Bill Babler

Get the 411 and let us know, it would be much appreciated.

Boy's I am also looking with much viror, for a fiberglass jon. Just would like to have something I could pull easily and have confidence in putting 3 large clients in plus myself to fish the tailwaters, and a few yearly foreays to the big lake for crappie. Sill going to use the big bass boat for the major stuff on the lakes. Here is the deal. Being a guide, there are some discounts available that the most of you don't get. We can get some of these, just for advertisement purposes of putting lots of butts in boats. My problem, is for the life of me I can't believe how expensive these rigs are. The best price I can get on a Supreme 60L with a SC Livewell combo, and a short back deck with a 9ft. rod box, and a full length tray on each side with 50 hp yamahamer and EZ Load or Bear Trailer, is pushing $15,000. Retail closer to $17,000 on the dealers I am speaking with. No factory discounts or direct buys, for the guides like the bass boat companies. Where am I going wrong? Might need to look at the Carolina Skill JVX, but got a feeling it is higher yet. Has anyone been in or used the 60L from supreme? Let me know your thoughts, Thanks Bill

Beck and I hit the water a runnin at 7:30 this AM in the Kimberling City area, to cloudy skies and a slight chop. Water temp at 63.9. We commenced to hurl a wart, jig and blade with fair to middlin too moderate success. It is for sure they are just not everywhere or lining up to jump and snap at a bait. Once you find some however, they seem to be in pretty good concentrations. Short porches is what I call where the best fishing was. You could call them secondaries, but some were main lake and that is not a secondary. Cuts of a 100 yrds. or so deep, the fish seemed to be on the windy side about 1/4 to 1/2 way back. Nothing on the blade, but 5 good keepers up to 4 pounds and about 15 shorts on the wart and jig. Wind switched to the North about 11 AM and that was it. Chris Tetrick had 8 good keepers in the same area we were fishing on similar locations, and even some of the same locations that we fished. We caught 3 nice keepers out of one pocket and returned an hour later and caught another and had 3 more pull off. Not everywhere, but lots of fish when you find one. Chris also had an early topwater bite, that we did not get. I believe he a a couple of good ole goodins on top early. Stopped by Baxter marine this afternoon, and they told me some guest staying at the resort next door, were doing really well on a wart in that area along with a split-shot rig. Guy said he had is boat in 15 ft. on chunk and ledge rock, that was about a full cast from shore. Said they saw them cleaning fish all weekend and went to take a look and they were knifing some really nice K's and Smallmouth. Visited a little and there were two boats of them catching limits everyday. Best bite was on the rig. Lots of ways to catch fish on this pond.

Table Rock is 63.5 surface and 61 at 180 ft. I would not think this would be condusive for a stratification from surface to bottom for quite some time if it does at all. Bite continued to be strong for the boys again today as well as yesterday. Chris reported he and Brian Snowden had some very nice keepers on the wart and a couple on top plus tons of shorts, that kept the action really zinging. Fish did not run as big as they did on Wednesday. Fish seem to be located on the secondaries to the rear of the major creek arms and in the small pockets back in the creeks. Beck caught them again today. and said they were REAL BIG. He and I are going to give it a fling tomorrow before the front, and hopfully we will whale on em. Let you know weather it is good or bad Good Luck

Drove down to Tucker Hollow, yesterday, just wanted to see the lake. Water was in great shape, but the bank for 50 to 100 feet up looks like a dead zone. Going to be lots of dead stuff for a while. Lots of dead big giant oak trees in that area. Fished there this Spring, before the rains and the shoreline consisted of tall grass medows and a park like setting. Now it just looks bleak. Time and nature will be quick about fixing it however. Had to chance to speak to a couple of guys that were pulling out, and both reported lots and lots of small bass up to about 11 inches. Both had been looking for crappie and walleye, and had not found any. Trolling and live bait were the presentations, they were making.

