Quillback

It's a bit out of your price range, but I like my Dobyns Champion 704 CB, does a real nice job of walking a Gunfish and it's versatile, you can use it for cranks (not deep divers) and spinnerbaits also.

Obamacare has not yet gone into effect, give it until 2015 then look at your bills. Latest fuel increase have more to do with refinery outages and lack of pipeline capacity, oil is down to around $90/barrel.

Al, you're so gloomy... But I share your fears, I think this nation is on a long downwards slide, I used to be an optimist, but no more. I always harp on this, but we've got a debt time bomb ticking away, and the last few days the pols have been arguing whether or not we should fund Big Bird. And should this latest anemic recovery falter, there's nothing the government can do (because it doesn't have any money) to "stimulate" another recovery. Social Security is now seriously underfunded as the SS payroll tax has been cut by 50% and there's no talk from either pol about how we're going to save SS. Healthcare costs are still going up (Obamacare does nothing to reduce costs), median income is going down, fuel costs remain high, the list goes on..

Thanks for the report, good to hear the TW bite is going. Good luck in the derby!

Thanks for the update, sorry to hear the fishing stunk. At 3 PM yesterday it was 43 degrees here with sleet bouncing off the roof, what a change, it was 84 Thursday.

Haven't been up the Kings, but did fish where it meets the White. There were shad and spotted bass along the edges of the flats and points at the mouth last Thursday. My guess is there might be some wallies around there too as long as the shad stay in the area.

Healthy looking cat, thanks for the report!

Here's an Aaron Marten video on basic DS setup. I use a Palomar rather than the double-uni that he uses, but I'm used to tying Palomar knots. There is a bazillion videos on the DS out there, use Google and type in "Drop Shot video". http://www.advancedangler.com/featurearticle.asp?Selectvalue=Aaron%20Martens%20Setting%20Up%20the%20Dropshot Read some of Bill Babler's reports on this forum as to the type of lake structure is the best for the DS on Table Rock. Zoom finesse worms and Yamamto 4" cut tails have been working for me lately.

Yeah the Braves blew it with fielding errors, that infield fly ruling was very questionable, but the errors is what did them in. Home plate ump was really arbitrary on low pitches in the strike zone, some were strikes, some were balls - very inconsistent on the calls, that got the fans upset, then the infield fly ruiling set the fans off. I hope that from now on we get good and consistent umpiring, hate to see games screwed up by bad calls.

Thanks for the invite Bill, I've got mom-to-the-airport duties Saturday, but next year is a possibility. Good luck to all the participants and I hope there's some good bags caught.

Doesn't seem to be a strong favorite in the NL, if the Cards don't get bit by this one game play-in deal they stand a chance.

I can believe it BW, that lake kicks out some good bass.

It would be great if someone could post the results or at least the winning bag weight. Be interesting to see what it is.

That is one nice smallie, congrats!

You're not kidding on the taking a number thing, I was a few hundered yards away from point 22, there was a boat on that point when I got there, and when they left another boat pulled in, and so it went, probably saw 5 different boats fish that point in the 3 hours I was fishing the DS on the rolloff,

I guess I was lucky today, I started off working trees and coves for LM's did not do well doing that, caught one LM on a paddletail swimmer and that was it for that stuff. Went to the drop shot and ended up catching around 30, mostly spots, it was a mid morning bite, and I must have been in your area Duck as most of my fish came off the drop off (25-35 FOW) on the flats south of Lost Hill island at the mouth of the Kings. No bigguns but quite a few in the 13-15" range, mostly spots. Not derby winners but fun on spinning tackle. I only picked up a handful at my other drop shot places so just got lucky and was in the right spot at the right time. Seemed to be a lot of boats out there today, mostly bassers.

I remember reading that Kentucky bluegrass is actually from Europe.

Should be fun to watch, anyone know who is pitching?

Thanks for the advice Champ, looks like tomorrow may be bit breezy, and I'm ready to try something besides the drop shot.

Great report, lots of good info, thanks again Bill!

Cool, glad to hear you're doing well!

Started off fishing a couple of cove backends, lots of minnows flipping around in the backs, but didn't see any bass chasing them, threw topwater. jig and senko and could not get bit. Decided to head out to the main lake points and try and find a drop shot bite. Graphed a couple of points, didn't see any activity, but kept hunting and found some active fish. Got some on the drop shot and around 9 AM had a bit of a topwater bite (wind came up and put them down after about 20 minutes). Ended up with 17 bass, mostly spots, 2 LM. Spots were just a tad better than the usual ones I've been getting, one measured at 16.5" and had several in the 14-15" range. Zoom finesse worm in Old Purple was working well. Fish were in the 20-30 FOW range. Threw an SB on a windy bank for a while, no love for it. Had the drop shot on the bottom, saw some topwater activity, set down the DS rod, tossed the TW out there and hooked up on a 12" fish, looked down at the DS rod, and sure enough, the tip was being pulled into the water. Picked up the DS and now I had a rod in each hand with a fish on. Only probelm with that is I didn't have a free hand to reel Ended up putting down the DS rod and keeping my foot on it, boated the TW fish, then boated the DS fish. Pic below. Water temp 73.

Good on you, you did a heck of a lot better than I did. I assume that water temp at 45 was a typo?

Very nice, and kudos to the anonymous guide who gave you the tip!

So F&F, get a deer yet? Taking the dog out for a walk yesterday, got to the end of the driveway, noticed some movement off to my right, nice 3 point buck looking at me 25 feet away, soon as we made eye contact he bolted.