Bill Babler

I have had two sets of hubs taken off my trailer in broad daylight at the SK bridge ramp, so I'm not surprised. Anyone that would leave their truck and trailer at the Big Bay Ramp does not deserve to have it bothered but that is kind of like putting a plate of hamburger in front of a dog and telling him not to eat it while your away for the day.

Yesterday there was a very good shallow bite. For me that is 15' to 25' this time of the year. Caught fish on the short porches or the points that are a little steeper. The long flat runnouts to the channel are just getting hammered in that and most lake sections. Kept the boat in about 35' and slow rolled a 7/16th. Chompers GP wobblehead with a Yamamoto craw along the bottom chunking and bumping all the way back. Fish were in the above mentioned range. Had 6 very nice SM, 1 15" K and 1 17" LM doing this while my clients used a drop shot to catch Kentucky bass off of these deep chunk rock locations. I believe due to the cloud cover yesterday and the drop in surface temps the fish were more relating to the bottom. They had really been in the deep tree tops in the 35' range suspended. Not for either me or some of my guide buddies yesterday, they were relating to the bottom. Most eating shad, but the 8 I caught on the wobbler all were just stuffed with crayfish. Good Luck

Gosh Champ, I had not really considered that. Super glad you brought that up. I will have to be more careful. I might have to start wearing a glove and some type of a wrist brace. One hangnail or a scratch and I might have trouble keeping up with my beloved Tigers. You would have liked today, seemed there were some real fish bites out there on something other than up and down. I can now see why Fisherman did well on the Buzzer. That water has really changed color from Campbell point up the river this last week. Seems to be pretty green. Good Luck

On the water with Deona and Brian at 0600 out of the SK bridge. Surface temps at SK were at exactly 80 degree and the water has really clouded up since last week. Visibility in the Kings River area is down to about 10'. If anyone can tell me how to catch all these topwater fish chasing 1/2 inch shad I'm more than ready to listen. Threw everything I could think of and we had ONE> Cool thing is we had a bunch of dropshot fish in the 30' to 35' range, including 1 17" walleye to the boat and a really nice 20 something incher that let itself go prior to the boat. It was just briefly viewed. Said a howdy to the Duckster as we were coming back down stream from Big M after a nature call for my gal. All my fish today were on the bottom, nothing in the tree tops. It was also a very nice cloudy morning and I had a very good SMJ bite with the wobblehead in about 15' to 20' of water while my clients were bobbing the dropshot. I handed Deona at least 1/2 dozen very nice keeper Jaws to wind in on the wobblehead, while she was dabbing her dropshot. When I went to hand her the last one, she said, "No, they are hurting my wrist." That being said I let it hurt mine. Very nice cool morning with quite a bit of fishing pressure from point 22 up the river as far as Big M. Probably as much as I have seen. Rounded the bend at the boat ramp of Emerald Beach and there were 5 boats working the flat. Not to many years ago there was simply no one that fished that area. Now it is really pressured. Surface temps seemed constant as when I pulled out at 10 o'clock it was still 80.4. Good Luck

Happy B-Day James. PIG SOOOIE!!!!

You want to see a boat really jacked up, put that bar on. The fiberglass sides tear out of the boat in about 2 seconds flat with any kind of a crowbar. The deal that has been mentioned about the boats being taken and put adrift in the Glaze is correct. I know at least 5 guys that had locker bars on their boats and the gunwales were completely destroyed when they popped out the bar. I also know and I believe this was a top 150 where the boats were in a parking lot and the thief unhooked the winch from the boats that were on the trailers, and put the wench strap and hook around the locker bars and busted the sides right out of the boats. Believe they got several. My last Champion had a locker bar and I wanted to see if it really worked and how long it would take. I whipped the strap off the bow and wrapped it around the bar and hooked it. I put pressure on the bar and I will tell you I could of tore the sides out of the boat in about 30 seconds if I would have torqued the wench a full turn tighter. The locker bar will keep out simi honest people. For thief's it will get your boat ruined.

Thanks Duck, seems you have really found them the last two outings. That is a good thing

Way to catchem Duckster. PS all walleye now need to be checked in with RPS and get a tag, very similar to a deer tag. Also there is a form you should fill out with date, time, location, depth and bait. Failure to do so can get you banned from the Holiday Island to point 23 area. Additional rules may be published at a later date. Take heed of this and also do not dropshot any locations that you think that I may or may not want to fish in the up coming weeks. Thank you for your cooperation. Heeeeee Heeeee! Can you tell how bored I am? I'm getting pretty tired of looking at trout. And not to many of them I might add. Good Luck

Thanks for the report Fish. Ran the banks some the other day looking for shallow fish and did not see any, but as I can see here I was in the wrong place. Any fish in the backs of the pockets or were you main lake and cove mouth. LOZ usually really turns on to a very shallow back in of the pocket bite this time of the year. Why those fish up there get in the shallow stuff under the flattest shallows hottest dock on the cove makes no sense to me but they do it in July and August up there more often than not. Thanks for the new tip and deal, I'm on it.

