Bill Babler

Had a really good picture of him swimming a Keitech Swing Impact right off the bat. Perfect picture of the bait. I believe there was a picture on his first keeper and also on his 4th. Jason Christie is the biggest sand bagger that has ever fished. Basstrax is showing him with 3 fish. Be really surprised if he did not have a strong limit. He plays it really close to the vest. Glad to see Mike get his limit.

Guys, when I click on this it shuts my computer down. The compute then says unauthorized shut down. Guess I'll just stay with the blogs. I have tried it 3 times and it keeps giving me a blue screen on the shut down. I don't think that is very good for my lap top.

Both my wife and I have hit every button on the home page and can really find nothing but basstrak and the blogs, no live action that we can find man that is frustrating.

where is this coverage, I cannot find a thing and I have hit every button I can see. Looks like Reese is slow rolling a kietech

Great video. Lots of those fish off one of the biggest guide holes on the lake. Hard to believe the pressure that locations gets and still fish after fish after fish comes off it. It is a classic 200 yrd. stretch. One day I followed two guides down it starting in the pocket and fishing to the next pocket between the docks to the next point. They caught them on it and we put 15 pounds of Jaws in the boat behind them. When the water was high they were clear up in the yard. The dead oak trees are a testament to the floods. Two of the 5 pound plus smallmouth that I had the day we had 3 over 5 came off that location. It was 2011. Thanks for sharing.

Barker has won a won over 6 figures fishing it, so I kind of tend to rely on how he does it. The v37 is also I believe Beck's favorite Brown Craw. Nice comment on the leaf Stonner, more than a great example. lots of times you just lose it or it stops wiggle warting. That's a BITE. Good Gosh we got to get off this Board and onto the water.

Probably mid 70's. They have one Z8 on the web with a 80GPS run, and that is probably as hot as it gets. Really, really fast. 250 proXS 26 Fury. Engine was sounding non-stock, so who knows. When they just sit there and go glug, glug, glug, you have to wonder.

You can find a good pic of it in 1000 places on the web. V38 has an orange belly and it is really called Green Craw. It does for a fact have gold twinges to it. Beck prefers the old Brown Craw maybe one of the numbers that Alex posted. I have not done as well with that Red Craw he has the pic of but my friends all think that is one super color. If you have faith in it that is the ticket. Phil Stone grinds them to pieces, he always has one tied on, don't know his favorite color I'll have him respond to the thread, he is a good hand with a wart.

That's exactly right. These guys are shooting for high 70's. Anything under 70 and it is a Mud Wallower, even fully loaded with the gear that these guys carry. Last year during the TR Elite that Mike won, Beck and I followed him in my Phoenix. He was running the Stratos Elite. My prop was a bit messed from Taneycomo, but still pretty functional and we were chasing him with my boat running 74.8 and he was leaving us most of the time. Bill and I were guessing he was running about 77 and the difference between 77 and 74 is you are out of sight pretty quick. You drop down to 67 vs 77 and you are wasting time in $100,000.00 tournaments that you really don't have to waste. For me 67 is very fast. Most of my clients start to squirm at 45. Boat looks like it has a very nice layout as I said, with the resources they have in place and now the engineering, I believe you are going to see some kind of something special from them.

Your absolute right about color, what ever you feel is the best will be the best. One of our local Elite anglers told me last year when the wart bite was going strong again. That there has been more money won on the 38 than every other color combined, not even close. In that late 90's top 150 here Mark at the Tackle Store sold thousands of warts in that week. Yes I said thousands. Beck seemed to think it was close to 5000. Most all were V38. It started being my favorite on Lake O and Kind of followed me.

V38 is still the man.

Yes I have purchased another boat in addition to my Phoenix. I now have a fishing fleet.

Yes he did a good job, we have already went over it here in detail, even posted a link to the article last week when it went hot. Thanks for the post however. Can't go wrong with Battery Outfitters.