Just about to get well, and I missed an opportunity to really catch them yesterday. Beck and Tetrick were out in the Point 7 to Point 1 area throwing warts and jigs. They asked if I wanted to go, but am giving it still a day or two. Bite was reported on flat to 45 degree banks with some chunk. Wart was way better than the jig and I believe they had 17 keepers with the best 5 at around 19 pounds, with lots of big SMJ's. These lobster eaters are really after the daddy's right now and from what the boys said, they are in water that barley covers there backs. Look for a little breeze on this type of bank lake wide and I am sure you will have a great time. This is also the info, that was posted from the Stren series except, I don't believe the boys had any topwater stuff yesterday. I'm out there at the end of the week. Good Luck

Have been abit under the weather the last week and had to pay the Dr. a visit. Auther Hale. His parents own Beaver Creek Boat dock. He was down there both sat and sun and reported seeing really nice limits of big crappie coming to the ramp along with lots and lots of whites. The whites were not big but plentful. Anyone got any info on the where fores or the how toos?? Been pretty quite until now, let us no. Sounds like it may really be good.

Capt. D. described it to a T. Thanks D.

After reading Fishrmans friday report, why in the world would you want to put in at Indian Point? Kimberling City to Baxter to Shell Knob is fishing better than good, with fish not only near the bank, but eating things bass around here usually spit at. With limited lake knowledge and only short fishing times, you are making a huge mistake. Yes there are nice fish between point 1 and point 5, but they are HAMMERED AND HAMMERED. You think Taney is tough, you will learn what that truely means in the area you are launching. Yes Donnie and the locals that fish the area will catch them, but 200 days a year on the water plus the hundreds of hours they put in down there make a huge difference. Go up and put in off H hwy. at BAxter and throw that blade on any wind. It that is not present, a FB or Rig in 18 to 32 ft. on all the flat roll-offs, between Point 19 and Campbell Point will get you bit. Very Best of Luck

Phil pretty much nailed it. There are two common ways to tie tandems. Some companies Orvis for example will tie a loop on the tail of some of their dry flys as a hanger for a dropper, to use a traditional Western rig. Using not only the dry for an eatable presentation, but also as a strike indicator for a dropped fly. Example, a zebra midge. I simply tie to the loop with an improved clinch. When using a dry as an indicator, I never use fluracarbon leader from the flyline to the fly, as this is a sinking material and will put drag on the dry. Just mono is fine. I will from the dry to the dropper use, usually 5 or 6X carbon. This will help the second fly down, and also has less memory than mono allowing the rig to be a little more tangle free on your presentation. On our deep nympthing rigs that we are using now, I tie the first fly, usually a sanjuan worm directly to the leader. I am using 5X. About an 18 inch dropper is added and this is a weighted fly of some kind, usually a scud. I am dropping this on 6X FC. It is attached to the bend of the worm hook, continuing a straight line. You can also tie this by using a plamar knot when tying on the sanjuan, running both ends of your line thru the hook eye, and then tying an overhand knot to the eye, and using the tag end, as your dropper to the bottom fly. Sometimes this is very deadly as it allows more free movement of the top fly, as it is not anchored at both ends and is not inline. When using a small micro jig as the top fly it is a very easy tie using the plamar. This rig requires no weight as the jig or bead head on the nympth supplies all the weight you need. When tying this rig make sure your top fly is hook-up rather than hook down and it will increase your catch rate. If you tie it to your line and the hook is down, simply run the tag end back thru the eye of the hook and it will turn the fly. This is probably only going to be possible with 6X and flys that are 14 and larger as the hook eye is pretty tight. When casting the trot-line presentation, Indicator, splitshot, topfly, bottom nympth. Try if possible to throw an open loop as to keep the flys from tangling. This is easy to do by forcing the butt of your rod in a downward thrust as the back cast starts to come forward. Driving the butt of the rod down, will open your loop allowing all the parts to turnover and layout. Do not cast and recast as all this junk takes a while to get down. Simply mend and you can also pull the line back and redrift, keeping your tandem down, while drifting in a boat. Hope this helps

Have been guiding 2 trips a day for the last week. This is my first day off in quite a while, and then back at it this weekend. Most all on upper taney. Water temps continue to be in the 63.3 range, depth has been very shallow even under 4 generators. Seems no matter the flow the depth is remaining pretty constant. I am not seeing numbers unusual as far as dead fish. Yes there are some in the holes, but there always are. Fishing has been just about as good as it could be with the exception of day before yesterday when the water ran just about as mossy as I have seen it. A very green slime. Even that day Vince had fly fisherman on the upper river and did very well. Tandem patterns boat fished from the dam thru Short Creek are very good. size 14 san-juan worms in either red or pink and trailing a 14 to 16 ginger scud are really producing. Fish yesterday were full of fight and really quite nice. Had 8 browns up to 16 inches. About 12 ft. seem to be a very good leader length from the indicator to the split, using 2 BB's and then 1 ft. to the worm and another ft. to the scud. Other boat guides not fly fishing were doing very well dragging egg patterns and scud combo's, on 1/8th. oz drift rigs. Fish seem to be reappearing on the flat above Fall Creek. They have not been there all Spring and Summer. We caught fish on it every drift yesterday and they were spitting size 16 and 18 scuds by the mouthful. Did see quite a bit of activity along the bluff banks early, but when we later in the day with drys and droppers they were not interested. I believe an early dry fly bite does exist, so look for rising fish early. Out of the restricted zone the crawler fishing remains strong clear to Lilleys' Lisa Lilley in the office reports a very strong bite on gulp power worms and also Berkley Bubble Gum worms worked on drift rigs thru that area. She has sold out of these baits over the weekend, but is now restocked. Some of our fish are thin, but the majority are very healthy and vibrant. Good Luck out there

Kind of had my head handed to me on a platter this afternoon. Was fishing twin rivers out of the knob and had made 1 pass catching 4 with 1 keeper, and a green ranger pulled in on me, with a couple of older gentlemen and a yapping red weener dog. They were throwing rigs with weights about the size of tennis balls and it looked to be a black with orange clawed craw. I saw them catch 4, don't know the size, but they looked to be on fish. Good for them. Fished from 2 to 5 PM and caught 16 with 5 keepers on 4 locations. Keepers with small slender K's that would have weighed nothing. Shallowest fish was 16 ft. deepest was 46 ft. Jig and rig were my friends. Just threw it out shallow and dragged it to 50 on all the locations, 1 cast unless I captured a fish and then recast. Let the wind blow me and when it was not enough used the troller. Saw some suspenders, and dropped a shot with the purple/brown lamb, but they ran from it like poision. Good Luck out there

Crappie, The Finny Critters I have caught out of cedars boarders on the insane. I'll give you a couple of examples. Off a Long run-out bluff end up at Shell Knob, the Locals call Wood Duck Point, I was working a fin thru a small cedar, and "Wack" I stuck a fish. The fish did not boil the bait, but it just kind of went down. The fish immediatly started to spin, and there you have it a 1.5 pound channel cat out of a cedar top on a fin. Same location, during the heat of the Summer, early one morning just at first light. More concerned with the good deep to shallow water location, which always holds fish, than the cedars, but they never hurt. Again thru a cedar top and this time a very nice blow-up and pretty good fight. 24 inch walleye. Thru back to the same tree and again a nice tag. 17 inch walleye. Both on a broken back fin. This Spring, fishing another Shell Knob point, the bluffend just past Pizza Hut on the oppsite bank. A nice cedar lives there just under the surface. a client was fishing a spook and caught an 8 pound Rainbow. It jumped at least 4 times and was just a blast. It's like Forrest Gump, You just never know. Guiding here full time since the early 90's and fishing the lake since the early 70's, my best and my clients best fish have come from cedars. 4 LM all at 9 pounds. 1 on a buzz-bait, 1 on a spook, 1 on a fin and one on a stickbait. As far as the crappie, yes I have caught some very nice ones from the cedars. Never on top, but have captured a few on a blade, and better yet on the suspending rogue. Give the cedars a whirl. I mean a good chance, don't fish them for an hour of two and say, Heck, they arn't there. Fish them 1/2 a day and see what happens. If I catch 1 out of 25 I feel pretty good. I figure I goof up at least 1/2 of the ones I try and fish, by poor casting. I am kind of like the fly fisherman, looking for the perfect presentation and the correct drift. When it all comes together you have a shot at your Table Rock fish of a lifetime.

With the lake continuing to go down, lots of the cedar-tops are coming into view. A very popular and excellent Fall and Winter pattern is fishing these visible trees, using various methods. Some cedar's are also still to deep to see, but their tops are now extending with-in 10 feet of the surface. These are very good hangouts if you know their locations. Wind is as usual always a help on the rock, and a light chop when fishing these trees is most often a blessing. Here are some of the methods used to take very nice for the most part LM from the tangled limby webs of wood. Topwater. Don't for the most part care what topwater racket maker you are using, only on your precission as a caster. For trees that I know are there, but not visible, I just love running a fin over these fishy spots. Move the bait as slow as it will travel and maintain its wiggle-diggle. Visible trees. I have heard much about the windy sides, or the shadey side. For the most part a cedar does not have or produce much shade. I just look the tree over and see how I can get my bait when retrieved to get as close to the main body of the tree as possible without hanging up. The tougher the fishing is, the closer to the middle of the tree they want it. I could get nothing going out past the limbs, it had to be retrieved thru the middle of the tree. If a hardwood is present or near the cedar, this is most often a plus. Main lake vs cove or creek channel cedars, or just fishing points is not the answer either, as you just flat don't know what tree will hold fish. You just got to hit em all. On Saturday Mine came off a mid-bluff bank. I had a stretch of nothing, then Bang two trees in a row with nice 3.5 pounders and then I missed a couple of more, One of them was Big!! Spoon Fishing the Cedars. Capt. Rick LaPoint is very good at this and has made lots of money spooning the cedars. If you are good, you can vertical jig the trees or just flutter your spoon outsided the limbs. Don't believe it would have worked this weekend, as they were so tight to the trees. Another pattern is deep jigging the deeper cedars, going just into the tops and above to lure bass out of the tangles. Better have good electronics, and know how to read them. Spinnerbaits. Without a doubt the Number 1 bait for fishing cedars. Wind is more than your friend with the SB and working it thru the limbs can get violent strikes. Try killing the bait just as it comes thru the tops, letting its blades flutter just a bit. Sometimes they want it burned thru the tops, somethime a slow roll. Jigs are very good fish catchers out of the cedars, but be prepaired to loose a many. 3/8 and 5/16 are the best, with a good fiber weed guard. Gently pull the jig over the limbs, and know it on the tree as much as possible. After the bait comes over a limb, allow it to fall and repeat. You will loose some baits. Bluegill patterns with orange or yellow are very good offering when making these kind of presentations. Drop-shotting the submerged tops. Ask Bill Beck. Bill has won thousands of dollars doing this in the Kimberling area. Again good electronics and GPS are valuble tools. When fishing the trees for active fish, it seems that the number one asset you can have is accuracy on your presentations. Hanging up in the tree and missing the tree to far with your first cast are most often doom. This year so far I have not caught a fish with a topwater or spinner, that has not been on the first cast at that tree. After catching one multiple cast to the same tree has produced nothing, although in the past I have caught several fish in a tree. Won't get into it here, but my favorite cedar pattern is December thru April and we all know thats Stickbait time. Hope this helps and good luck out there.

Champ188 is Right ON. Nothing derogitory at all about the boats, only the "Numbskulls" that were acting like idiots this last weekend, and if you are one of them, You Know Who You Are. Probably have fished this lake for almost as long as anyone out there, and have owned two Champions, and with God's Blessings, will own another really soon. Everyone knows my best buddy Bill Beck owns one, along with Buster, Jim Thompson, and Jason. Regional Sales Manager is also one of my good friends Greg Wood. This could have been any tournament, but it wasn't. It was the Champion Owner's Tournament. Boats are easy to reconize and have two fisherman. My three nutheads and 188's guys were not the only ones to pull goofy stuff this weekend, there were others as well. Reports from up the James to Eagle Rock were out there about the tournament guys. Chris Tetrick's dad even had a couple of guys pull in on him and tell him they were in the tournament and wanted to fish the point he was on. This was very proper of them, but come on! This is a big lake, when you start asking recreational fisherman to move so you can fish a point for a tourny, its going too far. Chris's dad is a great guy and he gave up his point for them, but I don't believe I would have. The trouble was, they were all in Champion Boats this time. These guys know better than this, for the most part they are some of the best fisherman we have here and also the most curtious. With money on the line this weekend and the fishing as poor as it was, it just got a little out of hand. This is how I see it, and I will change or delete nothing. I am on the water doing my best 300 days a year through every tournament out there and this is what happened this weekend.

"Gosh and by Golly". Usually the best bunch of wellbehaved tournament fishermen we have is the annual Champion tourney, that is going on this weekend. Must not be many fish in the water, cause they sure want the ones others people are trying to catch. I feel a kindredship with the Champion people and kind of feel like they are a bunch of 'Good ole boy locals", but this weekend they have flipped their respective kill-switches, with rude behavior, that they themselves would be the first to scream bloody murder about. Here is the fishing report; Good largemouth are in the cedar tops, and most everyone knows it. Not all the tops, mind ya, but there are some of the right kind suspended there, waiting for grub. I fished about 50 trees Satureday, and would have fished more, but I kept getting cut-off by Champions pulling Right Dab in front of me making throws to a few trees then buzzing off. Had it happen 3 times by 3 different Champs, on three different locations. Did not want to fuss or argue, I just put the boat on the trailer, and went home. Never seen this kind of behavior from them before, but had a couple of guides tell me it was real cut-throat out there Saturday. My 50 trees netted me 2 Big bites and 3 Big Blow-ups. I only fished for a couple of hours, but these cedar fish are for sure tournament winners if you are on the cedar pattern, and you have enough trees. 3.5 pound fish and up are hanging out in these tops. I believe if I fished by myself and did not have to worry about anyone else I could for sure catch several over 4 pounds in a day on this pattern. Maybe Way-Way-Way over four pounds. These are all LM. Guides working yesterday said the bite was real tough, with fish coming from 1ft. deep to 44 ft. Bites came on everything from topwater to swimbaits to crawlers. High sky and High prussure made it hard. Got a feeling today with the clouds and wind will be quite abit better. Had about a 1/2 dozen on the FB before I went tree climbing. Something about fishing these cedars, your cast has to be perfect, and you will only get 1 per tree. You screw up that first cast, and just as well move to the next tree. They want that topwater right thru the heart of the tree just off the trunk. Outside the limbs you might as well forget it. Hang up on a limb or hit the tree, forget it. If he is in the tree and your first cast is good, hang on. Multiple cast to the same tree, gets you Noda. Seems 1 per tree and probably 1 fish every 20 trees. Spook, fin, or other topwater tasty treat seems not to matter. Did throw a blade on some windy cedars for about 20 minutes with no replys. Really hurt and disapointed with the Champion boys, seems money matters more than ever now and good old fashion common sense and curtiosy is out the back door, even to the folks that fish here everyday. Good Luck

Took off from Kimberling City and fished from there to Big Creek. Mostly using crawlers on the deep community holes. Totaled about 20 fish with just only a couple of keepers. I threw the 1/2 oz jig, while the clients dangled. I did not have a bite all morning on the jig. Was done by noon. Tetrick said they bit much better after noon using the same methods. Surface temp is 72 and the temp at 160 ft. is 62, so these fish can be anywhere in the water colume. Lots of reports on early topwater fish and a shallow grub or jig bite. Have not explored it yet but will tomorrow. Clients said their dad was swimming a grub on flat gravel in the cow creek area and catching lots and lots of short SMJ's, lots of fish, but few keepers.

