Quillback

I talk to a retired gentleman that fishes the area regularly and he gets a few in the 8-10 lb. range every winter. They are there for sure.

Alright! I bet you get a bunch today.

A cloudy day with a little breeze. Motored over to a little cove to see if a steep bank in the back held any Ned fish. Did not get any Ned bites, but saw some top water activity so I tossed a small pencil popper at them, caught maybe half dozen short fish on the popper before they got tired of it. Kind of neat to catch some top water fish this late in the year. Started moving around trying steep banks and points, caught some fish here and there, varying depth ranges, 5-20 FOW, mostly on the Ned with one meanie coming on a jerkbait. Finished with 16 bass, one keeper largemouth. After backing the trailer into the water, saw a bass chasing top water in the Big M cove, untied the boat, dropped the trolling motor, and inched over to where the action was. Threw the popper at him, and got the classic v-shaped bulge in the water as the bass approached from 10 feet away. It slurped the popper, I brought him to the net, short spot, but I bet it weighed two pounds, very fat fish. Neat way to end the day. WT 50. I did get a "slam".

Nice spot! Don't know if you know this, but TW has a sale on InvisX as part of their 25 days of Christmas sale. It's about as cheap as you'll ever find it.

Sometimes I will wear fingerless wool gloves and stick one of those chem packs in between the glove and the top of my hand. Warms those blood vessels, circulates to the fingers and keeps them warm. I saw Ducky's Milwaukee jacket in action, really looks nice and has heated pockets which would be great for cold hands.

Good stuff Griz - My granddad on my mother's side was a coon hunter. He was a farmer in SE MO and hunted during the winter. He passed when I was 12, but I did get to go on one hunt with them, it wasn't season yet so it was a training run, but as a kid I thought that was one of my most fun adventures ever. One of the dogs got lost, it wasn't one of my grandpa's but one of the other guys dog. He left his shirt there where we were parked, went back the next day and the dog was there.

I forgot about the fish Muddy made for us - the Cobia was excellent! If I ever go saltwater fishing and catch one of those dudes, it is going home with me.

Talked to board member Stein whose company employees machinists. I want to say they start, right out of school, at $15/hour plus full benefits. He was complaining that other companies will hire them away, give them a raise and a $5,000 signing bonus. His company is in Nebraska. I may have the details wrong, but that was the gist of my conversation with him. Sounded like plenty of overtime is available also.

Gives you a reason to come next year. Like you need one, LOL.

Better to have the robot factory here than in China. Plenty of machinist jobs out there from what I hear, and again based on what I hear, those jobs mostly involve controlling machinery that does the actual machining.

We definitely need a "salad guy". I don't recall seeing a green, leafy vegetable for 3 days. We did have that sort of salad like dip, which is very tasty. As a matter of fact, I remember that someone chopped up some fresh cilantro and added it to the dip - so there was one green, leafy vegetable to be found - that is if cilantro is considered a green, leafy vegetable. Oh yeah, the Pisole (another excellent dish), had green broth.

I don't know what my personal low temp record is for going fishing, but I recall one morning where it was single digits on a Washington winter steelhead outing. I also caught a 15 lb. steelhead that day, my personal best, so I set two personal records that day. If someone from Minnesota sees this thread, they'll humble us all with tales of ice fishing in below zero temps.

David Allen Coe - was that the name of the musician for one of the songs he played? Want to get it right so I can look it up and find some music. Lyrics were great.

Yankee lures...

I have never heard any of the bios associated with hellbender restoration name gigging as a reason for the decline. I see no reason to restrict gigging on streams containing hellbenders. Poachers that are capturing them to sell in the illegal pet market aren't going to gig them for obvious reasons.

There are bigger fish to be caught. Fish a jerk bait on the White and you will have a shot at catching some very nice browns - assuming a certain level of competence on the fisherman's part and a boat is a big help. IMO it should be a special deal to catch a nice fish, not something that happens on a routine basis because bigger fish are stocked. Right now, if you go fish the White below Bull during the week, you might see a handful of boats during the course of the day. 40 miles (or more) of river teeming with trout with hardly any pressure. Not only that, but plenty of bird life and critters to observe during the day. Leaves are down, some great views of the countryside to be seen. It's a pretty good fishing experience, but you need to get out there and do it - not to be mean, but people sitting at home at their keyboard that aren't out fishing and enjoying what we have, but yet are critical of it - I don't hear these complaints from the folks that are out there fishing. I found it to be a privilege to fish the White this past weekend and I appreciate the folks who took me out there in their boats and gave me the opportunity to fish the river. I have zero complaints, well I could complain about the wind and the water fluctuation, but those are things a person just has to overcome. Having a challenge makes it better, right?

agree both places rock for fishing...but could we do better? and how do we get there? I don't know that we could do better, and at the same time please everyone. I'm happy with the way it is now, but I only fish below Bull a time or two a year.

Thanks!

Every time the Feds try and wiggle out of stocking trout on the White below Bull, the local lodges and guides rise up in arms. As Phil says, many, if not most of their clients are people that want to fish Power Bait and catch a limit, to be followed by a shore lunch Personally I think they've done about as good as can be expected as far as managing a fishery that can provide limits of stocker rainbows for those that want them, but yet provide some quality brown trout and an occasional nice rainbow. I have fished for trout all over this country, Taney and Bull are pretty darn good fisheries.

Biggest loser IMO is the budget. Last I heard this bill adds another $ trillion to the debt. Maybe it won't matter, we seem to muddle along even with 20 trillion in debt. But if there comes a day when it does matter it won't be pretty.

If you and Donna go, see if AGFC will let you borrow one of their thousand gallon fish hauling trucks. Bring back your possession limits of big smallies and stock them at Big M.

Well this person could be in big trouble, BCPD (Buffalo City Police Department) is investigating. They sent out the BCPD CSI team today to investigate. Not much in the way of evidence, but they did find an empty Zig Jig package and a half eaten walleye fillet in the area the suspect was last heard. The evidence was sent to the BCPD lab for DNA analysis. They WILL find who did this. Personally I suspect Miles, he strongly denied he was involved, but I am not buying it. And I thought his attempt to pin the tale on the donkey was weak and very suspicious.

That yelled "Whoo Hoo!" or maybe it was "Yee Haw" out by the lodge at 0200 in the AM and woke some of us up this morning? This mystery must be solved, Miles thinks I am crazy, or I heard a donkey braying, but Mike heard it also. I just can't remember if it was Whoo-Hoo, or Yee-Haw, being that it woke me out of a dead sleep, LOL. That aside, had a great time. The food was outstanding, and all of us are thankful to those of you that brought and prepared the food. Outstanding fried walleye/flathead/crappie/taters/onions. Some great fried mushrooms. Great breakfast made in a wok. Great pulled pork and homemade BBQ sauce. Killer deserts, some of the best cupcakes I have ever had in my life. Great homemade sausages. I probably missed something, there was so much food it was impossible to taste everything. Thanks to Ham and Brett for taking me out in your boats. Fishing was pretty good, tough conditions, some dirty water and wind made things challenging at times, but I think everyone did pretty well at catching some fish and had a good time. Hopefully we will do this again!

I was a bit lazy in my picture taking, here's a couple: A couple of shady looking dudes that blasted past us at high speed and spooked all of our fish. Up river from White Hole: