Quillback

It's looking like a dirty water largemouth bite. Birge is sneaking in there. I haven't watched all day, but so far I have seen few smalls boated.

Looks to be a little slow this morning.

Yeah blowing pretty good hear now. I do wonder why they start relatively late in the morning. You'd think they would start at 0700 instead of 0730. Looks like Wheeler and Birge will make the cut, Connel right on the line.

Lake surface temps are 67 or so, may have come down a bit with the cool nights. I poked around and can't find anything about why they are minimally generating. A couple of years ago the COE stated that the goal was to keep Beaver at 1120 or lower. With this no release situation, it has risen a few feet and is now at 1121.

Done some more looking around, Amazon has a Mossy Oak 10.5 gripper that has the locking feature. The Spor one i have, you have to put the business end inside the fishes mouth then lock it down. If you try and lip them with it, they will squirm out.

Stopped to get some boat gas yesterday at the Shortstop in Garfield. Guide pulled in with his boat on the other side of the pumps and we talked fishing for a bit. He's a trout guide on the river below the Beaver dam. He told me they are having issues with the turbines so they can't release water, except for a minimum amount. As a consequence, water temps in the tail water are in the upper 60's and if it gets much warmer could cause issues for trout survival. Without water releases, Beaver lake is rising too, up 2 feet in the last week. Anyone heard anything about this issue? I can't find anything on it.

The one I have is a Spro. It looks like they stopped making them. Rapala looks to have something similar. They are cheap plastic, but they have a lock down feature which really helps to hold the fish. Only place I can find them on the web is here: SPRO 9 Inch Fish Gripper — Discount Tackle

I watched some this morning. A couple of guys mentioned they were seeing plenty of fish, but they were hard to get them to bite. Birge is doing well up in the dirty water fishing really shallow. Seems the other leaders are pretty much using their scope in the first period, it may get tough for them once they lose the scope period. Fun to watch, nice day, bluebird skies, water color is a pretty green, but I bet with these high skies, it will be tough sledding for the rest of the day. I hear you Bill on those deep K's, best one I caught yesterday was on a swimbait rolled on the bottom in 35 FOW.

I'm hoping you'll take it out on the lake and catch a bass with it. That would be neat!

The Washington state record rainbow is a triploid. 25 lbs. and change. The Colville Indian tribe runs a net pen operation on Rufus Woods lake, they raise triploid rainbows. Some of them escaped, but they still hung around the pens eating food that fell through the nets, that 25 lber. wandered off and got caught. The tribe started stocking triploids in Rufus Woods shortly thereafter and their are some big ones caught by anglers fishing up there. There are some pics on the webz, just do a search on Rufus Woods rainbows. Big pigs.

That's pretty neat, great finds! Bella Vista city wide garage sale was last weekend too. I never look around because when I do all I see is junk. I guess I am just not persistent enough. I'm always happy when the sale ends because the traffic is crazy.

WOW! Tank City! Congrats!

Launched at 0600 and fished most of the morning, left at 1030. The 2.8 Keitech was my best bait, fish were a bit off the bank, most were in 10 FOW. Also caught a couple on the ned, a couple on a 3/16 oz jig, and a couple on top. There was some top water activity to include stripers early. Did not connect with any stripers but caught a spot and a smallie out there over 75 FOW. Wind got up a bit and that sent the fish down. I have started using plastic grippers to hold fish that I catch on lures that have multiple sets of trebles, I'm tired of getting stuck and with old age comes a certain loss of reaction time - in other words I ain't as fast as I used to be. Biggest smallie was 18". Spawned out fish, fought like an old shoe. All the 14 inchers I caught today fought much harder than that fish. I caught 21 total, 4 were bigger than 15". Did not see any MLF boats. WT 67

Yeah it has never been an easy lake. The FLW had some tough tourneys on Beaver. That being said, it has fished really good this spring, by Beaver standards. I've only watched a bit of coverage today and from what I have seen, the guys doing well are catching smallmouth and they are not down by the dam.

Dudley just caught a 4 lb. 2 oz. meanmouth. Big ol stomach on that fish.

They are fishing, looks to be a little tough out there this morning. Thrift is around a top water bite. If they stay up, he could be off to a good start.

