Quillback

Well look at it this way, you got off fairly lightly. Hope you have a quick recovery!

I am going to go out on a limb and say those partridges were probably Hungarian Partridge. I used to shoot a few every year while chukkar hunting in Washington.

I was unhooking a 14" chinook by the side of the boat, freaking sealion came up out of the depths and almost grabbed it out of my hand, I had no idea that SOB was even in the area, I probably jumped about 2 feet backwards. I hate those fat, salmon stealing SOB's.

Good fishing! That might inspire me to haul the boat up there if there's a drop-shot bite going on.

Nice trip for sure. Hear or see any chukkar? There has to be some there, that would be a pretty neat bird hunting trip/float also. Might be some quail around in the brush too.

My namesake species. I hope you thought of me when you caught it. 😄

The south end of Table Rock, the upper White river arm is within your one hour range (I think). There's quite a few neighborhood launches where you can put a kayak in. I know of 2 in Viney cove and a couple in Carter cove. You can also use Eagle Rock and the Big M Corps launches but they will hit you up for a day use pass. Do some scouting and you can find these little used places to launch in coves that work great for a kayak where you can fish and not see a lot of big boats zooming by kicking up wakes. Summer time is tough, especially during the day. But if you get out as soon as it is starting to get light, or fish the evening into the night you should get a shot at a fish or two. Drag a Carolina rig or a football jig in 10-25 FOW. Something to consider for your crankbaits is trolling them, just paddle along with your kayak with enough speed to get the crank near or touching bottom. Sounds like you're a night fisherman, you might get some scary fish trolling cranks at night. I used to fish at night many years ago when I lived on the east coast, had a little 10 or 12 foot fiberglass canoe (can't remember the exact length) I used to haul around in a Chevy S-10. Bass were stupid in back then, I used to fish a black Jitterbug, had a lot of fun.

Glad to hear you got that medical stuff fixed so that you could get out and fish.

Got out at first light with my buddy Mike, we headed down to the Point 5 area and started off fishing a bluff. First bass I caught was a 2 lb. smallmouth and that fish would end up being the "Big One" of the day. Caught it and a couple of 12" fish on a 1/2 oz Nutech Grass jig off the bluff. Picked up another three 12" fish during the morning on c-rigs with UV Speed Craws. Pretty slow overall, we just kept working and every once in a while one of us would get a bite. We did have several hookups with better fish but could not boat them, bite was very light and it was hard to keep them pinned. Fish were deep for the most part, usually in 10-25 FOW. Very little top water activity. Several striper boats near Point 5, saw one of them hook up, they looked to be fishing shad or minnows deep. Nice morning to be out fishing, even if it was a bit slow. We left at 10 AM. WT 82.

There's a kids summer camp deal up there by the mouth of the Kings and they always seem to have a boat or two out there pulling kids around. Tough to fish that area unless you get out there at the crack of dawn.

Nice ride!

If I was going to book a guide trip I wouldn't do it this time of year. That being said, if I had to I would want to be out as early as possible as it's cooler, minimal recreational boat traffic and I just like fishing early, my favorite part of the day. As far as fish catching, it's a tough time of year, all I would expect from a guide is to give me his best shot at catching some. Bass fishing to me is partly about catching them on artificial baits, so I would not want to fish crawlers. If I'm going to break out the bait, I'd rather just fish for bream or crappie. I think a guide trip for some bull gills would be fun this time of year, I think I would just as soon do that then fish for bass right now.

Nice bass Bo!

Sounds like a good place to stay. Do they have a dock where you can park a boat?

Hard to say without trying all the models out there. BassPro has a price filter on their website, you can got to fish finders and then you should see a filter where you can look at what is available in your price range. See what models have the features you want, you should be able to get one with Down Imaging, Side Imaging, GPS (Some models come with Navionics maps), and CHIRP which is pretty much standard these days. If you can get it narrowed down to specific models you might be able to get some input on them from people that own that model.

Well good to hear you got into some nice fish. Sounds like you have your own personal "stalker".

Coppermine is the only place I can think of. It's right on the east side of the 12 bridge.

Speaking of Tenkiller - BASS magazine has a pic of a guy holding a 6 lb. 10 oz smallie from Tenkiller.

Nice looking lake, looks as if the water is high but clear.

I always wondered about how many people bass fished there. Sorry to hear you couldn't get a place to fish, I was curious how the bass fishing was there.

Good for you on having a good time, that it what is important. This is a tough time of year to fish the Rock as far as catching numbers of fish. If you do come back for a fall trip, I would wait until at least mid-October, fishing can be really tough in September.

Have not tried it, as a matter of fact never heard of it till now. Looks like it should catch fish - you'll have to let us know.

Way to go! I am jealous, 4 days of camping and fishing.

Well I have not been to Table Rock in a while, but a buddy of mine fished a club tourney on Tuesday and they had some success on Ned rigs on steep banks and bluffs. If I was going to go, I'd do like Bo says, look around for bait and/or fish. I would check gravel points and points at the mouths of coves. I'd probably try swimming Keitechs deep, dragging jigs, C-rig, and maybe try a drop shot. I would be out on the lake as early as possible. Might be worth fishing docks later in the morning too.

I remember reading an article years ago where people where cutting disks out of ray wings and selling them as scallops. Scallops are tasty, if ray wings are similar they would be worth keeping.