Bill Babler

I was on Taney the last two days, but Beck reports lots of cusiers and bedders, in the Kimberling Area. I am a full day out of Viola tomorrow and will keep you posted on the goings on up on th Fishy part of the lake.

Very nice, good to hear from the point 5 to dam area. They should be on it right around the corner. Much appreciated Capt. D.

April 13th. Table Rock Lake Fishing Report White River Outfitters Guide Service White River Arm of Table Rock Lake, Viney Creek to Long Creek on the main Channel White River. Surface temps ranging from 51 to 62 degrees, depending on wind and locations. Water Clarity to 22 ft. in some locations on the white spoon test. Most locations a solid 15 feet of visibility. Kings River, Long Creek, James River Arms. Surface temps ranging from 55 to 62 degrees, with clarity from 4 to 15 feet depending on location. Largemouth Bass Report. LM are being caught in all lake sections this year in far larger numbers and larger size than in the past several years. The usual culprits are doing well, namly the jig. 3/8th. oz football jigs in natural patterns are producing LM around the docks and bluffend staging areas in very good numbers and size. Stickbaits are producing in tree lines ajacent to spawning coves and staging areas. It has also been reported that some topwater success has been reported in limited ammounts, but this is comming on every day. Slow movers are best right now, using either a spook or a chugbug. On the wind 1/4 to 1/2 oz Spinner baits have been a fish taker as have warts in the river arms. Lots of us have recorded their own personal best size LM this year. Fish close to 10 pounds have been weighed and lots of 6's, 7's and 8's, are comming to the scales in the weekend derby's. Spotted bass. Are staging and starting to move into spawing positions as the thread fish shad die-off disapates. K's can be taken all transitions ie major rock changes over the entire lake. Small pockets off major lake sections or even large coves are holding mostly buck K's as they also ready for the spawn. Shaky head, splitshot rigs and stickbaits are interesting these fish. Best baits are natural colors on the soft plastics in green pumpkin, candy, pumpkin seed. or watermellon seed. Fish are in 8 to 16 ft of water, some suspended and others on the bottom. Females are mostly suspended on major creek or cove bluffends and are readying for the move back. They are also pushing shad off the bluffs and the transitions. They are getting very close to spawn Smallmouth Bass. Finally the Jaw's are starting to move. We caught several very nice fish this week on the wind blown flats near the mouth of spawing pockets. Stickbait and splitshot rigs with a watermellon candy lizzard presented in to these windy locations are starting to be well recieved. I personally or my flock have not had a very good grub bite as yet, but you would think it would be day to day. Keep in mind that these fish are not everywhere. Pick a bait and start fishing locations you feel are holding fish. Before changing baits fish at least 1/2 dozen similar locations with the same bait. vary the presentations at each location to try and fish th bait to the specification that the fish want. If that does not work change the bait and keep presenting it on your top locations, until you find the right pattern. Leave your tackle box at the dock. Bring 5 or 6 rods rigged with what you want to fish today and stay with that. Running thru the box is a method for disaster. It waste your precious time and you accomplish nothing. If you could only pick 5 baits for April, What would you pick? Stay with those and you will catch fish. Helter skelter fishing and running lures is a waste of your valuable fishing time Time after time and Client after client will tell me, " We went thru our entire tacklebox in for two days, with nothing to show for it, and you show up here with two or three simple soft plastics and we catch the heck out of them." "What's the deal." FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE. Give them something as close to natural as possible and for CRIPES SAKES SLOW DOWN. This is not a RACE, it is fishing. Both Beck and I in the last two weeks have pulled out the last of our 8 remaining head hairs advising our fishermen to SLOW DOWN. DATELINE TABLE ROCK LAKE. Fish will hit a slow/moving or stationary bait........ As a matter of fact, this time of the year, they prefer it that a way. See how long you can make a cast last. Here is a question, If you like the locations you are throwing to well enough to throw there, would it not be a good idea to keep the bait in that location as long as possible? Just Thinkin! Think slow. Think positive. Use natural. Have fun. Good Luck

