Bill Babler

Setting here in the Blessed at last Rain, I have been reflecting back on the late July and August fishing we have had. I cannot nor can most of my guide associates ever remember catching as many catfish and walleye during the Summer months. I have caught the Kittys on everything from spoons to crawlers to dropshot worms and crankbaits. Most days on my guide trips I am catching between 3 and 5, but on Wednesday with Jerry S. out of Kimberling City, we caught 9 with 8 of them being over 10 pounds. Now that would be a pretty good catfish derby bag. Biggest we have caught has been 18# and I believe the one in the photo here is close to 16# Lots of threadfin and gizzard shad on the locations we are fishing, and really most lake wide, especially from point 5 clear up the White River. Most of these Cats have been in the 26 to 35 ft. range on the bottom and also suspended, slightly above.

Last few days for me have been a Whole Lot Tougher. No Walleye, No Catfish, and a lot smaller and less K's. I am blaming the cloudy conditions. I have been catching my fish locked to the bottom and when it gets overcast they tend to wonder in the water column. Had a 6hr. trip yesterday with Danny and Tiffeny from Arkansas. Had a decent morning. First location we had one jaw, moved to a runnout in 32' and had 15 bass with 3 doubles and 8 keepers of pretty good quality Not much for about the next 3 hrs. except one short here and there. Finished up on the same runnout we had done well on earlier and finished with 3 more including another double. I have been seeing lots of bait and lots of hooks under the bait and lots of worming activity thru the bait from the bottom. Absolute nothing the last 3 days. I am not even seeing the fish we are catching very good. I think the fish we tricked were very tight to the bottom and only a couple or so in a group. The group deal has been the best for me. Bill reported they caught most all the singles they saw today up in the water column. Said they bit a dropshot worm much better than a crawler, and they for sure at times will. Bill had a pretty good day today with 35 plus bass and 1 kitty. He has also lost the walleye, and again I think the cloud cover is allowing the fish to pull up on structure. Bill reported catching fish on structure as deep as 48' and as shallow as 28' so it seems to be a pretty wide swath. Surface temp has gone to 80 degree.

Hummmm! Shell Knob; Great Restaurants, Excellent Grocery Store, Lowest Price Gas on the Lake, Good Medical Faculities, 30 road minutes to Branson, 30 Road Minutes to Eureka Springs, 20 Minutes to shopping in Barryville, or 50 minutes to Springfield. Lots of great local Churches including Catholic. Some of the best fishing left on Table Rock Lake, that is not totally pounded to death. Some of the more favorable land and home prices on TR Lake. You might like it. Oh I forgot one thing WAKE BOATS AND BIG SKI BOATS ON SMALL WATER. Oh well, you can't have everything.

I don't use it to skimp. The green Maxima is just better for the applications I use it for than fluracarbon in my opinion. You get that spoon hung up and the maxi will most time pull it out. The carbon will break most everytime. I always use it on my spinners, zero twist, with a sampo swivel and no memory on the reels.

Fall is not nor has ever been the 1st. couple of weeks of October this far South. Fall here is pretty much just getting under way the last week or so of October and to up right before deer season on the 10th. of November. We had beautiful leafs still on the trees and our pretty week last year was the week of November 7th. If you could shove that trip back a couple of weeks, you would see a night and day difference. None the less, I am sure we will keep you posted here. Football jig bite usually starts just after Halloween, that usually starts to signal when things are just about to get started. Thanksgiving week is usually great here, with any of the close up stuff. We usually have a lot of corporate trips the first two weeks of October, and we are always working hard to keep a fish on the string. Maybe different this year with the low water, only time will tell. Hope it is against the norm and you come down and catch a big bag everyday. Good Luck and stay Tuned.