If you see a big Grey Phoenix sporting a Yamaha Sho, get on his tail and don't come off it. Otherwise good luck and God Bless. That area of the lake is absolutely mean as heck. Most of the best guides that have been fishing that area are working for a 30 minute topwater bite till about 6:30 and then fishing deep structure in the 35' to 60' range with a vertical presentation.

Are the two top left Steel Shad?

Yes the boys touched on a very good point with the lift assist. There is somewhat of a learning curve on the MG if you have not had one. MG has a new remote control motor that is very much like the I pilot. I know Rick Lisek has had both and represented both companies, and I believe he much prefers the MG to the I pilot. This is on his flat bottom Alumaweld Trout boat. Wait two months and they will all change anyway. For cripes sakes there is something new on the market as soon as I get one mounted on the boat it is outdated.

Of course live bait presentations are always going to be the best when plying the depths for suspended fish however traditional drop shot worms in the 4" and under range will get you bit. IF you are trying to find these locations just start working your way off the bluffends and major creek mouths or even the secondary points within the deeper creeks. Do this while setting up front with the troller and not so much trying to either side view or use the console graph, just set up front and look in ever widening circles. Look on very slow speed, as a fish or a single deep tree can go by in a flicker. After you have had a morning fishing, before you quit, dedicate an hour of non-fishing time to just looking with your electronics. Ralph Lambert showed me a single tree 25 years ago in the complete center of the Kings River channel. No way I would have ever seen it. It is a hardwood that for years held limits of keeper K's and LM. It has since fallen and vanished but for years it was outstanding. The top of this tree came up to just about the usual thermocline at about 30' Ralph would sit in the middle of the river and fish this tree for hours with what we now call either a varmint or a ned rig. Usually a 1/8th. oz jig head with a very slender 3" to 4". Watermellon worm. Great Topwater fish. Thanks for sharing. AND, it is more than tough out there. There are still lots of those deep places around have fun on your Easter Fish Hunt and good luck

Apples and Oranges. Do you want the starter button on the right or the left?

Don't know if you read my Shell Knob thread from the 23rd. but the fish are really not relating to the shad outside of a few chasers early and late. Most of the fish now that we are finding are suspended and relating to cove and creek mouths at depth. Again today Bill Beck just had one of those great days after yesterday being a bit tougher. You all have been here long enough and if you are fishing suspended bait it is time for you to start looking for timber or tree sections that are off shore. Also it is important to remember that the fish really do not need the structure. Bill reported catching quite a few fish today suspended off the major creek point in 35' of water over 150 foot of depth. Just slow moving using your electronics looking for these fish. He is a master at this and you have to have confidence and fish extremely slow to see and catch these nomads. Bill caught lots today on deep timber in the Kimberling City area. Said his boat most of the day was positioned in 100' to 150' fishing suspended fish that were hovering at the 35' level just over the tops of this pole timber. Said he just had some toads. If you are struggling and not catching fish anyway, put the rod down and take the time to locate some of these areas. They are on most every map I have ever seen of Table Rock lake, and also on all your chips. The only lake section that this does not work to some degree is up the White River. Seems to me Owl Creek is just about the cut off however there are fish on the deep flats most of the time up to Devils Dive. Not as congregated as below Owl, but they are there to some degree. Good Luck

If I remember right in 1968 my mom had a trotline that stretched clear across Pine Cove. One day she ran it and had a spoonbill a flathead 2 crappie 2 Jack Salmon and a pretty nice Smallmouth. If recollection severs me, they were all disemboweled then submerced in a black cast iron skillet that held a bubbling liquid that resembled Crisco, but was most probably Lard. Have a good one.

Is it to late to get those Walters back in the Pond? They are starting to look a little Bleached. Bill said they caught them on the bottom at 42 ft. between two trees. Both at once. Good Luck Yes I believe that would be an upgrade from his current boat.

Don't mean to jump the thread this late, but I have caught Jaw's in both of the Buffalo's up the river and a pretty fair amount in the back of Rainy Creek. Going to date myself here, but we really used to catch them up the creeks on high water before Truman Dam went in. Yikes.