We have all gotten caught in situations, that just seemed to grab us by the -----. Most of them were our fault. We as grown men and women need to take responsibility for our own actions. Those kind of mistakes in Alaska, get you dead and real dead in a hurry. On the other hand, these guys had a plan. They planned to fish the Dam area and get fuel at Big Cedar. They had no idea a Marina on this lake could or "Would not" sell or give them some gas to get back to the ramp. Wish they would have said something to me. I didn't know that was what they were thinking, or I would have told them, it was not possible. Gages, State Park, and Cricket have limited open hours in this, still being the off season. It was a real tough situation. These are very nice guys, that just wanted to go fishing. If we were not from here, most all of us could have made the same mistake. Now, on to Big Cedar. I do not know the context that the plea, that was presented to the dock staff, but you had better bet your last dollar that it had not have been desperation, or someone's butt should be in serious trouble. With winds at 35 mph and gusts higher, someone should have taken these young men seriously and helped them. I could give a flying heck about Corp Regulations, you don't turn down a plea for help in that kind of weather, at this time of the season, when you know nothing else is open. Again, I don't know how it was presented to the dock staff. I will tell you now, this could have gotten really ugly. Thank God it did not. They were smart enough to get in a lee-cove out of the wind and call us. We were fishing at Baxter. We immedatly ran back to Aunts and put the boat on the trailer and headed for 86 to re-launch and take them the fuel. All's well that ends well and this had a great ending with two swell young men a whole lot wiser than they were yesterday. God Bless, You All.

Freelancer, I believe we will be in the Phoenix White and Silver with a ProXS. Leaving Branson at 1 AM to get there and then headed right back after the derby on Sunday, as we both have guide trips on the Rock on Monday. Noticed a 2 inch rise to 954.6 on the news last night. CaptN. That is a "Inside Joke" Between me and a good friend Champ 188. Float n Fly is a very FINNESS method of Bass fishing that was developed on the high mountain eastern lakes for winter time fishing. Extreme light line to a float and a very small jig presented usually to Small Mouth Bass. It would not be a method to catch anything but Blue Gill and Crappie on LOZ. As a matter of fact, most lake O crappie would break the line. Good Luck

Pete Wenners caught them pretty good in the Point 5 area yesterday on a Jerker, from what I understand. Tim Paige guiding out of Big C. Said he had them decent up Long Creek, on a Jig, and a sticker on the windy 45 degree banks. Not a whole lot of intel coming from down that away. Lots of boats showing up lake wide with the Heartland Derby this weekend. Nothing like Lake O however. When I took out at PB2 at 3 PM yesterday, there were 80 plus rigs in the lot. To many for me. Good Luck

Spent two wonderful days on OZ. Still as good as ever. Fished Tuesday out of Downing Branch with Good Friend Ed Franko. He and his wife Deb. run Bass and Baskets Bed and Breakfast. Let me Clarify "Deb Runs Bass and Baskets." Have not really figured out what Ed does. Drug in 16 pounds on Tuesday with Ed. Or let me say this, he drug them in frontending me to pieces with a Red Eye Shad. He had nine pounds in the boat off one of his hidy holes before I could even hit the water. The boy did good. Wednesday after I got that fish hog out of the boat, I fished up the Osage and plowed dirt for another 18 Plus pounds. I am thinking it could have been better, but I was just hitting fast and moving quick, not really fishing for fish, but fishing for bites. As for the float and fly, where we are using a 1/32 oz. jig under the float on the Rock, I used a 1OZ. Wareagle White and Charturse spinnerbait under it in the muddy water. Could not find a float to hold it up, so used a NO Wake Bouy. Seemed to work ok. Most of my Float n Fly fish came in the Brown's Bend area as the water is much clearer up there. Lots of fish up there in the 4 pound range, and for this weekend I'm sure it will take plenty of them to eek out a check. From all the emails I have been getting, about getting you "So an So's off Table Rock and onto a Man's lake, I guess We are marked men." We will make the journy up there, Don't know why except we love to fish. Probably won't catch any, but will be there to support those that do. Good Luck.

Been gone a couple of days to Lake of Oz. Did ok for me up there with about 18 pounds a day. Know for a fact that will only get me a "Hardy Handshake and a Thanks for the Contribution, this weekend." Fun anyway. Beck and I have 3 Full days the next few on the Rock, and it started for me pretty slow. Messed with the floater for an hour or two, but the stagers have moved up so it is going on the rack for this year. Ended up with a great day with about 30 fish, 15 keeps and a couple in the 5 pound range. Best 5 at 17 pounds. Best fish came on a Spro Blue Bandit Sticker. Second Big Bass on a Chompers 4 in smoke pepper grub. Most of our fish came on gravel in 16 to 28 ft. with the boat in about 30. You needed a transition, and where the channel went to gravel or bluff to chunk you would get bit. Caught fish today on the gurb, Green pumpkin fish dr. Jig, and Sticker. Water temps in the KImberling City to Point 16 area were 48.8 to start and warmed to 54 at 3 PM. Best bite for us was in the afternoon when the wind and cloud cover arrived. As this water warms, these fish will move up and back during the day. Lots of fish staging off the spawing flats in that 20 ft. range. When you start seeing fish you are in the right place. Scott and Dave did a great job cranking them in. Hope I can keep them on them for the next couple of days. Good Luck

If someone up there has a minute, could you kind of give us a lake wide prespective on surface temps, clarity and a Bass Fishing Report. We all know its low, but have heard conflicting reports on clarity. Osage Arm Warsaw to Rainey Creek Osage Arm above the Hurricane deck Bridge to Rainey Creek Niangua Arm Glaze Gravois Tan-Tara to Dam If you only have part, maybe someone else can fill in. I'm comming up tomorrow or Tuesday for a couple of days, and will post a report. I just need a starting location. Love the Bolinger Creek to Golden Goose, Brown Bend area. Thanks Bill

Campers is up the river, but by no means UP the river. You still have a fur piece to go to get to the 76 bridge. If your headed for Campers, that means you are doing that, camping. It is about as far as you can get out of Shell Knob, on a pretty iffy road. Tell us what type of fishing you are wanting to do and I bet we can get you headed in the right direction. If it were me, this time of the year, probably would think of a place closer to where the fish are, if that was what I was really after. If you were after solitude a big camp fire and maybe just playing on a stretch of really nice water, not so much where the fish are really concentrated now and that didn't matter, you have picked wisly. Good Luck

T. thanks for noticing. I'm back down to 187 again. Got back up to around 219 when Phil and I took our trip to Alaska last September. He charged me for the extra baggage. When we flew out of Kotzebue to the Kelly River, I was at 219. After the trip when we got back to Kotzebue, I was at 209 and just decided to eat a little smarter. It was still less than my 235 but it feels good to be under 190 again. Hope to hold it for a while, but who knows, I just love to eat. As far as the fish. YES they are runnng bigger this year. We are all catching fish as big or bigger than prior to the fish kill. You can see in the derby weights on the Big Bass Side that there are some complete toads coming in. Our tournament total weights are down, not counting that insane day Beck and I had. Most of the derby's are running a pound or two, maybe more lighter than years past, but all are weighing in complete toads for Big Fish. Not alot of Jaw's or K's coming to the scales. Mostly Buck Largemouth. I am struggling to find a good K bite, and the Jaw's for me do not exist. Usually this time of the year the creels in the derby's and the fish numbers on guide trips are filled with K's and Jaws. Not so much this year. I had a trip Thursday with Beck and he had only 10 total fish on his trip and I had only 5 total fish. All mine were LM and Beck had 9 LM and one Big K. Of my 5 fish, all were Keepers, with the two best at 5.5 an 5 pounds. The 5 keeps my clients caught would have gone 18 pounds and Billy could have put together a bag at 25 pounds. Beck had the 9.1 and a couple more at 5 pounds all LM. In the derby on Saturday, we had 2 Jaws short. 1 K, a keeper, last fish we caught and 12 LM with 4 keeps, including the big gal. That was it. Did have a good day on numbers up the White River on Monday with several nice K's along with the big Gal's. BUT... for the most part, low numbers of K's and Jaws. The threadfin shad kill is still in full bloom, with the water hovering in the upper 40's. If we get a couple of nights again the first of the week at 30 and then on tuesday at 26, it will continue. We saw litterly hundreds of shad dying on Saturday. Probably the reason the K's are not up. They are I am guessing out suspended under all this feed. I have at this time of the year never seen the ammounts of Gulls we have. Thousands. When they leave, I believe we will start seeing the Jaws and K's. Gabe, as far as the sticker bite, I am at a total loss. Got to be the threadfin. You know how good it was when you were here in March last year. No deal this year. Jig, wart, square bill, and even the grub are doing better than the sticker. But me being me means I have to throw it anyway. Good Luck

Table Rock Lake 3-4-11 White River Outfitters Guide Service Branson, Mo. Current Table Rock Lake Bass Fishing Report Out all week and for the most part, not huge numbers, but just very "Big Fish." Most days averaging 15 to 20 fish with the majority being small. BUT, everyday, we are picking up a Table Rock Lake Monster or two in the bag. Not uncommon to have and I will also speak for Beck here as we have been guiding together alot. 2 or 3 fish each in the 6 pound plus catagory. We both had fish over 9 pounds this last week. Water temps lake wide are ranging from as high as 56 in the Rivers to 48-50 on the main lake. Clarity of main lake is 15 ft. of visibility, and the Rivers are discribed a perfect with 2-10 ft. depending where you are. Crankbait bite on the Rivers is reported as very good, but fish are running pretty small, with loads of 12 to 15 inch "Buck" Largemouth. Main lake is producing lots bigger fish but in smaller numbers. Point 2 point 23 which I know is a large area, seem to be housing the bigger fish. Most are coming from main lake bluffends and timbered inside points. IF you can get some wind, the stickbait bite is fair, not at all up to par. IF not, a jig is by far the best bet, with the wart being a close second. Natural Green Craw seems to be the top producer on both baits. Fished an Anglers in Action team deal yesterday. Jason Baxter of Pig Sticker Jig Company was my Alternate as Beck had a Trout Trip, and the derbies are just our side deal if we are not gainfully employed. 71 entry fees so this was a big ticket derby on the Rock. Only I believe 39 of the teams weighed in a fish. We were very fortunate to win 3rd. place, and our tournament play for pay continues to be a great fun deal this last 8 weeks. Side pot money again, so Harter House is still doing as well as we are. Jason on his first cast caught a huge bass that was 6.72 pounds and won us the Big Bass Pot. It was off a tree that Beck and I have caught 11 fish over 5 pounds on this year so far. It is on a bluff with a big spawning cove near by and it has really held big fish. We have also caught a 3.77 pound Small Jaw and a K over 4 pounds off this tree. It is in 36 ft. of water and thank goodness for us is very, very hard to see and find. It just looks like all the other ones, but it is a cedar with no limbs. It is a Monster Holder. We have yet to catch a short fish off this tree. That should tell us something. Winning bag was only 15.92. Second 15.90 and our bag was only 15.72. We only caught 15 fish in the tournament, 5 keeps. The last keep was 15 minutes before weigh-in. The winner had a 5.31 colored up Jaw, that was tiger stripped and was just a magnificent fish. Spoke to two other derby guys, and the wart seemed to be what their fish were taken on. Even on no wind. It is a very strange year so far. Just a note on Jason's Big bass, we thought it was bigger than 7 pounds as it had a huge girth. It was only 22 inches long, and for those fish to be Great Big, they have to be 25 plus inches. My biggin here was closer to 28 inches that 27, but not the girth. Beck had one this week at 9.1 that was close to 27 inches. Lots of the weight in the length. Good Luck out there.