Did you really ask that question? Please read the posted Table Rock Lake fishing reports. Good Luck

Snake by Golly, great to hear from you. You and techo both took a bit of a hiatis, glad to have you back and all the best on the sugery for the Misses. OMR is Ozark Mountain Resort. This is at Kimberling City back in Kennel Branch. OMR is one of the biggest places on the Rock outside of Big Cedar and Stillwaters. This fishing has been as Hot as the weather for the past 3 weeks or so. These fish are simply locked into a Summer pattern and most of the locations are just choked with both gizzard and threadfin shad. Will catch a jaw out there also that will have a crawfish or two in it. I think it is some kind of a rule with the Small Jaw clan that before you can eat a shad you got to swallow a Daddy. I'm telling you as soon as that water edges into the mid 70's look out! It will be a struggle as it always is in September and Early October. When they get off my deep junk, I'll have to look for tracks, trails and scrapes to follow them on the move rascules down again. Until then I'm going to irratate them to no end if I can. Good Luck

Current Table Rock Lake Report for August 21st. Only word to discribe it is SILLY. Lake Level 909.0 Surface Temp 81 degree Thermocline 30' Water Clarity above Thermocline 15' Water Clarity below Thermocline 50' Largemouth Bass Good Jig bite on the docks and any submerged cover shallow. Smallmouth Good. Same pattern, also swimming a grub up close early and late. 4" SP Spotted Bass Excellent to Beyond Belief. 22' to 36' Humps and Channel Swings. Crawlers, Shiners, Dropshot Plastics, Jigging and Flutter Spoons. Walleye Excellent Same Locations as the K's and the same baits and presentations. Catfish Excellent. Same Locations as the K's and the same baits and presentations. Big Blue Gill Very Good to Excellent. 22' and under on the same swings, humps and runnouts as the others. White Bass Fair Jigging Spoons same locations as the above meat eaters. Trip out of OMR yesterday for 6 hrs. and the take on a catch and totally release basis was between 50 and 60 bass a combination of K's and quite a few Jaw's. 8 catfish up to 12 pounds and 2, 3.5 pound Walleye. Broke 3 or 4 off, unseen, and I am just guessing they were walleye, you can easily tell by the fight and the strike. I'm usually not here in August, cause the fishing is slow and the temperature and boat prussure are high. Not so much of late. 75 degree when we hit the dock at Noon, and we probably didn't see a dozen boats while fishing. Come on, this is just amazing. All the guides are just catching and releasing fish at a unbelieveable rate. Bite seems to be mostly from Point 5 then completely up the White River. Kimberling City to Eagle Rock, Main Channel. Other than the dam area and the Kings River, the lake is fishing like Spring and Pre-Spawn, only deeper. Better get out there and start hitting it. Got a feeling when this surface temps drops the fish will disperse as they always do in Late August thru mid October and it will get hard. That time of year they may be in 1' or 70'. Right now however its Game On. Good Luck

Boys, I'm either using 12 or 15 pound maxi. right now on my spoons. Mainly because I can then throw them a great distance besides just verticle jig them. The lighter line lets me give them a big toss. I am using 1/2 oz spoons. They come factory with a size 6 treble hook. I am changing it out to either a size 4 death trap or a size 4 feathered hook. Gets me a few more bites and my hookup ratio is better with the 4 over the 6. You will still miss quite a few on the spoon, but the bigger hook is a real helper. If you are around white bass the feathered hook will out fish the straight hooked spoon 2 to 1. Also if fish are chasing the feathered hook, seems to get a bite or two more a day. I am always fishing for bites instead of fish. More bites, more fish. Good Luck

Didn't show any pic's the other day, but at times they would just black me out. Solid from top to bottom 26' full in the water column.

I replace all the hooks on the magics. They are great baits. I didn't look that close at it when I posted, cause I thought I was the only Fool that would pay $20 bucks for a topwater popper. You find anymore for 5 bucks, keep your old buddy in mind. Great Fish and Great Post Thanks Good Luck

If you are trying to run both units, no matter what the frequency, they will block each other. Hit power and then enter and put the unit on standby. You will see the difference immediatly. Anyone that runs the big unit on the console is not a Table Rock fisherman. Big unit always goes on the bow. Really all you need is a flasher or a gps unit on the console just to get you in position. Then, get on the trolling motor and fine tune it with the HDS 8 or HDS 10. I don't know very many people that fish from the drivers seat. Well there is one. Great fish Jason. That Swimmer looks familiar, bad eye and all. Was that Brown Bass a chaser? He must have not gotten the memo on the PopR. Good Luck

Thanks, nice report. Glad you boys got bit. Lots of short fish waiting for next Spring. They will be fat solid keepers by then. Did you notice a lot of threadfin shad? Toward Shell Knob, there seems to be millions of T. Shad.

