Quillback

Beautiful fish! I'm beginning to wonder if we'll see much of a top water striper bite this spring/summer.

Used to anchor in the Columbia river 20 FOW water while sturgeon fishing. A few feet of chain attached to the anchor, might have 70-100 feet of rope out, once that anchor bit, you weren't going anywhere. But that was in a 17' fiberglass boat, anchored over the bow in current, that current pulls you in one direction and keeps force on the anchor pulling it into the mud.

The President is a great reel at that price. I've gone to braid/floro leader too, better casting distance with braid, and a lot less line snarls. And as Pete mentions, if you want to try another line size, you can swap out the leader rather than re-spool.

Dang Erik, that is a nice place.

Yeah that looks to be a really BIG bass, congrats!

That is one heck of a deep diving Wart, it will be interesting to see.

Hard to figure out what they are doing, Newport Gauge got down to near 12, then they pulsed some water out of Bull and TR, gauge got up to 13, looks again like they are letting some water out in a similar pattern to yesterday. No updates on their Facebook page or website that I could find.

I have a Hamby, it has been on my boat for 9 years and it is still snug and secure. I have no experience with the Keel Guard brand. Might need to try fishing the Keitechs a little faster myself. I always let them drop and slow roll them.

Almost to 13 this morning and it appears they have opened up a little on the release from Bull, and Bull has dropped an inch or two in the last day.

Sometimes you just gotta throw worrying about the cost to the wind and just get a big darn truck.

I think you're good - might want to add some crawlers to fish on the drop shot if the fishing is tough. Just edited this, fo some reason I thought you were bringing a 6 yo with you, but reading your post, you're not. But you could still fish crawlers if the going get tough.

Well the river gauge on the White at Newport AR, has dropped to just above 14 feet and still going down. According the the last COE operating policy I read (assuming nothing has changed since), once the gauge gets down to 14 and if the White river lakes are at 70% or higher flood capacity, then the COE can start "regulating". We might start to see some water moving real soon.

You might want to look into the MO Army or Air National Guard. I believe using a combination of state and federal GI bill type programs they will pretty much pay your tuition.

I remember Palaniuk winning on Bull, that was a while back, maybe 7 years or so. I also remember him being in the mix on Grand, I think it was a Classic - had his friends and family watching from the shore where he was fishing a crank. Might have been the Classic Pace won on Grand.

Fisheries technician position open here in Bella Vista, it's working for the POA so it is somewhat of a government job. Don't know what it has for benefits. Recruitment (adp.com) In your case of not having a degree, it's going to be tough to find a job that pays well in the fisheries management sector. You'll end up competing against people that have degrees in that field.

I hate ticks....

Cool, can you fish during the week? I have family in town next week, so I won't be doing any fishing until after June 21.

When you say you're ready for a road trip, you ain't kidding!

I have a 2010 F-150 that I'm thinking about trading in too, but with the truck shortage, no way I'm paying a premium on top of MSRP. So I may be keeping it until this stuff gets worked out, if it ever does. Every time I crunch the numbers on diesel vs gas, gas always wins out. I can tow my boat up and down and around the Ozark hills just fine with my gas truck, so it is hard for me to pony up the extra bucks for diesel.

Time for Zaldain to win one.

Wow, that's some coin.

I did not see a single guide boat. I agree that the striper bite is probably further down lake. I have family in town for the next week so I won't be fishing again until June 21 at the earliest. If I was to go tomorrow, I'd think about launching at Lost Bridge South and heading down to the Clifty area and see if I could find any stripers around there.

Tough morning, there was some early activity but by about 9 AM everything just died. Caught 4 smallmouth, only one was decent sized. All on a Keitech. Still very little top water striper activity. I did have a few come up within casting distance of the boat, worked a pencil popper over them, had several swirls, then one slammed it and knocked it three feet into the air. Never got a hookup and then they were gone. I saw them, they were little 3-5 lbers, so it's not like I had some 20 lbers chasing it. Saw one other little school like that earlier by the launch and that was it. Had a good smallmouth miss the top water too, he exploded on it like a striper, missing it of course, then as I kept working the popper, he came back, blew up on it again, and jumped right over it. Surface water temp was 79 when I left, last week it was 70. It was getting downright hot and humid when I left at 1030.

Well KVD pulled it off. He fessed up at the end to what he was using. The reel, being what we were most interested in, was a Lew's BB1 in 6:4:1 ratio. 28 inches per turn. He also was using a Lew's rod, but I didn't get what model it was. 5XD on the last day in Blue Gizzard Shad.

Those smallmouth are tanks!