Did not say the big fish came on that, however we did fish it. Mostly K's as they are moving into the staging grounds. I did catch it on a jig however. Table Rock is recieving lots of purssure right now as it does on most Spring Fishing seasons. I am not finding fish everywhere, fish for me are really only in a very few select locations on just about a 1/2 dozen baits. I am not catching loads of shorts, and some days I am only catching a fish or two. Had a couple of trips in the last 3 weeks where we had less than a handfull of fish. That for me is EXTREMELY SLOW. I have been lucky to catch a few biggins. Bill's trips are doing about like mine. Just not putting it together everyday, but the days we do are spectacular. It has been pretty simple for me. If I catch them one day, I will go 3 or 4 days and catch next to nothing. Then I will have a dream day. Reason as they for me are only on select locations. If I work them over it takes it a few days to repopulate or just to get over it. I can usually catch them in a locations, and repeat it on similar locations around the lake. Not so much this year. We are only catchin them on about a dozen locations, and that is it for now. I know it will change, but it has been like this for 6 weeks. Lots of folks are catching Biggin's however as you can tell from the hourly weights it took last week in the Big Bass Deal. Most are on Warts, grubs and Jigs, and stickbaits. Which is exactly what we threw yesterday. From the derby's and what was reported from last weekend, the Wart is by far the best big fish bait on the lake right now. Again you can throw it all day and nothing. Then hit a short stretch of bank and put 5 fish in the boat that weigh 20 Plus pounds. It is really Location, Location, Location. Beck and I fished the wart 3 weeks ago in a derby, and every fish we weighed in came on it. Phil Stone put us on a great location he had caught them on it the day before. Again, this stretch of bank was about 100 yrds. long. We had 16 pounds off it and he took an 8 pounder and another 4 keeps on it, on the wart. That 100 yrd. stretch of do nothing bank produced close to 40 pounds of keepers in two days. Rick Lisek and I went fishing for fun on that bank 2 day later and caught a 5 pound LM a 3 Pound K and a 4 Pound Jaw on it. We have not caught a fish there since, so I guess that was that. Beck however says it is always a good wart bank this time of the year. Hit or miss, some days they are up on it eating craws, and others it is the dead sea. Just don't know about this stickbait bite. As strange a year as I can remember. Water clarity is fantastic, not like th flood year, that was just as bad for us on the jerker. I just cannot get it to produce, like it should. Lots of big fish shallow. Almost all the fish you catch are full of craws, and this may be the reason even with the threadfin still dying, they seem to want lobster. Good Luck out there.

Dennis Wilson and I hit the water at 7:15 in the AM and it was a great day from the git-go. Dennis had said he would not be much of a problem and he was a man of his word. All he needed was me to net his fish, and that I did. 35 fish with a combination of K's, LM and Jaws to the boat. 20 Keeps, and "Yes" We Friggin DiD it Again. Best 5 at 23 Pounds. Totally different location than last week, but the same result. I am on a complete roll. It will stop, but I'm going to whip this horse to a froth, before it does. Combination of K's, LM an Jaw's. Denny set his hooks on his personal best, a 6.5 pound Godzilla. He handled her to perfection and I dipped her right out of the water. I have been practicing alot lately. This guy can fish, and he proved it in capitol letters today. I had my personal best fish and Denny got to whitness it. Almost a full time fisherman on the Rock since 1970, I got her today. A toad of a fsh that my Rapala scale said went! Had to catch my breath. 9.6 pounds. Previous best at 9.1 prior to the fish kill. Boy's that is 41 years of fishing this pond. Sad part of the deal was my camera ran out of battery. Dennis had his, so I hope we have a pic. Goes without saying all are swimming free. I would have it no other way. Big gal was 26 inches plus. Fish bit great from 7:15 till 10:30 and then nothing but one jerbait K. it was a 3 pounder, but only the one, untill about 2 Pm and then it started again, with another 11 fish to the boat. None like our early morning fish, but nice K's. Water temps on the White River at 48.9 to 50.1 main channel, and back in the pockets the same. Very Clear. Wind light to moderate. Another great day ont he Rock with a truly good and very gracious gentleman. It was my pleasure indeed to host. Good Luck

She would look even bigger yet this weeknd in the Big Bass Deally. Congrats.

Got a couple of days off next week, and might go up, so spoke to a friend that guides up there. Just got is Fed. Lic. He said the Drum Bite Is On. You throw a jig on Lake O. and you are pounding the Drum. He said it is about as good a bite as he has ever seen. They are dropping the lake 4 ft. so it might pay with all the current to look on the main lake points, and bluffends. Reports of temps in the 47 to 55 degree range. Some fish on a wart, most on a stickbait under 10 ft. Im going to see if I can get him to post a weekly report on Lake O. Would that be nice or what? Good Luck

The area you are speaking of has a bunch of names Cozy Cove, Highline Cove, Chateau, "most recent" and of course going in on your right, all the way from the spillway completely around to the Highline past Chateau it has always been Moonshine. Ah! What memories.

Abk, I am having terrible trouble posting pic's. Frankly cannot do it. I have been posting my pic's on my website, as I cannot get OAF, to load the pic's. Had some cool jig pic's and Beck and I holding up those 5 toads, but it would not load. Thanks for the crappie report. Jason Brushy Creek is straight under the 86 bridge and directly ahead. Don't turn to go up long creek, just run right south of the bridge and you are in it just past Gages docks on your left, comming from the bridge.