How old is your transducer? The ones I had on my Minkota usually lasted about 6 months. You also must remember you cannot run both units at once. The bottom graph photo is somewhat blured as there was a guy within about 100 yrds. and I was reading his unit. I will have to look at it and see where I currently have it. If you have to turn up that sensitivity higher than about 80%, it usually means the unit is getting weak. I believe that one is set at 72-78 percent.

A young man emailed me about the jig and spoon fishing that is currently going on. First, I am pretty much fishing a PigSticker and that is it as far as jigs are concerned I will fish a Naked 3/8th. FB with a Hula Grub about 30 percent of the time. I am now with the water color fishing it on 15# Seaugar. I lost one today that wrapped me around a dock cable. I saw her side and she was a Pig. Just Sayin, you might want to look shallow for jig fish on the shady side of the docks, from 15' in. Mostly LM. You can also drag the little 3/8th. on the flats just like you would fish a Rig. Start in 15' and move out to 36 fishing the contour lines ot points of breaks on the flats. If I'm fishing bluffends, I'll probably fish the 1/2 out to 36. Use your own fishey colors. On the spoon, I am fishing it on 12 # Seaugar, cause I am throwing it along with jigging it. If you see topwater fish, throw the spoon and just hold it for the count of about 10, then start reeling it slowly back. You will get bit. Hope tthis helps.

I need some help on getting photo's on off my iphone. Some are perfect and some are to big. I guess I could send them to my email and reduce the size of something. Help required. Those are pictures from this morning on the Rock. First pic is of a take from the bottom in 22' of water. You can see me moving the fish from the school that was on the bottom. It was a nice K. That is a pretty good picture of a typical Kentucky catch from the bottom on a jigging spoon. Just the indication should show you how I was fishing it. I was jerking it up 8 ot 9 ft. or the approximate length of the rod, from a resting position on the bottom. I always fall my spoon on a simi-tight line. I know Phil and some of you fall on a slack line, but I prefer to follow it down. If you will notice, I pulled that fish out of a group of 3. Two others remained on the bottom, and there was one other just in front of them. Now look at the GPS side and you will see I was fishing on a flat top just off a coutour line to deeper water. I was working my way out to the point you can see on the GPS Map. Next is Walleye pic's. I accidently cut another boater off on this point and I am sorry. He was coming from the inside and I pulled up from around the bluff. Never saw him till I flopped in the trolling motor. He was throwing topwater at schooling fish. "Big Mistake." Did not see him get a bite in a half hour. I boated 2 keeper eye's and about a dozen K's under the chasers, off the bottom in 27'. The next image is of a school of White's I brought off the bottom. See the heavy lines that are along the bottom under the frenzie. I had one on and when it came up the bottom exploded into an almost mushroom cloud. Just caught the one and they vanished. All from those two little lines. I am guessing 20 Plus Whites in that pod. I will tell you now, the last pic is of the Real Image Spoons I use. I don't think there is a spoon anywhere that will touch it. One is dressed with a Owner Rostertail and the other a Death Trap. Pearl. Good Luck

No guide trip today, so thought I would go fishing. Becky has control of the guests at the lodge as she only has 3 couples in so after I made coffee and sat the table I was out of there by 5:30, Launched at Viney Creek, to clear skys and a mill pond as far as wind was concerned, just pool table flat water. Today I was going to get two walleye for supper as orders had been passed down, if that was possible. Told her I thought It was and preceeded to try and accomplish my mission. Water was a bit greener than it has been and the surface temps had dropped a degree to about 82, something. First location there was a boat on so I motored up to a flat and fish were in the entire water column. On top and everywhere inbetween. Spoon was my only bullet today and really don't need anything else. I'm gong to guess about 40 bass to the boat today running on the small side with 6 keepers, which included a very nice jig fish off a dock. 4 walleye with 2 keepers, and I lost another good one just out of net range, proably a 6 Pounder. Would have turned her loose anyway as I had my two. Beck reported the dam area to be extremely hard this morning with all his guide fish on Crawlers in 26 to 35 ft. and scattered, with one here and one there. Good Luck

