Quillback

That's a great trip. Except for the "100 ticks" part. I really hate ticks.

No doubt serious money was spent to catch that fish. If I read that right, they traveled in a boat from FL to the Verde islands. Doing a quick search, that's roughly 3700 miles. I would think you'd have to refuel on the way over, must be a way to do it, kind of curious about that.

I forgot the pics. Surprised you let me get away with it. 😀 They are there now.

I have to stay away from this thread, you guys always make me hungry, 😀

Hit the road early again today, got to the ramp a little after 5 AM. Not much of an early bite that I could find by 8 AM I had 4 bass, 2 of them being fairly nice largemouth. I was fishing a gravel flat, chasing some isolated top water fish and about 100 yard away saw a bunch of fish blowing up on shad. Looked like a school of white bass, so I got over there as quick as I could with the trolling motor, didn't want to spook them with the big motor. Of course they had stopped by the time I got there, so didn't expect much, but first cast with the top water and it was fish on. I caught 5 on my first 5 casts and they really wanted that bait, no swirls, and if they missed it, they came right back for it. Put 10 top water fish in the boat and lost several others. They eventually stopped so I went in there with a c-rig with a Speed Craw, caught 6 or 7 more, they got tired of that, so threw a Keitech and got a few more. All on about a 50 foot stretch of bank, if you got off that stretch to either side, nothing. Some days you get lucky, if I had not seen those fish breaking, I would've never got on them and it had all the makings of a tough morning. I boated 25, 7 keepers. I quit at 10 AM. I talked to TV Tom when I left, he and his wife were out up the White and they caught 45 between the 2 of them, and I believe he said 10 of them were keepers. They got some on top, on a spoon, and jigs. They were fishing deeper water that I was and also got some around docks. WT when I left was 87.5.

That's a really nice smallie, congrats on some good fishing!

It jumped twice, probably got 3 feet of air on both jumps.

For sure, nice fish on the big swimmers. Those big gills are fun, good to see the youngster catch some.

Started fishing about 0530 this morning, air temp was 62, man did that feel good. By 0900 it was baking like the Sahara. WT was at 85 when I launched, 86 at the end of the morning. A fairly good bite early, no size, some near keepers but did not get a keeper until about 0900. C-rigging a Zoom Speed Craw worked early, got a few top water bites, but only one in the boat. Caught some shaky head fish on a Finesse Worm, and a couple of more dragging a 3.8 Keitech on the bottom. My one and only keeper came on the Keitech. Caught 18 total. Most of the fish were in 5-15 FOW. Not a whole lot of rec boats out there today. I left at 1100, so it may have gotten worse, but it wasn't too bad.

You're in the tall cotton. 👍

Some great pics!

Really nice fish.

That's great, good to see you guys have a great day!

I'm a sensitive guy, these hook-stuck-in-finger pics give me the willies. Glad to hear you got it out OK. Thanks for the report, interesting to hear they are biting the Crawler.

I hear you on getting that lure on the right away. I did have a striper blow up Friday that I made a cast at and when the lure hit the water, he blew up again maybe 3 feet in front of it, I thought for sure he'd hit my lure, but walked it right through the swirl and nothing. The best is when they are wolf packing a shad school and the water is so churned up you can't see your lure when it hits the water. If one doesn't grab it when immediately when it hits the water, you just gotta twitch it and they'll grab it. Since you can't see the lure or know when one grabs it visually, you have to feel it. Sometimes they'll just about rip the rod out of your hands. Haven't seen them doing that this year and I'm beginning to doubt I will.

I can always count on getting beans and cukes. I may struggle with other stuff, but beans and cukes always come through. Just a handful of beans, but in a week they'll be putting out.

I know a 90 year old and his health has declined quite a bit in the last couple of years. He's not a burden, lives by himself, but does get paid for daily living assistance. Instead of being a burden, he's actually a source of employment.

I have heard of someone doing what you plan on doing out of Coppermine. Dunno if it is open in March however.. Centrally located on the lake and not to far from Rogers area restaurants and grocery stores. Coppermine Lodge There's this place, but you'd have to launch from the COE ramp which is nearby, the COE ramp has a courtesy dock and adequate parking. WELCOME | Rocky Branch Resort There are a couple of other places around Rocky Branch, but I don't have the names. I have not stayed at either place listed above, so no ratings from me.

I launched out of Indian, but I liked Devan's title of his last trip, fishing the dam end which is what I did, I did not go back in Indian. I launched at 0515 and spent a couple of hours checking different places for top water striper action, still not much going on that I could find, a few here and there but no schools going nuts on shad. Did not get a single striper bite, but caught a few small bass on top. Switched out to a c-rig with a Zoom Speed Craw and found some fish on windy, gravelly banks. Decent bite for a while, caught my last one at 0930 and was outta there at 1030. Ended up with a dozen bass, all smallies except for one spot. Had one of those rare days where I caught a limit of keeper sized smallmouth. Surface temp 82.

I'm perfectly happy with my new knee, I could barely walk on it before I got it replaced.

One note about some of the Mustang inflatables is that they are "hydrostatic" meaning that they have to be submerged in 4" of water to auto inflate, which means you should be OK with one in rain, humidity, and wave splash. That's according to them. I have a Mustang inflatable HIT and my main complaint it that it does not have a metal clip to attach a kill switch lanyard.

They are, but this thread has been somewhat borderline. It has run it's course.

Hope it works out for you, hang in there!

I almost always go early and there's never a problem getting in the water even if someone else is ahead of me, it's always fishermen early and we all want to get in the water and get to fishing. The last hold-up I had was a couple of weeks ago on Beaver, a guy pulled in just before I got there, so I dropped the TM and did some fishing while waiting. He backs in, then goes to his boat and starts dipping minnows out of the livewell with one of those little minnow dip nets and releases them into the lake. Took the guy like 5 minutes to get them all, no big deal, actually thought it was kind of funny. And I caught a smallmouth while waiting on Mr. Dipper. Some of the ramps are worth fishing when you come in, at least on the lakes. All that prop washing stirs up the silt and brings fish in. You'd think it would spook them, but seems to have the opposite effect.

Dang, none of mine are even close.