GYCB has completely gone off my chart. You know I like the texture of the baits the salt and the color and quality of the thin plastic in the pincers and twin tails, but come on! With tax, these things are .80 per bait. And as Buster puts it, you can catch a 1/4 of a fish on each one. They just tear to pieces, in absolutely no time. I have used as many as 4 bags on a guide trip. Very, very seldom can you catch more than 1 fish on a GYCB, without it completely comming to pieces. Take a look at the color patterns and the Lamenents of the Baby Craw Hawg, and you will be on board. This is just about as fine a trailer as you can get outside the real deal. It will also come apart, but it takes more than 1 fish, and a dozen blue gill pecks to do it. Those stupid Yamammoto baits in Gill season are without pincers after about a dozen throws. I'm laughing at myself. I cannot tell you the number of times I have put a new one on and the very next cast, had a gill chew off the pincer. Grrrrr! I hate Gills. If you don't see the oolors you want or you need some quick, call Sonny or Ed at Chompers and have them send you some. Probably should keep my mouth shut on these, but they are just that good. Great guys that know Table Rock, front to back.

What a magic day on the Rock. Beck and I have been having ourselves quite a run of late. Last four team events, we now have a 1st. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. place finish, not to mention Big Bass and Side Pots. It seems like things just kind of come together for us sometime during the day. March for me has became a monster. Started right off the bat on Sunday. Took us under 1/2 hr. to put a limit in the boat, thanks to being "Lucky Rather than Good." Both of us struggled the previous 2 days, on both guide trips and Beck in the derby on Saturday. He was not the only one, as 4 fish won the silly deal. Did kind of figure out a thing or two. First, they didn't want a stickbait. Second they did want a Jig. The day before in the derby Beck had 3 small keeps he didn't even weigh in. But!! they deposited a load of bay crawfish in his livewell. Also a good Buddy thanks Denny had caught a limit on a jig and let me know. Thanks Denjac. Suprise, Suprise, we started out with a jig, instead of the NO_BITTIN_STICKBAIT we had been wearing the paint off of. Mostly used a 3/8 Chompers, or a bigger 5/8th. oz Pig Sticker Jig with the new Chompers Baby Craw Hawg. "Hey Guys and Gals." These tru-to-life trailers are $2.99 for 10 baits. G. Yamammoto can shove his 7 plus dollar traliers. The Chompers are BETTER, reguardless of price. Fish were pretty much in the same places we had been throwing the stickbait, but wanted the jig. Had two Big fish right off the bat and in kept on commin. You know it is your day, in March, when you see bass pushing shad, and we did. So did Denny. We had the jigs in hand and just threw them in front of the pushes. Fish we caught were big. Just the right place at the right time. I don't care who you are, you don't catch 5 bass weighing almost 27 pounds on a sunny day on the Rock, without some luck. Fished 3 locations all day and made a milk run. They bit consistantly untill noon, and then it was over, but we had our poke of fish by then. Culled an additional limit of LM. Culled a limit of Jaw's and culled another limit of very nice K's. At one point right off the bat we had two complete hogs in the boat and Beck caught a 17 inch K. He said, "that one won't measure, and started to throw it back. I said, "Dude, you are trying to Cull at 2 and a half pounder, and it is our limit fish. He goes, "OOPS! after looking at 5's and 7's, these K's look like Babys." We got rid of it 30 minutes later. Should have let him throw her back. Funny deal, we did leave one point that we had caught two 5 pounders on and another boat came in and caught a limit off the same point. Thankfully not as big. Looked like one of the guys was swimming a grub and the other was walking a jig down the stair step point. At that time, we had-em, so we figured we would just take our chances. That was the biggest 5 fish bag either one of us has ever caught on the Rock in a combined 75 years of fishing this lake. We have both caught bigger bags on Lake O. Beck and Kelly Power had 5 fish that weighed 33 pounds and I was guiding a couple of friends up there one day in the early 80's and we had 15 keepers that weighed 79 pounds and 14 oz. "Check this out." All on a BUZZBAIT. Again, another fantastic day with one of my BESTEST Buddys.

