Quillback

Drove over to Indian Creek today to check the ramp. All is well, the ramp has been moved up, water is clear and did not see any wood floating around. Since I was going to the lake, might as well do a little bank fishing, so I brought a spinning rod and some small swimbaits. Pretty windy and the waves were crashing onto the bank. It creates a mudline in the water that in places goes out into the lake from the bank 5 -10 feet. I caught several smallmouth that were either at the edge of the mudline or right in the dirty water. None of them were of any size, but I did lose one that was a good fish that I only got a glimpse of. It was fun, I get a kick out of walking the bank and catching a bass or two. I planned on only making a few casts but wound up fishing for close to 3 hours.

77-78 lake wide. The outlet was running but it was not the usual 90+ degrees there. They've done some retrofitting to the plant so I don't know if that was the reason for the cooler water, or if it was running water but the plant wasn't burning coal, or maybe some other reason.

Video interview of John Stein who I believe heads up District One for AGFC. It's a about a year old and he mentions a plan for the new ramp. Also some interesting stuff on fish habitat for Beaver.

Fished Swepco for the first time this year in Jeb's boat. We got there at 0530 to insure getting a place to park in the small lot, 2 boats putting in ahead of us, but it never got so crowded today that the lot was full. It used to be you'd see maybe 3-5 boats on the lake on a weekday, but those days are over. In spite of the intense pressure, the lake still boots out some quality fish. We caught a 4 and a 3.5 on big worms, and several more in the 1.5 to 2 lb. range on c-rigged Zoom Speed Craws. Most fish were close to the bank. We caught 15 or so bass in a morning of fishing. I've heard reports of better days for other people that have been there lately, we're blaming our relatively slow day on a brisk east wind. On the way out, talked to a guy at the ramp who says there are plans to build a new ramp with greatly expanded parking. That's the first I have heard of that, but it's needed.

Beaver and Table Rock up over 4 feet. That's a lot of water!

Yes, thanks for the link tjm. Shows around 5.5" here.

Table Rock and Beaver are both up about a foot and a half and still rising.

That's some good fishing!

Seemed to be a lot of rain last night, woke up several times to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. I need to get a rain gauge.

I agree, very good read! One of the things I liked about living in Washington, and something I miss now, is having lots of hike in only places to fish. Amidst stunning scenery to boot.

I don't know how much we've gotten here, maybe an inch or so. Light rain right now. They are still calling for rain tonight and tomorrow.

Last time I was over at Talbot, and that's been a few years, they had a drop box over by the MDC bldg. where you could drop the bands.

Glad to see some rain.

Several rounds of showers and thunderstorms are expected Saturday through Monday, with widespread heavy rainfall amounts expected. Widespread rainfall amounts between 3 and 6 inches will be common, with locally higher amounts in some places. Severe thunderstorms will also be possible, especially from late Sunday through Monday.

Very cool!

Haven't seen a fox for a few years now. There was a period of time when they seemed to be all over Bella Vista. Always reds.

That is super getting that big musky on the fly!

The mortality thing is certainly true with Beaver lake stripers when the water is warm. You'd think they could get some kind of commercial fishery going targeting those blues. I don't know about the Chesapeake blues, but the ones I've caught in Grand lake are excellent eating. I'd take them over crappie or walleye.

Do they have a reason for the decline? Overfishing? Loss of spawning habitat? Blue cats?

The Weekly Vista has a story about how the name Lost Bridge came about and here's a summary: The folks living in the Garfield area wanted a more direct route to Eureka Springs, a bridge was proposed by the county to be built at Fishtrap Ford in Fishtrap Hollow. A contract was awarded for a Tennessee contracting company to build an arched cement bridge, 318 feet long, 16 feet wide and 40 feet above the river. The Tenn. company won with a bid of $24,125. Work was started in June of 1929, material were brought to Garfield by train and hauled on a narrow wagon road to the bridge site. The bridge was completed in October 1929. When the bridge was completed there was not funding available to build a road to it, so it became the "Lost Bridge". The bridge opened in 1934 once funding had been found to build the approaches to the bridge. On May 7, 1943 heavy rain caused the White river to flood, a log jam and flood waters caused the bridge to collapse. A low water crossing was built in the aftermath of the bridge collapse and was in use up until the time the site was flooded by the rising water of Beaver Lake in 1964. Pic of the completed bridge, in it you can see the approaches have not been completed: Low water bridge, to the left is the washed out bridge: