Quillback

Those reel are out of my price range, that's for sure. I'm sure they are sweet reels, but you can get some darn good baitcasters for under $200 - I don't know what the extra $300-400 gets you. Fancy crank baits and swim baits can set you back too.

Merry Christmas to all, and may the New Year bring all of us many hard fighting fish!

Darn you guys! Now I got to go buy some Wiggle Warts - and start using them. Any size recommendations?

I used to live in Washington state and did a lot of steelhead fishing. The Olympic Peninsula rivers are good right now for hatchery fish, but expect crowds at the popular spots. There are places to camp if you can deal with wet, cold weather. The rivers blow out easily so you should check weather before you go. In March and April are when the big native fish come in to the OP rivers. Also the Grand Ronde on the eastern side of the state is a good winter river with good access. All that being said, I think the midwest runs offer better fishing if you're looking at numbers of fish. But if you want to go west, Washington has some good water. Oregon also has some good fishing, but I've never tried it.

I appreciate the reports, I might head up there over the holidays myself and do a little walleyeing.

I do agree with the need for us to significantly reduce our dependence on oil. Overall people seem to have accepted $3/gallon gas. Just think of the billions of dollars going to good friends of ours like Hugo Chavez and the Iranians. Just imagine if Congress decided to tax us so that we could send $100 billion a year to Venzuela and Iran, people would flip out, but that's what's happening when you fill er up. BTW, none of us hillbillies should be hesitant about jumping into this debate, scientific polling indicates hillbillies outnumber college professors about 100-1.

Scary

He should team up with Dick Cheney.

I saw the picture of it in the paper, nice healthy loking fish and it was released back into Beaver.

I'm pulling for the Hawgs. Dunno much about MO's run defence, if they can't shut down the Hawgs running backs they will be in trouble.

Stusmobile - Lake Bella Vista, which is right off US 71, has lots of carp and I have never seen anyone fishing for them. It's all public so you have lots of room to fish. If you're going to try it some day, shoot me an email, I'd like to see the European setup for carp fishing. If you move up here, make sure and look at houses in Bella Vista. We have several lakes here that are open to residents only. All of the lakes have carp, and there are some large ones. The housing market is really depressed here, you should be able to get a great deal on a house if that's what you're looking for.

If you're looking for hotel, Bentonville area has literally dozens to choose from and there are many, many places to eat, you're about 30 minutes from the lake there. But it all depends what part of the lake you want to fish. Here's a link with marina phone numbers. http://www.beaverlake.com/lakerecreation/boating/

I would like to attend if you have a seminar.

What's a "RAM" mount?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMF91QjYeC4

Personally, I'm pessimistic the spread of the Zebras can be stopped, unless drastic measures are taken. I fished Grand Lake this week, there aren't any signs that I saw at the boat launch warning people that there are Zebras in Grand and what precautions to take to stop their spread. Not to pick on water skiers and PWC users, but I bet 75% of them don't know what a zebra mussel is. Probably quite a few fishermen are unaware also.

Yes congrats on your move, if you're moving in on the 12th, I assume you'll be fishing on the 13th!

Started out by netting shad, got a couple dozen for catfish bait, then went looking for white bass. After futily searching for whites for a couple of hours, I started drifting shad for cats and caught a couple of blues, biggest one about 6 lbs. (See Pic). Beautiful fall day, which made up for the slow fishing.

Just out of curiosity - How much do you get for an otter pelt?

Wily - You're right, guess I had Grand Lake on my mind..

I swa a guide report where they say they are picking up the Whites between Drowning Creek and Goat Island, but that's a long way from twin bridges. Jaybird, I'll be interested to hear how you do up by Twin Bridges.

Being a member of Red Sox Nation, it brought a smile to my face to see the Yanks go down. Go Bosox!

http://www.ffk-wilkinson.com/

KC beat the Chargers, who woulda thunk that?

Here's some other reading material that mentions Zebras in the Great Lakes, in all it seems they are not good for fish populations. http://www.glsc.usgs.gov/_files/factsheets...0Assessment.pdf I would mainly be concerned about the impact of Zebras on Shad populations in the large reservoirs being that the Zebras will compete for the same food that shad utilize.