Thanks C-198, I'll relay the 411 to the Beckester. He said the boys were a little trigger happy, but they just had a great day a jerkin them. I guess they were with Grand Pa. Willie said Gramps fished very little if at all just helping and watching the boys. Over the years Bill and I have logged thousands of hours together both on and off the pond. I consider him one of the best friends I have ever or will ever have and one of the best guides that has ever worked Table Rock Lake. Be just about impossible to fish with Bill Beck and not have a great time, fish biting or not. Thanks So Much

Hit the water at 0530 with Jerry and Warren out of the Knob. Beck had been up there yesterday and had a great day. Fishing deep brush and trees. His fish were suspended in the 35' to 45' range. He gave me the GPS cords of a couple of new trees he had found and off we went. Pretty good buddy I'd say. He also said that on that hot bright day there had been quite a bit of topwater but he had youngsters and was fishing up and down. Caught 10 off his GPS trees, all pretty nice Shell Knob K's. Maybe 2 keeps but all, right at that 15" mark. Saw some on top, and they seemed to be good ones, but were just to scattered to fish properly. Most chasing over the main channel in 100' plus. Just singles for the most part. Ran a main lake hump and caught 4 solid Keeps in 37' on the bottom. Thet flat hump was just covered with bait and it seemed I had to be just away from it for them to take the drop-shot. Moved on up the White River and ended up on a long runnout below Big M. Caught 12 here just nice Shell Knob fish. These were bottom dwellers in the 35' to the deepest at 47'. again a lot of bait but if we were near it you would not get bit. Did not see any fish in the deep bait balls, in, below, or above. Was a huge amount of chasing up there but again singles. They would follow the fin or what ever topwater we threw and be just below it. At one point Warren had about a dozen all very nice K 's swarming his fin, but none would commit. Warren had the best day with 20 fish, Jerry had 4 and I had 2 on a spoon. My spoon fish were really topwater as I flung it at far off chasers and they nabbed it. Think it is probably time to have the Little George Rocket flyer in the boat at all times as you can throw it from here to Bentonville. Not the day my buddy had yesterday, but pretty good July fishing. We only saw 4 wake boats and 1 other fishing boat all morning. Whoo! Hooo!

They were going really well about 2 weeks ago. You could load the boat with hand size gills, using crickets in the 18 to 30 ft. range on the timbered points and the chunk rock point. You can still catch some, but it is really winding down. We were just having a fit with them fishing crawlers for K's, but they seem to be mostly gone now.

Yes he is. That got us off the old drop shot bite in a hurry I'm telling ya. Did see several pods of white bass exploding and managed to snare 3 huge sows on a jigging spoon. My client said, "you really know what your doing, this has just been a spectacular trip." Told him he would not have liked me so well last week. Say what you want, do what you want. When they are biting its a beautiful thing, and when they aren't it can get really U-gly in a hurry. Good Luck

Table Rock Lake, Blue Eye, Mo. 7-14-14 Current Fishing Report WRO Guide Service Surface temp is low 80's and water in the Cow Creek Area is 20' to 25' of visibility. Thanks to a very good buddy that is driving a brand new 921 Phoenix sporting a Yamaha Sho. I am now a topwater expert. Yep, Denny put me on them, and on them indeed. Pretty big locations with chasers all over it. Some nice fish also. We had 17 early with Denny, 4 would have been solid keeps. Went to another location and could replicate it for about 3 bites on each stop. All the fish we caught with Denny were K's, and all the others we caught were LM. Missed about as many as we caught, but just one heck of a day. Strikes were violent and the reason for the misses was we might have jerked it away a bit. They were just slamming the fin. Lots of times we would have 3 or 4 swimmers with the one that was hooked up. Just a great day. Thanks Denny!

I like that Mill Creek format of only 4 fish to try and keep alive in this hot water. Be nice to hear how they think that is working as far as liveability for the fish. There have been tons of times both at Shell Knob and at Campbell Point the day after these Summer night tournaments the dead fish around the ramps looked like we had LMV all over again. Really hard to take proper care of them especially as Bo said if they are coming right at the thermocline and that cool water going into a livewell that is 85 plus degree. Hope everyone is using ice and really trying their best to take came of them.

As far as who is crowded and who is not, between LOZ and the Rock and I'm speaking from experience, with our family owning a resort on LOZ and being a Water Patrol Officer up there for 6 years, the two bodies of water are completely different in the way they handle boat and fishing traffic. The Rock for the most part is a main lake fishery with the best and most used portion being the White River channel. It neither has the arms or coves that LOZ has and its major activity is in the gut of the White River. Boating and water sports along with the fishing occur in a much more defined area than on LOZ. I can fish LOZ on a holiday weekend and get away from traffic, simply by fishing areas that the majority of the larger boats must idle in and really it is just to tight for them to operate. Also the fishery is much, much different in the fact that LOZ is a LM fishery for the most part and they occupy different water than our fish do here on the Rock. With man made structure on LOZ to the extent that it is most impossible to fish it all in a life time and the existence of the very good fishing from Hurricane Deck up the River clear to Warsaw, there is most of the time someplace to tuck in and fish. On the Rock, not so much as we do not have that structure, ie docks and we certainly don't have a lot of water that keeps out the larger watercraft. It is hard really to compare the two. Both great fisheries, and both with lots of folks enjoying them in the Summer.