Quillback

I see one of the Keenan bros is 4th overall, and 2nd in one of the hourly weigh-ins.

Great looking fish!

My days of making what I would call "Banzai road trips" are over, if it's more than 2 hours away, I am going to find a place to stay over night. But I have made, in the past, trips where I would drive 4 hours, fish all day, then drive 4 hours back home. The drive back home was always the worst part. But looks like you had a great day of fishing, congrats!

Spent a good part of my working life traveling also and fortunately evaded them. Sounds like they are getting worse.

Thanks JF, one of those things were I was in the right place at the right time. I really like the quality of the spots I have seen, seems to be a good year class of fish in the 15-16" range.

It's stained green up the Indian creek arm, maybe 4 feet of visibility, dam basin area is pretty clear, maybe 7-8 feet of visibility.

Nice bunch of fish, congrats on a good day!

Way to go buddy, some tremendous fish!

It was warm enough for my delicate constitution to get out early for a dawn start. Very little wind, which at first I thought was good for my Ned fishing, but things were tough the first couple of hours on the glass like water. Poked around on some of my smallmouth spots and only picked up a couple of short fish. Went back in a cove that had held some spotted bass the day before and didn't get much action there either. Things were looking grim. I decided to try some main channel wooded banks that hadn't been producing much previously, also there was some wind starting to blow on the main channel and I thought that might help. Really wasn't expecting much, but I found some. More green fish than brown, but they were good fish on average. Caught 4 keeper sized largemouth, half a dozen tank spots that were in the 15-16" range, a couple of smallies, and one walleye. Had a pretty good window of biting fish for about 3 hours, then the wind really started blowing, it was 2 PM, so I packed it in. 17 total bass, 10 of them were at or bigger than 15". PB&J Ned again did the damage. I threw cranks for a while, but nothing touched them. WT 49-51. Turkeys were gobbling again, one of them was getting obnoxious, I mean non-stop gobbling from that bird all morning. Hopefully somebody nails that one this spring. This post has been promoted to an article

Great trip BH!

I'll start off with my big fish story. Threw the Ned up on a rocky bank, let it hit bottom in about 10 FOW. Lifted it and thought I was snagged, just dead stop and solid. Then a split second later I felt some movement, not a lot, but i was beginning to think I had a bass that had wrapped the line around something. Then the fish just started swimming, pulling drag and I was thinking, man I have a really big smallmouth, fish turned towards the boat, swam under the boat and kept on going, pulling drag - I then realized this wasn't any kind of black bass, but I was thinking possibly a striper. I've got this fish on 6 lb. line and a light spinning rod, and it has swam under the boat and out the other side, but it is staying deep. I had to get my rod on the other side of the boat, so I stuck the pole vertically into the water and got on the trolling motor and managed to flip the boat around and get on the deep side of the boat without getting tangled in anything like the trolling motor. Fish had stopped running at this point, but was staying deep and not letting me move it much. Now we went into a give and take thing, I'd gain some line, then the fish would get mad and swim back down. After about 5 minutes of this I get the fish close enough to see it's not a striper, but it's big and gold so I thought carp. Again the fish gets mad and swims back down, but it finally wore out and I slid it into the net. I believe it is a buffalo, somebody that knows please confirm. It bottomed out my 15 lb. Bogagrip scale, I am thinking about 17 lbs. or so. The bass fishing was pretty good today. I caught 30 bass, somewhere around 8-10 keepers. Most of the keepers were 15-16" smallies, with a couple of spots that were also in the 15-16" range. Smallies were on main lake/channel banks and points, spots were halfway back in one cove. Fished a couple of other coves that didn't have any, but the one cove was pretty good for them. PB&J Ned on the 1/8 oz head. WT 49-50. I caught a smalls on my first cast, then caught another one on my second cast. Just a good day to be out fishing. Heard some turkeys gobbling, it is starting to feel like spring out there. This post has been promoted to an article

Sabine river next, I don't have any clue who to pick for that one. Maybe that is a good thing.

How old are his boys? Reason I ask is if they are real young they probably won't have patience they'll need to spend the time they're going to have to put in to get a bass or two off the bank be sure and caution your friend to set low expectations. There is a ton of bank access at Indian creek, but it will be tough to catch many fish. Quite a bit of bank available at Horseshoe Bend COE park, not at the ramp, but near the camping areas. I would recommend a worm under a cork in the HS Bend area and settle for some perch action with a bass or two possible.

ne how long on one spot always is something I think about too. If I find multiple fish on a spot I'll fish it until I can't get anymore bites, then I'll leave. I might come back later and fish that spot again. But watching the pros, they'll stay on a spot all 4 days in a tournament. Tak Omori won that tourney this spring fishing the same spot. Seem some others do it also. And they have dry spells for hours where they don't catch anything, but they'll stay there. I can't so that myself, but I'm a fun fisherman with way different objectives than the big time tourney guys.

Thanks - I'll keep an eye out for them. They look like nice sturdy tubs.

CrappieMaster, that boat is in great shape for a 92.

There is that regional thing, in Washington state used to see a lot of Honda outboards on salt water boats. Hardly ever see one out here.

I set out a dozen broccoli plants and planted some snow peas a couple of days ago. I like stir frying broccoli and snow peas together.

Hey BH - where did you get those tubs?

Jordan Lee wins the Classic, back to back Classic wins for him. And those are the only 2 wins he has had on the Elite series I believe.

Nice ones!

I was doing a little reading about those rainbow darters and apparently they are a fairly easy fish to keep in an aquarium. I am tempted, just don't feel like investing the time right now.

Some interesting looking fish, kind of neat to see what swims around in our streams.