Quillback

Would be quite the battle I am sure.

Yesterday there were a couple of schools of grassies moving around in the outlet of Windsor lake here in Bella Vista. Watched them for a bit, they'd line up in a column about 3 fish wide with a couple of dozen in the school. Biggest ones were in front, little guys bringing up the rear, it's like they ranked themselves by size. I was tossing a crankbait around from the bank and I was very tempted to snag one.

Hard to know, would be nice if they would update their website or FB page with that kind of info. James and Kings look to be coming down, but still 40K CFS coming over Beaver. With 20K CFS going out, there is still a net gain in water.

Some light rain here this morning, time for this stuff to get out of here! Extended forecast looks pretty good. Supposed to be a BFL tomorrow, over 200 boats - looks like it is still on.

Wiggens was a bit of a surprise. Looked to be a tough day.

Welcome, I have fished around Pt. 26 quite a bit.

looks like they are starting to dump some water out of TR now, letting out 20K CFS. On the flip side, James is up to 30K CFS and still rising.

Corps has opened the flood gates on Beaver further so that now there are 43,000 CFS coming through. Kings is at 20,000 CFS and still rising. James is at 12,000 CFS and rising. Looks to be around 14,500 CFS leaving the lake, so there's a lot of water coming in.

Time for the night crawler on flooded lawn bite and the Redfin over the flooded Corps concrete picnic table bite.

Hang in there, they'll get you fixed up.

No! Leave them in Table Rock! 😄

Old Norwegian saying: "There's no bad weather, only bad clothes."

Phil - Are you using marabou jigs or regular crappie type jigs?

JVD going after the post-spawners with a wobblehead.

I am starting to like cold weather fishing more and more myself.

I did not see another boat until about 10 AM yesterday. But then a few started showing up. BFL this Saturday, it will start getting busy out there unless this forecast rain floods everything.

Got out a little later today, there was some light rain here in NWA when I got up, so I delayed my start a bit and got to the lake about 0730. Cold, windy, gray morning with some drizzle early, but the fish were biting. They were up shallow out in front of the buck brush. Caught a lot of these dudes, 12-15 inch spots. Caught most of my fish on the 1/16 oz Ned with a cut Zinker. Got a couple on a 1/4 oz Kastmaster and a few on the 2.8 Keitech. There was a brief top water bite back in one of the coves, didn't last very long, but that's where I got them on the Kastmaster and Keitech. You can get bites on the Keitech throwing it at the brush, but the Ned will out fish that Keitech. I don't know that I ever went more than 5-10 minutes without a bite. WT 63. The usual suspects: I think this one is a hybrid:

Those bows are chunks!

That's great, congrats! If you get a chance, join us for the OA One Bass next year and maybe get another plaque to hang beside that one.

That's great, they were biting today!

Maybe that last map is how much has fallen?

Getting to be an annual event.

That is great!

First time out on the Rock since last Tuesday, things have changed a bit. Quite a bit of top water activity in a couple of locations. Caught some obviously spawned out fish. Ned rig was a multi-species catcher for me today, smallmouth, spots, a largemouth, a few crappie and a couple of hand-sized bluegill. I kept the crappie, bluegill and one white bass that ate a Keitech. No wind early so I was able to fish a 1/16 Ned rig very slowly in a couple of coves. Fish were in 5-15 FOW. When I found them, there were lots of bites, on the other hand there were stretches of bank with very few fish. Left at noon, hoping that the traffic would not be too bad, but it was. Lots of people on the roads today. Lot at Big M was full when I left, had about a 30 foot wide space to back between the trailers to get to the dock, as I was backing towards the dock, in comes a guy hauling a ski-boat, goes around me and pulls into the area at the top of the ramp that I would've liked to pull into, that was a bit annoying. Had to jackknife the trailer to get down the ramp, but no big deal. Get the boat off the dock, get it on the trailer, start to tighten the winch down and here comes the ski-boat backing down, not down the ramp, but heading straight towards the rip rap off to the side of the ramp. I have to admit, at this point the little devil on my shoulder was whispering in my ear to just stand by and watch. I was curious about two things - whether the guy would even notice the trailer bouncing when he hit that rip-rap, and just how much, if any, damage would it do. But, I couldn't just watch, I hollered at him to stop, pointed out the rocks where he was headed, and got a thanks for it. WT 64. Couple of spawned out smallies: A little variety: