Quillback

Fished it Saturday, it was a little chilly but not too bad, relatively few other fishermen out there, very few pleasure boats and only saw one PWC. If not for the constant background noise created by leafblowers it would have been a peaceful day. Even saw a couple of eagles. Water temp was 52. My go to bait was a Norman Flake McStick, caught one LM on a spiiner bait, but the rest came on the McStick. Backs of coves and secondary points in the coves were where I caught fish, except for catching some whites on main lake points. There are shad EVERYWHERE, I have never seen so many shad. Lots of terns, gulls and cormorants feeding on the shad, and I even saw a couple of eagles. Caught about 15 black bass and 1/2 dozen whites. No big bass, caught a couple of 16" fish, but the rest were in the 12-15" range. Caught ol' Buglemouth below on the McStick, probably went about 8 lbs. thought I had a heck of a bass, major disappoinment when I saw his big rubber lips pop up through the murky water as I brought him to the boat. I would say it's a fluke, except this is the 2nd carp I have caught on a McStick. I can't say that I ripped this one's lip, as it had been ripped before! Good day to be out, best day for bass I have had on Grand.

Picked up this little piggie on a 1/2 oz Bassx brown football jig with a brown super chunk trailer in one of the Bella Vista lakes today. Fishing was slow, got lucky, 22.5 inches, length girth calculator says 6.4, but I am going to be conservative and say 6 lbs. Not the greatest pic, I was holding it at arms length and still could not get all of it in the pic. Nice Black Friday special

bassresource.com is a site you might want to look at.

Picked up a "Best of Bassmaster" book from the library. Articles from the 70,s and early 80's. Lots of changes since then, the first bassmaster tournament guys were bringing in their fish on a stringer (obviously dead). But several articles mention as a winter time go to bait, you could not beat a black hair jig with a black pork rind eel. I decided to pick some up, ordered some hair jigs from Northstarbaits and some eels from Uncle Josh. Had to go to the Uncle Josh website to get them, couldn't find the eels at the online retailers. I'm definitely going to try them this winter. Also when it comes to worms, the purple worm was the go to worm bait then, how many people use purple anymore? I don't have any myself, but seems they should still work.

Yes I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! I don't fish TR (one of these days I will) but the info you all provide is good info to put to use on Beaver. So thanks for those reports and please keep them coming! Did anyone fish yesterday? In spite of the cold. sleet, freezing rain, and wind I have to belive there was at least one boat on Table Rock. The weather is great today, I think I'll hook up the boat and try one of the local Bella Vista lakes.

Yeah Tfish, keep the pics and reports coming, I think these forums are a place for people to post reports and pics if they so desire, but maybe you have to win a tournament and have a livewell full of 5 lb bass to be entitled to post a report. I've posted pics of mediocre fish myself, and not ashamed to admit I get a kick out of catching 15 inch bass.

Yeah it is, as they say, a quarterbacks league. If Cassel suddenly transforms himself into the second coming of Peyton Manning, then the Chiefs will be a serious contender. San Diego looked very good last night. Even without Gates. And I believe Vincent Jackson will be back soon.

I have Bowe and Cassel on one of my fantasy teams, had to start Cassel last week because my #1 QB was on a bye. Cassel throws 4 td's and has a monster game! And Bowe had a great game too. Unfortunately the Chiefs lost, but my expectations for them are low. Real low..

Nice one! Work right now is putting the ki-bosh on my fishing, but glad to see folks getting out and catching them.

HLS sells live shad now? I have never seen them there myself, I know they do sell what they call brood minnows which can work. Main problem with shad is keeping them alive, they need circulating water and a round tank. If whatever you are keeping them in has corners they will continually butt their heads into the corner and die fairly quickly.

20 years living in the Pacific Northwest I saw the decline in species such as salmon, steelhead, Dungeness crab, smelt, shrimp and rockfish. Usually regulation changes to sport and commercial harvest occur after the species numbers have been so far knocked down that recovery becomes very difficult. Ironically, shad, which were introduced to the Pacific coast, are doing very well.

That is one heck of a fish!

I would appreciate it if ya'll would shoot some geeese, especially the ones that are hanging around here in NW Arkansas.

Haven't been out myself since September. Did you go, and if so how was the fishing?

Love to see those bass pics, congrats on a good day. The jerkbait bite is beginning it sounds like.

I like fishing jigs myself, I like the Jewell line of jigs, Bass-x and Omega jigs. For swimjigs I like Northstar jigs and Dirty jigs, I noticed that Jewell now has a line of smimjigs with a flatter head that most have, not that I need more jigs, but I may have to pick a few up. For trailers I like Zoom Super chunks and Fat Albert twin tails. Caught some nice bass night fishing with football jigs and Zoom Big Salty Chunk trailers. I like the Netbait Paca chunks also. I haven't tried the Rage Tail Craw yet, but it's on my list, heard lots of good feedback on them. For a swimbait trailer I like the Optimum Diamond shad, they are pricier that most paddletail soft plastics, but they are very durable and have great action.

Wow, those are some HUGE stripers, congrats!

I have used swim jigs myself with a paddletail trailer, I haven't torn them up using one, but I do catch an occaisional fish on them.

Good for you, if I worked there I would definitely take advantage of that discount!

Welcome! Always looking to hear some striper reports.

How do you get that 40% discount?

I use the 2.5 and 3.5.

I use the RC wakebaits on Beaver in the spring, worked well for me, it is compact and heavy so it will cast further than a Redfin, but you can buy three Redfins for the price of one of these RC wakebaits.

Wow, so if I read that article right, they actually have a team of 5 sniffers at NASA. What do these folks do when they're not sniffin? It can't be an 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, job right? I wonder when they're all in a room together sniffin, if it sounds like a bunch of bloodhounds working a trail, kind of a very loud SNIFF, SNIFF, SNORT, SNIFF...

Thanks for the report!