White River Outfitters Fishing Report Main lake Surface temp 48 to 51 degree and clear River Arms, Surface temp 52 to 58 tea color to stained Man this crazy pond is jumping around like a Mexican Jummpin Bean Friday was like a Moon Shot, with the lake being the Moon and just about as desolate. Saturday in the High wind, not much better. Can you believe it only took 4 fish to win a CPA Lone Pro derby in MARCH!!! Sunday things kind of broke out a bit. Spoke to Chuck Grise and he and son Adam had a very nice afternoon in the dam area, cranking a Wart. 7 fish with two over 5 pounds. Fish were shallow, under 12 feet. Lots of fish in Joe Bass derby came to the scales that were grub caught. Some over deep trees, some on the outside of the tree line and others swimming it on windy gravel. Jig bite is also starting to pick up on main lake bluffends, secondary points, pockets and tight cuts in staging locations. These fish range from suspended over the deep sides to anchored in the 12 to 26 foot range along the ledges and breaks. If conditions are right, it is possible to see some chasing fish. Don't believe they are ready for top water yet, but some type of a subsurface presentation will get their attention, if you can put it in front of them. Lots of very nice bags of fish weighed in on Sunday. 42 boats and as the trend has been it took one over 8 pounds to be big bass 7 pounder was second. Loads and loads of 5's and 6's. Beck and I got very lucky and you can read my report and see a few pic's on www.whiteriveroutfitters.com Just on of those days. Best bet lakewide right now is the jig, 3/8th. to 5/8th. will get them. There is still some crankin available and the stickbait bite should be better than it is. You know before long we are going to be dragging that Dr. Of course Tim Paige already has with limited success as of yet, but it is only days and they will be on it like green on grass. May try the Whites and Crappie tomorrow on my trip, but after the day we had on Taney with lots of 2 and 3 pound bows, he may want to fish the cool water. Good Luck

Donna, I think it is just that Da!!--Dam area that the bite is ragged. However, Beck reported it to be pretty slow in Kimberling this morning. We are going to fish Joe Bass on Sunday. You and I both know, these fish are on the verge of breaking loose. You can bet when we come out of Fisher on Sunday, we will not be turning left, unless there is plenty of wind. We did last weekend get into a pretty good Jaw bite in a couple of flat windy pockets. They were nice Keeps, but just not big enough to trade out. We also got slammed a few times and didn't hook up. Tends to make you think the flat gravel bite in the dam area, is not far away. I'm no longer allowed to cull, as I tend to get excited and throw to many fish back. Another week like the one I had last week, and I will be relegated to boat driver and net man and food and drink man only. "Gosh, Becky would let me do that at the Lodge." Come up and spend some of that big Arkansas Money on Sunday. We will contribute to the Fann Brothers retirement fund together. Good Luck Bill

Started this morning out of Rock Lane with Dave W. and his Dad. Dave is a long time client and good friend. His Grandma has a place next to our's at Shell Knob. We usually fish up there. Wish we would have today. What a complete "GAR HOLE." We fished from 7 AM till 10:30 AM and just flat STUNK IT UP! I have never seen a slicker, flater, no fish catchin water than was in the dam area this morning. It was just depressing. 1 nice SM to the boat, 1 K got off in transit, and 3 simi-solid tugs were it for us. Spoke to most every guide on the water today trying to get some help, but nobody had any for me and were wanting any I had. Surface temp at 48 degree from State Park to Point 5. Just a complete and total disaster this morning. If you caught them in the dam area this morning, bless you. Wish I would have called ya. Threw a jig, Float-n-Fly, swam a grub, and of course jerked. Jerkbait was the only fish and bites we had. Dam area, is to tough on flat water for me right now, and it showed this morning. Good Luck

Another really good tenique right now is using a 1/2 micro suspended under a carrot float using 2 pound line. Fish it pretty deep, about 7 ft. from Fall creek thru Trout Hollow, on the Bluf Branson Side Bank. Day before yesterday my clients landed well over 200 bows with this presentation. They went back on their own yesterday and did the same thing with the water running. Use either a olive/copperhead or olive/flo-orange head on the micro. They are completely deadly right now. In the restricted zone, with two generators I am using a full Pink wth Chrome head and dropping a size 14 grey scud under it. I am running the combo about 10+ft. Throwing it on a 7' spinning rod. If you are fishing a flyrod, I would have the dropper a minium of 14 ft. on two generators. Chuck Grise has just been tearing them up with a scud/and egg combo.