Might not want to jump the gun to fast. Snowden is reportedly not getting the performance he wants out of his is the word on the street. Mid 60's. at best. I'm getting a new boat package put together right now, and have been talking to reps all over the place. Word on the street is that next year, you may see some type of a Triton Cross hull under the Nitro cap and it may be a real runner. As Champ said the investment there was more in technology then it was in boat companies. It is not as easy as you may think to engineer a performance hull. In 2016 or 2017 Nitro may have the best one on the market, but I don't think its this one. Yet. Again, you can see from this post, I'm not bashing in the least, just what talk is going around from the reps. I think they are close to being on something pretty good. I'm also sure that, that boat was offered to several of our local guides and they turned it down in favor of the Z9 for this go around of 2015. I'm sure more to come and I'm thinking it will be very good for them.

Very nice post and a great day especially in that war zone area. Those are very nice pic's are they from the GoPro?

I know Mike M. knows about it big time, "BUT" this is the Classic, and its pretty hard to not fish your strength and what you know will work. In this deal, there is not a ton of time for experiment. Are they missing practice days because of the weather, or they on the water today trying to get it figured out?

No, just use the regular, but lots of guys are using them. I know Greg Wood makes all his weedless,using either a fluke with the hook in the trough or with it made weedless in a Keitech.

I throw the rig quite a bit, and it is a problem if you fish both sides of the line to have the correct one tied on at the correct time. 99% of the time however they bite the back middle extended hook, so I guess you, in reality could fish it with a single hook and do just about as well. I have not lost a rig in over a year. I fish it on 60 pound braid and use Chompers jig heads. They are a soft Mustad hook and they bend out. They will not bend on a fish, but they allow you to pull loose from just about any snag. Once you bend it a couple of times, just take it out of the order re-hook and toss it away. Saves you big bucks on the rig.

For some reason, I'm not thinking this will be a jerk bait derby. I'm thinking it will be that tried and true FB jig or a crank bait bite on a particular location or maybe several with a concentration of a lot of fish. Although those K's just love the jerker, one of these guys will find some LM in a ditch that want that slow moving jig wound by them. Would not be afraid to put the Varmint to the test there either, as we have seen, they like that deal pretty well when the water is cold. I'm not thinking Ever's either. I'm going to be surprised if he makes the last day. Good Gosh, with these guys you just never know. I do absolutely believe that its going to be a big school or two that wins it and that's why I'm not thinking a jerk bait bite. Something in play here that really just started a year or so ago, is keeping the spectators off your fish after you leave. Hopefully it will be cold enough that if one of them finds a nice pod or two that the follow boats don't just wack them to pieces after the pro leaves for the day. Pretty crappy deal, but that seems like the way it is starting to play out, its all about me.

Anyone that has the stomach to watch Missouri basketball had better take at least an extra dose of Prilosec otc. This program has fallen to depths that really are going to need years to repair. I say this of course with a very heavy heart. WE have gone from a No 1 ranked team and a 2nd. seeded tournament team as little as 4 yrs. ago to probably the worst team in the University History. Missouri basketball is in a total dumpster. Look out for our softball gals and our wrestlers as they are some of the best in the business. By the way, when does Spring Football start. Seems we are pretty good at that.

Almost identical conditions to Table Rock. Some guessing the surface temps to be 41 to 43. Whom ever finds a concentration of fish like the last time they were there. Winner is going to find them ganged up and hope he can get them all 3 days. Going to be just miserable.

Wonderful report, thank you so much for posting those personal moments. Something that we can truly relate to. By the way what did it take on Sunday to win that derby and how did you all end up?

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like you were on them good. Super day on the Pond.

No, I just think they were careless and I paid the price. Stuff happens, and really I'm not to bummed about it. Enough to complain a little, but it did not ruin my day after fishing with those nice guys from Iowa. On the drinking deal, our line was still freezing in the guides and I passed a rental boat that two guys were already drowning their sorrows in two Miller beers. You start at 0800 in the morning that is a very long day of drowning your sorrows. Vacation or no vacation