Hi Ya'll from Alasky. Phil and Jim have been keeping my nose to the grindstone, so have not had a lot of computer time. Fishing is just now really starting to turn on with the Fall colors starting to turn the scene to a golden rust. Really, to describe this fishing is just to hard for most of us to comprehend. Yesterday for example, I had to sharply put a guy in his place. Mind you we are catching 25 to 31 inch 7 to 12 pound fish with regularity. One of these dudes hooks a chrome bright 19 incher, and just flat disrespects the fish thinking it was a dink. It nearly kicked his butt on the 7 wt. he was using.. This fish was a full 4 plus pounds and for some reason, it was not good enough. I say a big bull to that. The numbers of quality fish we are catching here in four hours is greater than the output of entire seasons on taney. It is just marvelous. Most fishing is being done with shooting line using 15 pound butt section, to a swivel and from there, using a 3X or a 10 to 12 pound tippett of flurocarbon. We are catching these fish on 6 mil beads, and color seems to be more important than size. The strength and fighting ability of these river athletes, can only be appreciated by whitnessing and having one on the end of your stick. A 14 inch Naknek Rainbow would eat a hole through a 24 inch taney brown trout, and be looking for more. The compairson between the two is there is none. You come up here with 4,5,or 6X and you will be a very sad fisherman. 3X is the higher limit, and for the most part yesterday we were using 1 and 2. Strength of the fish and the very heavy water flows dictate the gear. Arctic Char fishing on the streams flowing into the main lake and river section is without a doubt spectacular. A group of 4 or 5 anglers and catch and release 5 pound char that will bruise your belley from the rod butt from the time you get to the creek till the time you leave. Throw in 18 to 25 inch bows, from time to time and its makes a mixed bag, and an unforgettable day... Weather and bugs are part of the trip, but for the most part the bugs have not been a factor. It has rained and blown sometime during everyday. The river really fits the was I guide at home, using drifting techniques with presentations on the bottom will catch you the best fish of your lifetime. Example of an average day here would be if fishing the Naknek 25 to 35 fish per man, mostly bows with the average at about 3.5 pounds. You will catch an 8 to 13 pound fish most everyday. Flyouts and lake boat travel to smaller streams will be about the same. It is just hard to catch, release and photograph larger numbers, as they are hard to release. Hope this paints somewhat of a picture of the fishing. I feel the next two weeks, will be the best of the season, with lots of egg eaters being caught, admired and released. Becky, hope you are reading this. I miss you and will be home in another week. Keep the home fires burning and the rain out of the house. Love Bill

Got out of Baxter about 6:15 this morning, under perfect conditions, I thought. First location my client and I Had 4 keepers in the boat, all big SJ's in about 45 minutes. Nice fish, up to 3.5 lbs. As the morning continued and the clouds and the breeze kept building, I just knew it was going to keep on keeping on. NOPE, We were done. Fished from Baxter to Campbell Point and only boated 1 more short, a perch and a goggle eye. Is that depressing or what? Kept telling the client, they are going to start, it is just to great of a condition. Looked from shallow to deep on all my secret hiddy holes and the screen on the graph, was flat as a pancake. No shad or suspended fish, no nothing. Might be my last day before heading to Alaska Next week for about a month. Beck and I might go out tomorrow, but we might go trout fishing instead. Keep hearing of this great Buzz Bait Bite, but Chris said they were not having it up the James this morning. Might have just been a tough day, but I also might just have stunk it up. Keep the home fires buring, see you guys when I get back, the latter part of September Good Luck Bill

Bob, Very nice visiting with you at BP yesterday. Looked up your salmon deal, and airfare was about $800.00 so that makes your 7 days under $200 per day for all meals, guide service and lodging. That is half the price of what a stay and fishing trip here in Branson would cost. Checked out every lodge I could find on the Mairmachi and the best package I could find for 5 star accom food and guide service was $550.00 per day. Must be lots of lodges, as there is about 25 listed on the internet. Glad you enjoyed yourself, as any trip is a blast. But posting Atlantic Salmon in the Same breath as Bristol Bay, Arctic Char and Monster Rainbows. Is like compairing a Piper Cub to a Boeing 737. Yes they are both airplanes. Great meeting you, Hope to see you in Alaska BB

This blade bait is widely used on Table Rock. Applications favor cool water vertical jigging, but it was a absolute killer when the white bass were hanging at the new overflow in front of Chateau on the Lake the last three years. Not this year, as they never showed with the high water. It has been part of most guides arsonnal along with the spoon, and grub for many years, along with the Ice Minnow. Bob Tindle featured a complete section in Bass Master Mag. about 10 years ago on these blade baits. How to: When and Where to use them. You can probably check their archives. Hope this helps.

