Bill Babler

Maintenance schedule is just to much on the Mikey for me. If you have to change its lower unit grease and pay personal property tax on a personal water craft it makes it beyond my means. dtrs5- Have you tried the Buckeye Wake bait? I got a couple and they really cut a wide swath. Just have not tied it on much, but it seems like a big fish bait. Guy might get his arm broke on one when the water clears from Campers on up the James.

Just cannot stay away from all the bites and fish that the White River is offering currently. Hit the lake this morning with Bary and Mike, Kearney, Missouri boys. Here are the options I gave them. They were staying at Point Royale 1 Meet at State Park at the dam and fish Longcreek to point 5 at 5:30, Estimate of 15 to 20 fish in a 6 hr, trip 2 Fish Baxter to Campbell Point and catch surfacing White bass early and then move to the green fish. If they whites show maybe 30 to 50 fish. 3 Fish the beautiful White River out of Viney Creek for topwater bass reguardless. 30 to 50 fish. Meet at 4:30. They choise option 3 and that suited me fine. Aririved at the creek at 5:15 and it was a foggy pea-soup. left Viney in the fog headed for Carter Creek, and did not take me but a couple of minutes to pull into the Big M boat dock. OOPS!!! wrong turn at Alberquikie. Had to idle all the way to Carter, with my nose on the gps screen. Fog stayed on till 9 AM and we caught bass after bass on the Fin and Spook. Not so big today, no rod breakers, but just huge numbers, with double after double. My hands are a wreck and my boat that I just washed is full of some kind of grey stuff that smells like fish. 15 Shell Knob Keepers, mostly K's with two Meanmouths. and a couple of keeper LM. 3 times that many shorts. RPS, There was a very good walleye bite today on the long runouts from Viney to Cedar. I had 4 to the boat and lost at least that many more on a Norman Flake DD22 in about 18-22 ft. Biggest was a 4 pounder that I boated. All were released so you could teach them a heat treated lesson if you get-em. Very easy to distinguish the Eye Bite over the bass as the bass seemed to just go mad when they hit the hook and the Eye's hit it with great force and then just hung low till towed to the boat. Magnificent scenery and lots of bites make the White River Right Good Luck

Just about as well said as it gets. Couple of deals with me is I am throwing extremely small profile BC reels Diawa Steeze. I throw the fin on 15 pound Maxi. on a 7'2" Cara T7. My drag is set extremely loose and there is no hook set as the bait if modified properly will just eat the fish up most of the time. The lure will usually get them multiple times if they are not biggins. My clients for the most part are throwing it using a 7' Cara T7 Spinning Rod M with a Shimano Sustain 3000 series reel I am fishing it on 20 pound braid on the spinners and it will throw a mile and works great. The floating braid lets you work the bait at the right wiggle diggle mode. A Redfin reminds me of a Christmas tree ornament. If they touch anything, they will explode. I have been fishing them for 20 yrs. and have only had a handful that were perfect. There is for sure more than throwing it out and winding it in. I will catch fish doing anything, but if properly modified and fished correctly it is a complete monster. On the Jackall Mikey, again Capt. Don House used to fish this bait alot. I have not had the luck with it he has and would not be the person to discuss this bait. I know before you can operate it you need a Capt's license and it needs to registered with the state and get numbers to put on it. Any bait that size with that many moving parts scares me.

Boys, I don't think I ever mentioned putting any additional weight on a Fin. If I did, I am very sorry and misrepresented what I was meaning. My Fins are weightless. I have not talked to much about the process I go thru on them. Somewhat trial and error. I have hundreds. When I loose one that is perfect it is s disaster. You can put all the tweeks and moneyyou want into one, and still only a percentage will do what you ask of them. Capt. Don House and I had a discussion on the Old Forum about them and tuning them. I will guess he also has a bucket full that will not work. it is only a percentage that work correctly and not a large one. There is also a lot of tenique in using one, and for sure the right equpment, to throw it. All is not so simple in the World of the Redfin.

