Quillback

Congrats Bret, that is a big ol' flathead!

I have two dogs, one is named Timex and the other is named Rolex. They are both watchdogs. @Johnsfolly

That first bow is living well.

I'd look for them around the mouth of Indian Creek, the dam area, and the river channel running from the dam down to Starkey park. If there are calm mornings you should see some busting on top which well help a lot with finding them. Also keep an eye out for other striper fishermen and striper guides, generally they will be around fish. If I was going to troll, I'd pull an umbrella rig with swimbaits that are close to the size of the shad that they are feeding on. Or I'd pull something like a 3.3 Keitech Fat on a 1/4 oz swimbait head, or maybe a 3.8 on a 3/8 or 1/2 oz head. Your Rattle Traps may work fine, I never fish them. Water may be very clear on that end of the lake, fish might be very spooky, try and be as stealthy as you can be and get your stuff as far away from the boat as you can. You can also get some brood minnows and Hook, Line and Sinker in Rodgers, drift them underneath a balloon. Maybe bfishn will chime in, he knows a lot more about those stripey things in Beaver lake than I do. @bfishn I'll probably start poking around up by Indian Creek late October, early November and will try and remember to let you know if anything striper related is going on.

Sorry to hear that, the driver's life is going to change for the worse in a lot of ways. There was a guy killed on Table Rock this spring when a boat hit a bluff.

Did you score a jersey?

I am ready for November.

That looks great ^^^

Fished yesterday here in Bella Vista, I caught 3 bass, buddy got one about 6 inches long. It is slow here too. September is almost here and it is my least favorite month for fishing. The best bass I caught, about 2 lbs, broke my braid back on the reel right after I set the hook. Watched the line swim off and go under before I could get to it. We resumed fishing and a few minutes later my buddy snagged my line and the bass was still on. Boated him and he turned out to be big fish of the day. I am ready for November and some cold weather.

Today was the last straw. I am not going to fish crawlers again anytime soon. I caught a few bass on them today, a couple of them were keepers, but it was slow even for spotted bass. Really wanted to get a walleye, but no takers. Got a couple of scrawny bluegill. The few I caught were out deep in the 25-40 foot range off gravel. Sure was a nice, cool morning, even had to breakout the hoodie. WT was 84.

Man, that is a sweet looking canoe!

That's great - I haven't been able to find any top water action at all the last few times out. Sure is fun when it happens.

Some great fish!

I hate no wake zones, but they ought to make that channel, from bank to bank and two hundred yards in either direction, a no wake zone. Having those wakes roll in on a boat launch is downright dangerous.

From what I have seen, it is more about changing the way they are fishing more than increasing bag limit size even though Lee Livesay put together a pretty impressive bag on Fork last year. Livesay was fishing a jerk bait and using the FFS to target individual fish and I have seen quite a few of the other pros use them during tourneys where they are fishing jerk baits, the guys using it aren't casting unless they see a fish. Edwin Evers fished an event on Grand on the BPT and he was using it to target fish with a jerkbait. He was offshore looking for them, no way he would have been doing that without FFS. Funny thing was, the winner (I think it was Bobby Lane) won that tourney flipping cover and docks, old school fishing. But Edwin was in the hunt, Edwin was having hookup issues too - he'd get bit but the fish would get off. I don't know if I will ever get it myself, but I rarely fish tourneys. I have fun fishing the way I do, I don't know that having FFS would make things any more fun.

It's been strangely quiet at the Big M ramp lately as far as fishing boats. I have been the only one there early the last couple of trips and when I come back there's usually a couple of pontoon rigs parked but that is it. When I was getting ready to leave yesterday at 1045, wake boat came down the lake and about threw me into the bluff, another boat was sitting outside the entrance to Big M deploying a couple of those inflatable couch deals and getting ready to run - I got out of there before they got cranked up. Couple of pontoons with a bunch of people in each were coming out of the marina also. Once it gets close to 11 AM things start to get crazy. As always about this time of year I start looking forward to November. I noticed the Big M marina has some rental pontoons now.

The problem with the early morning bite this time of year is that if you have to spend time figuring it out, it doesn't leave you with much productive fishing time.

Giant Bison gone too. Neat read. Former Oklahomans Giant Bison Roamed State 10,000-Year-Old Bones Found

Used to be leg quarters were real cheap at the local grocery. Not anymore. It was weird, you could get half a dozen leg quarters for less than you'd pay for a half dozen thighs. Same size thighs on the quarters as the ones by themselves.

I agree with Dutch.

Launched at 0600, it was a little cold, felt nice. Warmed up quickly however, by 9AM with no wind out there it was getting toasty. Today I fished jigs all morning. Got some good reports of some solid fish being caught on jigs, so I fished them. Got quite a few bites, real light bites, but there were some that wanted that jig and would hit it three or four times until I hooked them. Missed a lot more than I hooked, but at the end of the morning I had 13 in the boat with 3 keepers. The fish bit from when I started until 9 AM or so, then it got real slow. I caught my biggest bass of the day at about 1030 right before I left. It was on a bluff end right across from Big M. One of those one more cast before I go fish. Fish were deep and scattered, caught them on gravel in 20-30 FOW, dragging jigs on the bottom. 1/2 oz Green Pumpkin jig with a craw trailer. Got checked by the warden. Eagle Rock Tom was close by at the time and got checked too. He asked the warden if he'd seen anyone catching any and the warden mentioned he'd checked a "retired guide" that had a couple of keeper walleye. A bit later I saw a white Phoenix heading towards Shell Knob. Might have been someone we all know. Sure seemed to be a lot of traffic on the road between 86 and Roaring River. Might be a busy weekend. Full moon had the deer out, saw a lot of them on the pre-dawn drive to the lake. Mostly does and fawns. Saw one 6 point buck in the Big M park. Didn't check the WT.

Congrats on the walleye!

Connell hung in there. One of these days when circumstances allow, I plan on doing some traveling and fishing some lakes, will have to put Cayuga on the list.

Haven't watched any until just now. Connell is putting some distance between himself and Wheeler.

Nice fish!