Bill Babler

Was able to pop back up Sunday thru yesterday and get after the Turkey's and Crappie. Fished from the 62 mile mark to the 59 mile mark Brown's Bend to Proctor. Ended up with 24 total crappie over 12" with the biggest at 16" 3 days of fishing for about 6 hrs. a day. Just fishing the bank. Water was 63 and chocolate milk muddy, pretty had on this Table Rock boy. Most of the crappie I caught and that was probably 60+ total were main creek arm and main lake, not in the pockets or small coves. Most were under 10' deep. Rainy Creek, Proctor and Golden Goose were simply packed with boats and fishermen. One set fishing the bank but the middle of these creeks were crowded with spider riggers to the point of just unbelievable. Should have taken a photo but at one point I could count 22 boats all spider rigging the Florida Beach area of Rainy Creek. Visited with several of them all nice folks and they were catching them. Lots of shorts and small males. No one was catching what they wanted as far as size was concerned. There was a team of two ladies running eight 16' rods and they just seemed to be catching fish at a rate I have never seen. Talked to them and they said the day prior they went thru 30 dozen minnows and had caught and released well over 200 crappie. I think there must be a big derby coming up and they said they would not have had a decent bag out of the 200 they caught. Another fun several days on Lake O. This post has been promoted to an article

Absolutely on the treble. But, I have heard Ish Monroe and Byron Velvick both state to never set the hook on a big swimbait, just wait till your rod loads and you will be much better, but you will still miss fish. Both believe on gizzard shad that the fish try to kill them before they eat them. They believe that they slam into the big gizzard and then position themselves in front of the struggling bait and swallow it head first. If they were eating it on the strike most often it would be tail first and they cannot get them down that way. Both also believe if they do take the shad in tail first they will huff it out after mauling it and re-swallow it head first. Same with blue gill or crappie when they try and eat them. Threadfin they just gulp. MIke told me the reason that Velvick could not make it on the tour, was because he would not put that tennis shoe down. Said he would try and fish it in a trout pond.

Tap, the guides at the dam are still crying the blues. Most of the gulls are gone, but the fishing is still extremely slow. I did hear that a few Jaws are starting to show up on gravel. Best bite by far and not even close as of this morning was still the jerk bait, on any wind, with the bait just sitting motionless. Most all the moss has gone, but nobody is getting much of a shallow bottom bite. Point 9 up the White clear to Quill's country is where the bite is including Baxter and Shell Knob. If you want to catch numbers and at times some size, you need to trailer up.

Bill moved to Florida full time, I haven't seen him in several years. Last time we talked, Bill B. and I had breakfast with him at Ma's. He was living in Florida and full time crappie fishing. Bill R. should get a lot of credit for bringing the float n fly to Table Rock and also the Big Swimbait. He went from the tiny to super big and they both worked. Several years ago Robbie Dotson was catching huge walleye on Bull Shoals on the 9" storm. I went down there and threw it and caught a 8 lb. walleye and several bass over 5 lbs. I also caught quite a few that were an inch or two larger than the bait. That was in the Fall and we were targeting the same places we fish post spawn, channel swings and bluffends. Beck and I fished them to suspended LM on bluffends when we caught that huge bag. There is a trick to fishing them and the number of bites you get will amaze you. They will just slam the bait trying to kill it. At times however its not in their mouth and you need to feel the pressure of the fish. The number of hookups will also make you frown. Any size K will slam them and they will also catch some really big Jaws. On the bite, never set the hook, just wait till the rod loads and pull back. If you go to snap setting the hook on the bite, you will put them down in a hurry as most times you will catch nothing. A few years ago I caught a huge Jaw in front of Ab's on one while he and his brother were practicing for the Big Bass Bash. I tried to get him to throw it but you know how those Mizzou guys are, you got to show them.

I have used and caught fish on the 5",7" and 9" Storm WildEye Shad. There are 10 million soft swimbaits to chose from and i would not spend any money on them till I threw the WildEye for a while. They are cheap and WILL catch fish. Beck and I caught 25 pounds on them we used the 5 and 7 in a derby quite a few years ago, the first week of June. They are a post spawn bait for sure. Good luck

Fantastic. Be up that way later next week, keep them biting for me.

Jig

4-10-19 Table Rock Lake mid-lake report. White River Outfitters Had the great fortune to fish with Mike today out of Baxter and it was really more catching than fishing. Started at 6:45 and fished till 1, the last couple of hours in a pretty hefty breeze. Mike had not fished that far up the pond so we looked at a lot of different stuff. Surface temps between Baxter and Campbell pt. ranged from 60 to 64 degree. Water is gin clear. Lots of numbers with the biggest fish at 2.35 but about 30+ others that were for sure fun. I got to fish and that is always a treat. Mike is a very good hand with a stick bait and showed it today as the jerk bait bite was simply crazy. Most fish came on steeper secondary banks in big creek arms and major spawning pockets. I think Mike was a bit astounded by the depth that I kept the boat most all day. We used a purple back and a pro-blue for most of the damage and at times you could see the fish flash and take the bait. 60 degree water and they wanted it completely still and would just come up and hammer it after you turned its head. Kind of like top water under water. If they missed it they would for the most part come back and just jump on it. We fished a Keitech and a ned with little success, I believe I had 6 on the swimbait and Mike had one on ned, Great day with a great guy. Good Luck

Becky has a couple staying here at the Lodge from Rogers. He took last week off to fish Beaver and this week to fish the Rock. Guy said he has fished Beaver for 30 years and never had such a week as he had last week on crappie. Fished the 412 bridge area and said it was stupid good. Said they were fishing small tube jigs under a float and minnows under a float in about 6-8ft. of water. Said the water had a perfect crappie stain. He should have stayed down there as he is not having such a good go up here. He did get into Big whites up Long Creek and said is was fantastic for about 2 hrs. yesterday evening.

Good. Looked like they were open for business as we fished in front of there today

Didn't Tom Mann catch a spotted bass over 7 lb. in a BASS practice day here? It was a long time back.

Please refrain from fishing that runnout that you caught the smalljaw on. That location has to have a daily permit and is extremely secrete.😂

One of our guests this week was fishing a Beetle Spin on the gravel just across and above Viola Marina and caught a dozen really nice ones. Said he was fishing for whites and the crappie kept getting on. They are still swimming there unless someone else caught them as he threw them all back. He had some nice ones. Said they were about 10' deep. Good Luck

Bite was great early on a shad fly. Got to the dam at 6:45, and by 8:45 we had a couple of dozen to the boat. It got really tough then as the area looked like a boat parking lot for a Chiefs game. Only thing missing was the tailgaters. Some pretty crazy driving up there, a deep V with 3 guys shot between me and a pontoon plowing and put about 4 inches of wave over the side of my boat. He must have been pretty mad at the fish to drive that crazy. By 9;30 it cleared out. We switched to a jig and float with the jig about 9' deep and again caught them decent. Lots of quality rainbows and most looked way better than they did yesterday, some full bodies. Had a 20+ inch very fat and heavy Brown but cannot get it to load right now, hope to get it later. Good Luck

Gary with a bit of a Boarding House reach here. I'm going to piggyback on here with you Jester. I had Gary and Lynn out this morning on the upperend. We were the first boat to the dam at 0700. First 5 passes from the cable to the ramp we averaged about 5 per pass. Nothing big and a lot of the fish we caught were really long and skinny. Hard to believe with all the food coming thru. Most were chocked full of sow bugs and scuds with a round tummy, but not carrying the body mass you would expect. Didn't see any shad at all and only one gull and it was there a short time, so there must not have been much coming thru. There are thousands of gulls from the Long Creek Bridge to the dam on the Rock, so they are not there for nothing. Caught most of our fish on a shad fly but also did well on a size 14 Y2K and size 12 grey soft back scud. Moss got really bad for dragging the shad fly about 9:30, have no idea why but it really started flowing. We drifted out of the zone and down to Lilleys' using the scud and Y2K below the line. Had several more from Fall Creek to Phil's. This post has been promoted to an article

Thanks Wrench. I'd love to do just that.

One crappie and one walter would be more than enough. Great Job Quill, looks like you had a blast.

Bed and Breakfast Inn's of Missouri had their Spring meeting at Lake O. What a good thing for me.😂 Got to go up and stay and fish with Ed and Debby Franko at Bass and Baskets about the 5 mile mark on Beautiful Lake of the Ozarks. For those of you that don't know Ed, he is the ultimate good time. Has a really good idea on whats going on at the dam area. We fished from the 5 mile mark to the dam. Water was pretty cloudy even by Lake Ozarks standards and ran from 47 to 51 degree. After a pretty slow start on flat water, we got some breeze and the surface temps started to rise. With that so did the bass and the bite. We had 18 fish with 7 really nice keepers. One being a Super Hog Mama. I was more than holding my own, but the "Big Boy" caught the big girl on a custom painted megabass 110. And get this, Birthday Cake was the custom color. a Ed has been custom painting some baits in his spare time and has just some super colors, a lot of them are really Table Rock sound and the Birthday cake is for sure one of them. Here is a pretty good picture of it. Opaque with violet purple back. Just sounds like food. Triple jerk, pause for several seconds. They hit it when it was sitting still as usual. We also caught them really good on a Jewel Spider Jig in Ozark Craw with a Eakins GP trailer. Slow hop on the jig and they would swim off with it. I did pretty well when I wasn't getting front ended on the docks and managed 5 of the keepers, I caught one on a stick bait and the rest on a jig, breaking one off at the end that might have been up there with Eddie Boy. Always feels like going home on Lake of the Ozarks and it really is. Locations we fished were inside secondary points, usually about 1/3rd. of the way back in the bigger coves. Rip Rap transition to gravel with any type of a pocket handy and that seemed to be the deal. Ed caught his jerkbait fish right on the bank, and I mean within 5 ft. Jig fish were a little deeper, but for sure everything in the 8' and under range. Most banks were the 45 degree type, but the flatter stuff had fish also. Instead of depth transition, it is ledge to chunk to pea gravel up there. Really good example of rock transition with the fish really close to the change. Very shallow. We saw quite a few crappie fishermen and they were fishing super shallow with a jig about 18" under a float right on the bank, same types of locations. Great food, fantastic company and a green fish or two to make it the perfect day on my old stomping grounds. If your looking for a great B&B on Lake O where the Bass fishing starts right from the dock, give Ed and Debby a call 573-692-6710. I guarantee you lots of belly laughs, a good night sleep and the kind of Fishing and Folks that have made the Lake of the Ozarks one of Missouri's premier fishing and tourist destinations. It is kind of like here right now, its fixin to just get silly. The thing about Lake O. is biggins live there and you can bass fish to catch them. There not swimming 2.8" Keitechs 30 feet deep to catch them. Not knocking what I do for a living, but it is really nice to Big Boy fish once or twice a year. Grrrrrr. Good Luck

Summer most time starts at the first thermocline usually about last of May into June.

Randy, Phil, Marsha, Becky and myself went over for a night last fall and were looking forward to eating at the Grotto. They closed for the day for employee appreciation and we missed it but we will try and get back. We drive over on Thursdays some times for the lunch buffet at M. Mays.it is most always really good. Their twice baked potato casserole is just fantastic.

Great job Steve, but you all look way to bundled up for me.70's the next couple of weeks here so I'm guessing they are going to continue to get on the munch. Thanks for the report.

Great day and very nice fish. Thanks

I put over 1000 charges on my last set. Simply fantastic

I really think it is numbers and volume of fishermen. When I first started guiding in the early 90's we thought that the lake was really pressured. If fact there was no pressure at all. Sophistication of both fishermen and equipment has risen to become a huge factor. As I type this at 6:45 at least a dozen boats are running the Long Creek area. It is relentless pressure. and when you are talking about Long Creek, it can fish extremely small. Guide buddy told me yesterday that you pretty much had to take a number to fish the Kings River. There was several boats in every pocket and going down most all banks, kind of like Bo said, they were fishing everything. I know everyone talks about daylight hours affecting the fish and fauna, but we have pictures from last March and all our trees were out and blooming this time of the year. This year they are just budding. I think we are about a week or two behind. If things have not improved by the second week of April I will be pretty sad.