Those are some fine Eye's Buddy. The rock has been quiet this week also. Got a feeling with School starting and everyone waiting for the last hurah on the holiday weekend we fisherman types are just about to get her back to ourselves. Great Post, thanks

RPS is right as rain, to try and figure out what is going on one end verse the other here is totally impossible. Here at the dam the channel is still 180 plus feet. This end of Table Rock is a completely different fishery. It is extremely had to try and keep it all straight. If I am not on one end or the other for a day or two it makes a difference. My edge is I have lots of friends that are out everyday and keep me keyed in on whats up. Jason, I nor any of my coharts have not fished evening, so don't know about it. Beck had 3 more nice keeper eyes yesterday out of Kimberling City and another couple of 15 pound Kittys. Our bite in the mornings seems to be over at about 10 AM, at the latest.

Woody, take a right instead of a left. Work from Jakes toward the Indian's. Both Phil Stone and Rick Lisek are catching Walleye, not in the numbers we are in RPS country, but it is not a suprise to gather one up. Instead of the bluffends in that country, "not saying they are not on the ends, but have been more on the flats around the dam rather than the ends as they are up the river." try the long runout gravel points on the same side as point 2. Take your time and fish those long points out as deep as 35 ft. starting in the 22 to 25 ft. range. If I were really serious, I would go get some shiners and either use a bottom bouncer or a drop shot rig. Should get you bit on K's and a Kitty or two, even if you are eluded by the mysterious walleye. Good Luck

J. You and me both. Boys really they are pulling away from the compeitition at PigSticker with lots of products that are extreme top of the line. Jig and Skirt colors are off the chart. Check out that Green Pumpkin head color. You cannot beat the paint off it with a hammer. Excelleny quality made here in the Ozarks.

Abkeenan The Owner is indeed a fine hook. If I am using fethered hooks I will alot of time use them, along with the Gamagatsu. Remember this about the Owner however it is a cutting point hook and cuts a tremendious hole as it enters. It is not a pin-point hook like the Death Trap. The entry wound of the trap is a mear prick like a hypodermic needle and then you have the barb to hold the fish as the entry wound is extremely small to almost non-existant. Very little damage to the fish, unless it double hooks itself in the side like on a spook or a redfin. The entry wound of the Owner is a 1/8th. inch cut, that slices like a fillet knife and will allow the barb to back out of the cut that the hook has made on entry. Very few jig companies use Owner for that reason, way to big a cut. Take a look at the hook wound you are creating on the fish. Looks just like a slice instead of a jab. As far as the extra wide gap hooks, I am not a fan. I have killed so many fish with them that I just will not use them anymore. Again most of the jig companies shy away from the EWG, or they have alternatives. I love the boys at Chompers, but just think their jigs are to hard on fish. You let that fish get that bait back in his mouth and that EWG will stick him in the brain 2 or 3 times out of 10. Great points you have made however and no pun intended. There is always method behind my madness. Good Luck

Pretty sure way to nab any Kentucky in the area also. Last i heard they just love worms on a floating jighead worked just off the bottom. Good Luck

I saw 5 keepers up pretty shallow as well under a walkway the other day. One of the guys that is fishing the Field and Stream Sportsmans Challange said he has caught several on a Buzzbait up around the rearends of the docks in the James River. With the lack of shoreline cover, just bet you those shallow fish and there always are some are using the docks. Might be fun to have a dock day.

1966 was the year Bill's Parents purchased Schooner Creek. That year it went to 885. He said he remembers it well as they had to take their dock out on the point. One of his Dad's friends told his Dad you have bought a resort on a Mud Flat.