Denny, I don't think it would have made a flip. She hit him short right as he was getting ready to pull it out of the water and I saw her coming. I was watching the fish and the fin, and the fin disapeared about 6" from her, she just sucked it completely gone. As she did, she turned and dove. It was all over for the rod, line and fin at that point, she kicked his A==. Sad point is we lost a 7+ pound bass " She will Gag on that fin. No way she will get rid of those Death Traps." and a $ 20.00 Redfin. These big ole girls are out there now and ready.

Point 22 Area Dave and I hit the pond at 5:45 this morning and ran right into a topwater swrae. Dave is particular about his gear and had wanted me to rig a fin on his 7' loomis spinner. He has a Shimano Stella and had it spooled with 8 pound trilene. I hesitated to put my modified high dollar Fin on such a light rig, but he told me he had caught and had no trouble with Northern Pike up to 28 pounds on it. Like a fool, I put it on for him as the customer is always right."Right." First fish was a monster and it took the fin about the time it hit the water. Crazy deal. It pulled drag, and came unbuttened. The fin floated to the top and it or another monster slammed it again and it came off. Dave reeled it to just off the boat and the Big Blackie, I'm guessing at 7 pounds up, snapped the Fin and 8 inches off the Loomis rod and was gone, right at the boat. The explosion was massive and the fish threw water into his face for spite while breaking the rod and stealing the fin. I told him that gear was no match for post spawn Table Rock Monsters, and he believes me now. Topwater fish bite was over on the high blue by 8 AM but the fish suspended on the no breeze day and made it tough. Right before we quit at Noon, they finally hit the bottom and we caught some jig fish. Enlarge this pic, and tell me I am using the wrong jig. I have never seen anything so closely matched. Pretty good day with 9 keeps and 30 fish to the boat. Biggest was a 30 pound carp that ate my 7" swimbait clear down. Buster had one at least that big last week. Good Luck

For one thing LM bass are and big Jaws are big time feeders on gizzard shad,along with our catfish population. Our white bass also prey on gizzards. Not unusual at all to pull a 7 inch shad out of a 3 pound white. I have seen our Big K's chasing and eating gizzard shad and have pulled 5 inch shad out of there mouth at the same time they had my Magnimum Spoon in it. I have caught more K's than I can remember on 7 to 9 inch swimbaits on Table Rock and have them tied on now. a 3 pound K can get a 7 inch swimbait all the way down anytime it wants. One of my biggest sets of LM came up the James River on 7 and 9 inch swimbaits. Believe you me, our bass eat gizzard shad with relish and on an everyday basis. The absolute main forage on Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri for LM bass is gizzard shad. I think it could be classified as a pretty good bass lake and they for sure munch gizz, as there main diet. Every lake you mentioned is stocked and everyone of those in Texas is stocked with Florida Strain LM bass. Since 1990 in just the lakes you mentioned in Texas they have stocked 50 million Florida Strain and 50 plus million Northern LM. That is 100 MILLION PLUS BASS. That is a lot of striper food. Stocking on Table Rock since 1990-----------ZERO. Table Rock is not stocked and never will be according to the Missouri Conservation Dept. It is a self sustaining renewable resourse. I have absolutely no use for Stripers in the Rock. Yes we have some spill over and that ammount is tollorable. They are eating machines and would not only eat our shad but everything else that swims in the rock, including small children and some of the smaller jet ski's. We don't want a Beaver Lake here.

I was going to mention that Fin and Feather had that tube. Good point. They also have a Perch tube that is the complete bomb. Looks like crud until you put it in the water and then it looks great and the fish like it also. One thing about the tubes Fin and Feather have is they are all 5 inch tubes. May not be a deal at all, but the Chompers are 4 inch and I just beleive they work better. A little slimmer and an inch shorter. Buster at one time also used a Bitsy Tube that was about a 3 inch tube that worked great.

