in the morning but when the wind started it was really on.

Nice fish. It was just insanely tough for me today. Launched at Cow at 11;30 and fished till 4;30, still in pursuit of the deep ones. First location, I caught a very nice LM at 53 feet and they wormed up all around him. Last fish there, just hard to believe. Finely figured out to put the spoon down and use a drop shot with a Yamamoto Cut tail 4" purple worm. Only had about a dozen total fish today and the first one was the biggest. Blue Gil just wore me out clear out to 75 ft. Got bored with dangling my junk deep and threw a rig some and also a Rk, both with zero results. Warmest temps of the day were 56.7 and coolest was 55.8. Water is really clearing down here. I measured using the white spoon test and I could still see it pretty easily at 15ft. These cool nights are clearing the water. Looking at the extended, we may see close to 70 degree on Christmas. That ought to really keep the confusion going. Good Luck

Plug, that is a very good point for you flippers and pitchers. For most of us including the play for pay guys the more their bait is in the water and the fewer cast they have to make to keep it there are what the majority are shooting for. I heard Mike a couple of years ago credit his win here on how much water he covered with each cast, and how the fish seemed to bite the bait as the extreme length of his cast rather than nearer the boat. I also heard Mark Davis make the same remark when fishing the wobblehead. He said you want to throw it absolutely as far as is humanly possible to bump it on every rock that is out there. Casting length he said was a huge factor in him leading the tournament for the days he did. That is one of the reasons the two handed rod has become a mainstay in todays professional fishing arena. Not only are they less stress on your shoulder and your rotator cuff, but they enable even some of us a bit long in the tooth to propel baits at great distances by loading the rod to the fullest and letting the rod propel the bait great distances rather than the old baseball toss we all used to have. Fly fishermen have been doing this for years, and really the fly cast is very close to the 2 handed split grip cast with a 7' plus bait caster, letting the rod load in the mid-section thru the tip and then letting rod propel the bait rather than your arm. Only difference is the fly rod propels the fly line and the casting rod propels the lure. Good Luck and a very good thread here with excellent information by all.

Technique more than drag settings will let you cast long and straight. Mike McCelland uses no brake what so ever and can cast further than I ever thought possible. I have seen him get some Jim Dandies, but none the less he tosses it way across the pond, wind or no wind.

Set your magnetic brake to full 10 or full brake and then adjust the centrifugal to the desired level of spool speed for your lure and line weight. If you are throwing into a wind, try as much cross wind as possible. When adjusting the reel on the water like that instead of letting the bait drop to the deck to see if you spool is very tight, just let it fall at about 1/2 speed. You can adjust from there. Please correct me If I'm wrong but I believe that Daiwa invented the duel braking system, in 1997. It has been around a long time and has always been at the top of the price market, with the Steez being up until this year the lightest production freshwater baitcaster on the market. Lew's new titanium lite has set the table now as it is .3 oz lighter. Another tip is instead of casting to the water, project your cast at a higher plain and allow it to fight into the wind rather than be pushed down by it. Might have to use Kentucky windage a bit, but it really helps to let it rip

If you all are catching deep fish the past 5 days, more power to you. I have had trips most everyday and since last Saturday the fish have for me completely gone shallow. Couple of days ago I was throwing a RK on the bank and I could see just rafts of shad swimming in 15' and in. Caught them to excess on the RK and the A-rig. Enforcer if you are catching fish that rise to a spoon and then run back to the bottom away from it, your going to have to show me how to catch them. I have been fishing deep here since the early 1970's and have never caught a fish that has ran to the bottom from a spoon, a drop shot a grub or an Ice Jig. They turn and run from it, I'm in dog do-do. Champ is on them really good, so I think I would print out his blog and take it to the "pun not intended" BANK. Good Luck

Well that clarifies things

Ab's there is rumor on the street down here. Nothing yet about Lew's, but Daiwa is said to be out and Shimano will have their products greatly reduced. I got a felling that Daiwa was offered a similar deal and unlike Shimano told BP to stick it in their ear. Daiwa Corp. has yearly sales in all its endives projected for 2015 of 15 billion. BP is not known, but is projected by Forbes to have 2 billion in annual sales Be interesting to see how this plays out.

Yes they are biting shallow. Try a Spro RKCrawler in Phantom Green in the wind. I had a very good day today. Also last Saturday we did have a few topwater fish. Surface temps today at KC were 57.7

Are you saying I'm not a Gear Snob? Plug, I'm sorry, but these new Lew's Reels will out toss your Abu by so much you will be amazed The new Tournament Pro. is just silly, 6 oz. in weight. Pair that will a Falcon MMC-6-174 Jig Rod. and you are holding a total of 7.4 oz. that you can winch your boat onto the trailer with. Not to hard on old shoulders, I can attest to that. Or if you are feeling really frogy you can go with the Daiwa Steez or the Lew's Pro Mag and drop on down another oz. But the Steez does come with a warning. If you ever buy one you will buy many, many more. For sure not for everyone. But, if you are a gear Snob? Good luck

BP has had it out several times with both Daiwa and Shimano, along with the majority of independent quality tackle builders. 99% of the time it is their fault trying to "Bait and Switch" I have had it happen on multiple trips to the store. Most always on either Daiwa or Shimano. I'll believe Lew's is there when I see it on the shelf, cannot understand why they would cut their own throat that way. If you go in Sportsmans Outfitters new store and start looking around, there is not one piece of CRAP on the shelves. Only quality fishing equipment that is current and made by independent name brand companies. Kind of like when BP first started. When you go into BP you have to absolutely demand a brand other than one that falls under the BP umbrella if you want it. Usually they are there in very limited supply, if at all and if there is a sales person around he will tell you why you don't want it and want a BP product. Good Luck to Lew's how ever they try and proceed.

Yep, that is what they looked like. Very nice day, you all did yourselves proud.

Nice fish. We're you guys sitting the boat in 40' to 50'to be catching them in 30' or were you sitting in 30' and throwing in? Those fish are really brite and beautiful to be coming at 30'. Just wondered. Tks. BB

Taneycomo is a very different water than a lot of folks think. With the number of 21' bass boats and V-bottom center console bay boats along with the custom made tunnel 23 to 25 foot big center console flat bottom bay boats there can be some pretty heavy surf. When they are running 4 units I just cringe at these 16' boats especially if they have built up fishing platforms and seats that rise well above the gunnel. Water temps were 58.7 degree today, same as the surface on Table Rock. That is still pretty cold for a bath. I would not even think about putting 4 people in a 16 footer on the weekend. Good Luck and be safe. That of course is being said from an old water patrol officer and safety is my deal.