Quillback

Congrats! A true Polar Bear, that was a cold wind blowing yesterday.

I'll probably never do it, but thanks for the advice!

I like rock piles. I like brush piles too.

Neat looking fish. Always thought it would be neat to have an aquarium with some darters in it.

Personally, I'd rather have you and any others that know where the big ones live, send me a map with the correct spots circled. Going out on the lake and looking for bent poles, even with the use of binoculars, is tedious.

There's a place in Huntsville AR that I have hunted a few times. It was good training for the pooch. Farm raised quail are pretty tasty too, good to go home with a few. Can't beat hunting wild birds though, and I miss my days of hunting pheasant, quail, and chukar when I lived in Washington.

Good to hear you are getting it back!

Went yesterday myself, caught a dozen short fish on Ned rigs. Lots of junk in the water from the rising water and some stain too. Not seeing any deep fish at all.

Looks like a gully washed out.

That is one big animal. Would be interesting to know what it weighed.

Get to stay as nice digs and do some fishing, that is great! Looks like you had the bank fishing all to yourself too.

That's a good 4 hours!

WOW! Now that is a walleye!

Tell me Rick isn't happy! How was the fishing yesterday?

Didn't know those cinder blocks broke down over time.

That is the one thing I hate about jerkbaits are all those sharp hooks flying around when dealing with a fish. I have started mashing down the barbs on the front treble.

My only frogging experience was going with my grandad and one of his buddies gigging them at night in a SE MO drainage ditch. Carbide headlamps, and they'd scan the shore looking for their eyes then stick them. They had a fish basket full of frogs when we left. I was too young to use one of those gigs, but it was fun to go and something I still remember 50+ years later.

As you all probably remember, last year BassPro had that amateur tourney where the championship was held on Table Rock in November. One of the messages they were using was that the proceeds would go to "conservation". They never explained what they meant by conservation and I was a bit skeptical I must admit. This morning when Dutch and I got to the Big M ramp there was a pile of cinder blocks at the waters edge. Didn't know who dumped them there, but we speculated that it had something to do with a habitat project. When we came in at 1230 when we were done fishing, there were a least a dozen cedar trees laying on the lower end of the parking lot. Good sized cedars, I'd guess 12-15 foot tall trees, not little Christmas tree deals. While we were there, a few more were dragged in by COE pickup trucks and there were several COE people working in the area, cutting trees and dragging them to the lot. Talked to one of the COE workers for a minute or two and he explained that they had received a grant from BassPro, which were proceeds from the tournament series and they would be there until next Thursday at Big M cutting trees and placing them in the lake. I didn't ask, but I bet they will drop them vertically creating a standing timber effect. They plan to refresh existing piles and will mark them on the MDC brushpile app. It won't be local to Big M, but lake wide. It's also good to see them clearing those cedars out of the park, it was getting overgrown with them. Kudos to BPS and the COE for the habitat work!

Fished with Dutch today, we launched at 0700 and fished until 1230. Fishing was fairly tough today, we boated 22 between the two of us, with 3 keepers. 2 of the keepers were smallmouth caught by Dutch. We caught every fish on the Ned rig. I did fish an ice jig a couple of times when the boat was over fish and had one hookup on it, but that was it. Most of the fish were shallow, which was kind of weird, very few bites out in the 20 foot zone were they usually are this time of year where I fish. Dutch is always very generous and gives me tackle that he makes himself and he makes quality stuff. I am very appreciative. Didn't check the WT, but I bet it was in the 51-53 degree range. Good day for eagle watching while waiting for that bite.

Fished from 9 AM to 3 PM today, did not plan on going as the forecast yesterday was for rain starting early afternoon, but this morning they changed it to no rain until after three, and then a slight chance. The fishing was tough, got bites, caught a dozen bass, but most were small, less than 14". Caught a nice meanmouth near the ramp right before I left and that was my only keeper sized bass. They were not interested in crank baits today, caught them on the Ned rig and a few on top. There were some scattered on top back in Indian creek and if you could get on them when they were up, they would bite. A few stripers around, but not many, I had one chase my top water in and turn away from it near the boat. Even though this guy isn't big, I took a pic because he ate a top water in December. Mr. Mean

I was wondering where Dock-n-it was too, glad to see you back at it. There was a bit of a top water bite on the lower end of Beaver today, water had to be flat calm. Only managed a few small ones on top.