5, Almost all of us are diping the tube tips in orange dye. The craws right now lake wide are just the same color as that jig green pumpkin/black specked bodies and orange rims on tail and pincers. I will lay it down next to a craw the next chance I get These fish have moved now where I can get at them. No more of that sissy on the bank stuff. Most all fish today in the 16 to 26 ft. range on the runnouts. Good one too that are willing to EAT that jig. Most all of them had it good they were not messing around, they were going to flat eat it.

www.pigstickerbait.com Jason and Becky Baxter are co-owners with another partner. Local bait company out of Billings Missouri. Specializing in jigs and they also make several of the best A-Rigs on the market. Jason knows fishing. He is Bill Beck's nephew, "Don't hold that against him." He has fished this area his entire life is a very accomplished fisherman and bait builder. His products are extreme quality. Fantastic Website you can order from. I usually use the Quick 5 in 3/8th. or 1/2 oz. super baits with a live skirt in all the Table Rock fish catching colors and a very stout hook. Not a EWG, but a straight hook. I'm not a fan of the EWG hook. Take a look at his website and you will like what you see. I Know the bass on Table Rock and Lake of the Ozarks do. Good Luck

Monday, May 7th. White River Outfitters Current Fishing Report Picked up Dale at 5:45 this morning off the Big Cedar Dock. Did not take us long to get on them. Just about the best bite I have had down here in this area this year. With all the heavy weather, we only fished till about 9 AM, but had 8 keepers with the best 5 at about 17 pounds. Largemouth, K's and 3 very nice Small Jaw's. Everything this morning on a 3/8th. oz PigSticker football head with his new green pumpkin/orange skirt. Jason now has a Greenpumpkin head and the paint on this head is super. He told me it is a 6 coat process. Color is perfect in the stained water around the dam and also works really well up the White in the clearer water. Caught a bunch on it this weekend.

1st. I would have never gone that far up the White River if I were fishing a derby. You were catching pretty much what you catch where you were fishing. You also mentioned you had more time. Not so. You run from Kimberling City to where you went, and you would have burned up everybit of your tour. Sounds to me like you did pretty good. Your 4 keeps at 9 pounds would have been very close to what Pete Wenners did and better than Scott Pauly a very good TR fisherman and a very good guide on the Rock. There were lots of guys jamed into that 9 to 14 pound range. The location you were fishing has lots of nice long runout points I perhaps would have ventured a bit further from the bank and either thrown a jig or a deep crank on some of these locations. I may have also fished the docks abit harder with a 3/8th. oz jig. There are lots of keeper fish up there in 18 to 30ft. of water to work on with the jig, rig or deep crankbait. You were working a solid fish catching pattern, but not a tourmanemt pattern. You cannot go to Shell Knob and throw a spook on the runnouts up there and win. Just does not happen often. Just to many young and eager fish to eat your junk. Great guiding and fun fishing but not derby stuff. Your dock deal was the best deal you had for quality fish. Probably would have gone instead of from Emerald Point back toward the Main lake rather than further up the river, and worked that pattern. All and all I think you did well.

Thanks to the Duckster I decided to run my 6hr. trip on Saturday out of Viney Creek. That is just a lovely section of the Lake. I cannot wait to get there and hate to leave. Got in the boat at 5:45 AM and started looking for chasing fish. Fished to long runouts before I landed on the right spot, about 6:30. I believe it lasted a while longer than it has because we had them going pretty hard from the Six thirty deal to about 9:30 on partly cloudy skys. Numbers are not important here, but there were some. Lots of small keeper fish, with a combination of K's and LM. and a couple of Jaw's. Fish bit good on a splitshot rig after they went down until about 11 PM and then it was time to give it to the tubers and jetskiers.

Great Point MS Student

Duck, great report, keep it coming from up there. It is really usefull information. When RPS is not on the water it gets to be kind of a forgotten section of the lake. It is always nice to hear about the great action, and even when it is not so hot. Sounds like nice size also with the keeps. Have not been up there yet for topwater, but may get there on Saturday. I still owe you guys a small jaw trip and we will do it one of these days. Again, thanks for the reports.