The translucent fog hung at eye level over the swirling black/grey water. The fog’s misty fingers danced at the top of the wolf willows, their leaves already fringing in yellow, as their sugary blood retreated to its winter home deep in the Alaskan Tundra. Cold salt wind from the Cape pushed inland causing me to wiggle deeper into the pillow soft fleece jacket as I marveled at the splendor being painted before me on the banks of the mighty Naknek River. My tranquility was short lived, as I was harkened back to reality, with the “slap, slap” of a beavers tail, resenting my presence on his river. It was time to fulfill the dreams that had sent me to this far off location. The custom made 7wt that had been tucked under my arm was brought into view. Its bright orange zip-line was attached to a short 6 ft. leader of 20 pound hold-em at all cost Big Game Line, 2 ft. of 15 pound fluorocarbon, trailed the pencil lead weight, and attached to the food of life for the Naknek Rainbows. The egg imitator at its best. The Bead. Casting shooting line with pencil lead, will not win you favorable reviews from Joan Wolfe, however, this “Chuck and Duck” presentation is what is on the menu for the monsters lurking in these deep swirling waters. ‘High Stickin’ this presentation on the undulating bottom of the Naknek, is the best way to get thunderous strikes in September. On my third throw, “I did not say cast or presentation”, the rods vibration as the weight ticked the bottom stopped. The hook set was not a jerk or a snap, but a forceful lift. As the tiny size 6 shrimp hook penetrated cold flesh, the electricity jolted thru the rod. The pressure on the bowed fly rod was fierce as 60 feet of line screamed smoothly off the large arbor reel. The fighting butt of the rod, dug into my ribcage. I knew it would be bruised, but these are hard won battle scars. Don’t go home without them. As if a moment pausing in time, the line went slack, and the silver, crimson cheeked torpedo, completely cleared the surface in a spectacular Arial display. Keeping, my wits about me, I gained as much slack line as possible. No sooner had this been done than 60 more feet of line screamed off the already warm to the touch reel. The great fish made what may be considered another jump I call it water gymnastics, a complete cartwheel. With a huge splat he crashed back into the water, spray shooting 6 ft. into the air. Any judge would have given the warrior a score of 10. Begrudgingly at first, and mind you never like a dog on a leash, the 34 inch 15 pound chrome and crimson Naknek giant came to heel. As my fingers touched the bright hard side of the fish, emotions flooded over me in that familiar shiver that runs the entire length of your body. This is not what dreams are made of. This is the dream. This is the place where dreams come true. This is Alaska. If you have this dream, Phil and I would love for you to join us this September in Magnificent Alaska, We are here for but a blink of time, we hope you don’t miss it.

T. I have been on Taneycomo ever since the lightning day. Every day, chasing those rascules the slick and feisty rainbow trout. Have not posted as I have not been on the rock. If I'm not fishing an area, I don't feel I can give an accurate report, just on hear-say alone. Tetrick has been out and I believe Don yesterday. One of these guys needs to chime-in. Don't think its real positive however. Good Luck out there.

Don't know why these very nice Rainbows are back on the white jig, but they really are, if the jig is presented right on the bottom. Had very good success Saturday, with a San-Juan Worm in Bright Red, but they were not having it today. Other than Phil and I, there were several other guides in the restricted zone this AM, and to answer Lenards question, one had two clients fly fishing. Had taken one of the clients previously and he kept looking at me dropping his head, giving the thumbs down. Guide however, said they were on a San-Juan pretty good in the afternoon. Don't believe they were munching on it in the morning, as I drifted with them all morning, and they seemed to be struggling from what I could see and the reaction of the clients. Another boat spin guide was up also, and said he was strugging "Big Time" drifting an egg pattern and scuds. He headed for Branson, leaving more for us. These fish are very nice, thick and very full. As Phil said our's ranged from 14 to I think our best, may have been close to 20. Boy's said we only had one under 12 inches, and that was a brown. Measured 5 at about 19 looking for that catch and release certificate for the lads, but didn't get it. Kept pretty close count on the numbers, as the boy's said there was $10.00 riding on the most fish. 34, Phil cheated us two. Really had 35, cause I caught 1. the bite really lasted longer than I thought, cause the fog continues on the water. As soon as it brightened up, and the sun hit the water hard, that was it. Great day with my buddy. Glad he got his Guide lic. Clients are really going to enjoy fishing with him, when I can get him out of the office.

Taxi, I for the life of me can't remember the young mans name. Give the girls at Lilleys' a shout, they will have his card and know, is name and number.