And then there is the triploid controversy, world record rainbow was a triploid escapee from a net pen. 48-Pound Trout: World Record or Genetic Cheat? | WIRED

I'm glad I quit smoking. How things have changed since I was a kid. Back in the day when you had 3 TV channels to choose from, the cigarette companies dominated the commercials- Come to Marlboro Country - and all that. All the actors on TV and in the movies smoked. Everyone smoked everywhere. No age restrictions on cig purchases, when I was in high school you could walk into the convenience store and buy a pack of cigs. 50 cents a pack at the time. When I was in the Army, you could buy a carton of smokes for $3 at the PX, $1.80 at the commissary for a carton. And Zippo lighters, who remembers those? I guess you can still get them. They were refillable, you'd buy a lighter and a can of Zippo lighter fluid.

Now that is an epic story!

Forgot to mention, saw some baby geese out and about swimming with their parents. Seems early, but maybe not.

I may wander over to Indian Creek tomorrow, I don't know if any of them will go after the smallies, but may see some of them in the area. Definitely will catch some live coverage this weekend.

Wuh-oh, the KGB Shad! I have one, I need to give it a shot.

It's been a while since I have been over, the fishing on Beaver has been so good it is hard to go anywhere else. But wanted to change up a little so made the trip over. Slow day for me, 14 bass with 4 being keepers. Caught all my keepers on a c-rigged craw. Had a couple of ned fish and a couple swim bait fish. Lost a couple of good ones, a big spot that came out of the water like a missile, gave a head shake and tossed the ned. Had what I think was a largemouth hooked on the ned, that I got my arm kind of sideways on and had to pause a second to get a good grip on the rod, when I did that, that fish rolled and got off. Grrrrr.... Had a couple of missed opportunities on a swimbait too. Very few deep today, most fish were in 10 feet or less. I'm sure there are some good K schools out there, but I could not find them. Carp and gar are starting to roll around, saw some shad schools close to the bank, they may be getting close to spawning. I read that there was a shad spawn going on over at Grand, so we should be close. Only saw 4 other fishing boats today, surprised me there was so few. WT 69-70

Bull Shoals Lake Creel Survey Results The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently completed a year-long creel survey on Bull Shoals Lake to learn more about how anglers use the fishery. From 2024 to 2025, creel clerks interviewed 423 groups representing 708 anglers. The results paint an encouraging picture of one of Arkansas's premier fishing destinations. The vast majority of anglers on Bull Shoals are Arkansans, with 85% coming from within the state, mostly from counties near the lake. Missouri made up the bulk of out-of-state visitors. Altogether, anglers generated an estimated $5.49 million in fishing trip-related spending, highlighting the lake's importance to the local economy. Black bass were by far the most popular target species, making up 60% of the fishing effort. Bass anglers caught fish at an average rate of 0.91 fish per hour, an improvement over the previous creel survey conducted from 2004 to 2007. Anglers released 90% of what they caught, demonstrating that bass fishing on Bull Shoals is largely catch-and-release oriented. Crappie came in as the second most targeted species at 14% of the total effort, with anglers catching 1.58 fish per hour. Harvested crappie ranged from 10 to 16 inches, and a quarter of legal-sized fish were voluntarily released. Walleye accounted for 11% of the effort, with a catch rate of 0.37 fish per hour. Most Walleye were harvested, with kept fish ranging from 18 to 25 inches. Catch rates for black bass and crappie were generally highest in spring and summer, while Walleye catch rates peaked during summer and fall. Overall, harvest rates remain sustainable, and biologists see no cause for concern about the health of the Bull Shoals Lake fishery. One of the more interesting findings involved forward-facing sonar, which 47% of interviewed groups had equipped on their boats. For bass anglers, sonar users caught more fish per hour than non-users, but harvest rates stayed equally low for both groups, showing that catch-and-release values hold strong regardless of the technology. Walleye anglers using sonar also caught fish at higher rates, but again, harvest rates and fish sizes were nearly identical between the two groups. The biggest difference showed up in the crappie fishery, where sonar users caught fish at nearly ten times the rate of non-users and harvested at four times the rate. While that gap is worth watching, harvest rates for sonar users remain modest overall, and the average size of harvested crappie was consistent between both groups, suggesting the technology is not leading to selective harvest of larger fish. The survey also found that AGFC habitat work is making a difference. Among anglers who knew about the AGFC-constructed brush-pile locations, 72% used them, and nearly half of those anglers reported better catch rates while fishing around the structures. Thank you to every angler who took the time to visit with our creel clerks. Your feedback plays a direct role in helping us manage and protect the outstanding fishery at Bull Shoals Lake.

I'm up early planning to head over there in a bit. I don't anticipate any lake problems as far as debris or muddy water, lake level had been fairly steady, the storms have not dumped a whole lot on us. I bet you'll be fine around KC.