A fish every 3 minutes for over 2 hrs. is magnificent. Great job finding that type of a location. Guided out of Shell Knob today and had 29 fish with 4 keepers. Threw a fin and spook for about 30 minutes till 6:30 and had no takers. Saw very few working the surface. Switched to a split-shot up close with a watermellon candy Fish Dr. for all our fish. Most coming under 10 ft. in the pockets. Mixture of K's, LM and a few Jaws. All the K's were ripe with eggs. Buddy guided Kimberling City and had 19 fish with 8 keepers on the same split-shot rig. Saw nothing on top. That topwater bite is from Shell Knob up and that is it. Surface temps at 71.7 my entire 4 hrs. Thanks for the report from the upperend.

Thanks Dennis. Truly a legand.

Ya, I don't know where I heard it. I should have asked Jeff. He and Lane Shoemaker fished a tournament I was in last year and I forgot to ask.

RP. I heard that Jeff's record got beat, but have not verified it. Do you know anything about this?

That A-Rig fish Scared me. I don't like to catch them that big, they pull to hard. I'm getting up in years and Billy and I prefer the fish closer to 15" as they don't hurt our arms so much. Cannot tell you how much we appreciate you on this forum. You are Ozarks Anglers. Good Luck.

Good for you. Sounds like a good derby. I had a pretty good one on a square bill early, and then the drought begun. Someone in that derby always catches a toad sack. From your report, there were several of them today. Thanks

It was just BRUTAL for me this morning after the lightning fireworks of last night. If you can believe it I saw Big Cedar Guides dangling crawlers on Bridge Piers. It was hard. Surface temp when I started at 6:30 AM were 67 degree at the Indian Point Launch Ramp. When I came in at 3:30 Pm the temps were 73. Fish started to bite for us about 11 AM using either a jig, split-shot or a tube. Never had a grub bite all day.Ended up with mid 20 something fish and 4 maybe 5 keeps. Did have one big LM at a shade over 4 on a tube in about 1 ft. of water at 2 PM. We only had 5 fish with 1 keeper prior to 11 AM. I tired everything I could think of. Be interesting to know how the derby boys did today in the Partol tournement. I think even with the big one we would have only had 12 pounds.

balsabee is right. Sheer volume of water in the Kimberling City area vs up the White River. As I stated I have caught good fish up there, but day in day out you will not catch the quality you will on the lower end. That is 35 yrs. on this pond speaking. There has also been two BASS derbys won up there. One out of Rock Creek and another out of the Kings River cranking a wart. Most often sheer numbers and nothing except Brent Ehrler since the fish kill. I have never caught a 4 pound or for that matter very few K's over 3 pounds up the White River. I have caught not hundreds but thousands of K's over 3 pounds from about Big Creek to Long Creek. 3.5 pound K's or old grey ones as we call them just are not up there in the numbers of the lower lake. They may have been spawned up there, but they seem to migrate to the deep water of the lower lake. Lots and lots of quanity as far as numbers, but not the monsters we catch down the pond on a day to day basis. While we can count a few and mention a few derbys won up there, there are thousands won on the rest of the lake. As you all know I'm not taking away anything from the White as you all know how much I love it. I drive from Blue Eye to take clients out of Viney every chance I get, but you will just not catch the same quality on that end on a consistant basis. Good Luck

Fantastic Bag Good job and thanks for posting the results. We appreciate it.

Yes on the Algae bloom. This water stayed as warm as I have ever seen it thru the Winter. It is clearing somewhat, but is not muddy color but algae color. Campbell Point and up is not effected. It is really pretty up there. Fantastic topwater fishing from about Big Creek up early till the sun hits the water. About the only place on the lake this is happening. Most everything we are catching is LM. K's are keeping their heads down. This fishing is good up thru the country RPS prowls. Take a trip someday and launch at Eagle Rock or Holiday Island and work your way back towards Campbell Point. There is no finer water on Table Rock Lake. It is what it is. You are not usually going to catch huge fish up there, but there is plenty of action and the fish and country are magnificent. Remember this also the pictures of the two Small Jaws I'm holding on the Table Rock Lake Header were caught and released near Big M marina. My largest Jaw a 6.3 pounder was caught and released between Big M and Eagle Rock. Just simple Gods end of the lake. My largest K, a 5.1 pounder was caught at the old 86 swimming beach and my best LM at over 9 pounds was caught on a floater at Baxter. Get out there and explore