Quillback

I spooled up with 50# Spiderwire stealth, only used it once so far, but seemed to work well, very castable. I use the braid primarily so I can pull the A-rig off snags. The A-rig works real well as a brush pile locater.

I've got a Calcutta 200 that I used for the first time the other day for A-rigs. Worked well.

They're probably still too small to keep, they were only 3-4" long when stocked a few months ago.

I was throwing jerkbaits last week on the White river arm of TR and my buddy Jeb was tossing the A-rig. I caught 2 bass, biggest 12", he caught 13, biggest just shy of 6 Lbs. That A-rig is tough to beat.

I was fishing in Jeb's boat with him a couple of weeks ago up by Rocky Branch, he caught 3 nice 2-3 lb. whites on the A-rig. I think it will work for them, but might have to run smaller baits on it, like grubs, jigs, or maybe Road Runners.

Congrats, that's a nice bunch of quality fish! I wonder what it will be like fishing an A-rig when the upriver white bass run starts.

Yep that would be the drawback, a fish bending out the hook and getting off, but we've been using lighter wire hooks on our jigheads and only once has a fish bent one out and gotten off, just need to lighten up on the drag a bit so they can't get the leverage to bend out a hook. I've probably seen about 15-20 solid snags that would have resulted in losing the rig if not being able to bend out the hook.

Glad to hear you got into them, the A-rig rocks!

Congrats, nice fish!

Mike, they look like great jig heads, my concern is that when using an A-rig I like hooks that can bend. Reason being if you get snagged and you're using braid you can usually bend out the hook and get the rig back. If the hook won't bend, you're probably going to lose the rig.

Man I wish you could come over here to Bella Vista and thin some of these dudes out.

Yep not too bad to throw, I was lobbing one the other day with a 7' 11" deep cranking rod, rod was a little light for this application, I think with a swimbait rod in the proper weight catagory you could throw these things all day. BTW, I haven't caught one darn fish yet with this "magic" technique, though I did see Jeb catch 1/2 dozen in about 15 minutes one morning.

I would like to see them start some deer hunts on that park, can't drive by there early in the AM without seeing deer hanging around the road. They need to be thinned out also.

I don't know about you guys, but the jerkbait bite has been slow down here in my neck of the woods. They were on it in November, but since then it has been tough, went out yesterday afternoon and caught one on a Flit and that was it. No problem detecting that bite, hit it on the pause, took the belly right out of the slack! I'm blaming the mild weather and relatively murky water for the slow jerkbait bite, last year right after the ice melted off the local lakes, I had 20-30 fish days fishing sunken brushpiles, can't get a bite over the same piles lately. One thing I learned last year, fishing jerkbaits in cold clear water, is when you get that bait close to the boat and you can see it, pause it and watch it, it's cool when a bass materializes out of nowhere and slowly swims up to the bait and grabs it. I've also seen them swim in from the side, circle around it and grab it from the front. Those relatively inexpensive Luck-E-Strike RC jerkbaits seem to work as well as some of the more expensive brands, just change out the hooks. I'm hoping there will be a good early spring, pre-spawn jerkbait bite!

Mock draft I was looking at has the Rams either picking WR Justin Blackmon from OK State or USC tackle Matt Kalil. Too bad they can't get both these guys! I'm a little concerned that Blackmon has a bit of an attitude problem, but he pojects to be an awesome WR, he could make Bradford look really good, like Randy Moss made Randall Cunningham look good in Moss's rookie year.

Speaking of tournaments, the outdoor section in the Benton County newspaper had an article about A-rigs (I can't pick up any outdoor publication these days and not see something about A-rigs), but the writer talked about A-rigs with one of the FLW honchos, and the FLW guy said they had no intention of banning A-rigs in their tourneys, assuming it's legal in the state the tourney is in. FLW is coming to Beaver in April BTW. Also the local tackle shop, Hook, Line and Sinker, said they have never had a "bait" that has sold as well as the A-rig has lately. My guess is, with all the folks throwing them, the bass will get conditioned to them and they won't be as effective in the future. They'll become another tool in the toolbox.

I'm finally able to log in. I did notice that on the forums home page the graphics that show under the Boat and I think Bull Shoals sub forums show a white box with a red X in the corner, instead of the graphic.

The Benton County Daily Record had a write up on the Polar Bear in Thursday's paper. No info on what the top finishers used or where they fished unfortunately. Winners were Tony Jones and Brad Smith with 6 bass weighing 16.99 lbs. 2nd was Kelly Greer and Brett Winborn, 6 bass 16.44 lbs. 3rd Steven Meador and Aaron Stanfield, 6 bass 16.1 lbs. Big bass 5.47 lbs. Big walleye 4.7 lbs. No mention of stripers. 70 boats entered. There was also a tourney out of Hickory Creek, only 7 boats entered, winners had 2 bass for 2.3 lbs. Big bass was 1.7 lbs.

Cool, thanks for checking that out.

I'm hearing different info on A-rigs in Arkansas, I believe you can use 5 hooks on one, but I've heard some say only 3 hooks - anyone have a definite answer? I have searched the regs online and can't find any mention of the number of hooks you can have on one pole. I believe the striper guys have been trolling 5 hook rigs for years.

Seaguar floro, 10# Invisix.

Not a word in today's paper. Jeb told me that the winner had around 16 lbs. but other than that, no details.

Weather turned out pretty nice for this time of year, sunny with a breeze blowing, you might be right about that Wiggle Wart working today.

Looks like it will be a bit chilly come Monday AM. I'll be interested to hear what they catch them on. I think it will be tough fishing, but there are always a few guys that do good.

I'll be interested to hear how you do on Dale Hollow with them.