Quillback

I have this in a print article in the Weekly Vista, can't cut and paste. so I will summarize: An AGFC project has put white rectangular floating plant pens in the Rocky Branch and Van Winkel arms. These containers have American pond weed and coontail. It is hoped that wave and wake action will shake loose seeds from the plants in the enclosures and start plant growth on the bottom. Six large enclosures for pond weed and eighteen enclosures for coontail are in place. It's something of an experiment, but is has worked on DeGray lake. I have noticed the hydrilla on the dam end is becoming more widespread every year.

Great fishing!

It was some fun fishing for sure. Very interesting seeing the fish and how the react. Jeb has set up his FFS so that he has a screen up front and one at the console that we back seaters can see.

Last tourney in ongoing. I swung for the fences, not doing so well.

Fishing with Dutch yesterday and we caught most of our fish shallow too. This morning on Beaver lake, they were in 30 FOW.

Flying fish. 😃

I've been waiting for that up the creek after a rain thing for a while, we're not getting rain here, north of us and south of us it has been rainy but not here.

They are all splattered on my windshield. Killed a bunch going to TR yesterday.

Mooneye is a good name for them.

That's some good fishing!

It was a good trip for this time of year and the weather was decent. It is now 95 at the house, so adios cool weather. Thanks for the trip!

I have a number for a striper guide that I can PM you if you want it. Saw him at the ramp last week and he had 3 stripers in the 5-7 lb. range. I've caught a few myself, but not nearly as knowledgeable as the guys that chase them all the time, but if you are thinking of going anytime soon, you want to be down at the lower end of the lake. Sometime starting late October or thereabouts there will be a top water bite, that's how I like to catch them. You can get them on spooks or poppers on top or you can throw a fluke or tube at them. You want a setup that will allow you to make long casts. I know a guy that hammered them on umbrella rigs in the fall several years ago, so I think that is worth a shot, but it is something I don't throw. Dan the Fisherman knows a lot about those stripey things, maybe he'll have some input. Bfishin does too, but he only advises on how to catch 50 lbers. 😀

I've got friends that are fishing just about every day. It's tough, but they get some every day, mostly shallow. Early bite. I'm going tomorrow with Dutch, I expect it to be tough, but it's good to get out.

Royals Achilles heel, the bullpen, blows it again.

I'd go by what the guide book says. I have not fished the tail water with Power Bait and I was unaware you could not use a treble.

Never have heard of them being numbered. When they talk about a drift rig, they are probably talking about fishing that setup from a boat. I haven't fished worms from a boat on the White river since we made a trip over there in the mid-80's, but what we did then was use a bell sinker, with about a 3 foot leader to the hook. You'd want just enough weight so that as you drifted down river in the boat the weight would tick off the bottom every now and then as the boat and your bait moved down the river with the current. Good way to catch trout, but lots of snags, you end up spending as much time tying on tackle and re-baiting as you do fishing. I always used an egg-shaped slip sinker when bait fishing from the bank. Run your line through the slip sinker, 2 or 3 feet up the line, then clamp a split shot below the sinker. Easier IMO then tying on a bell sinker, then tying your leader to the sinker and it allows the trout to pull line through the weight when it bites, more likely they'll hold on. I always liked to use enough weight so that the sinker would anchor itself to the bottom. That way you can tighten up your line and prop the rod in a forked stick and wait for a bite. Might be the best way to fish with an impatient 6 yo, you can do other things, while waiting for a bite. If you're drifting that worm, which is an effective way to fish, you've got to be holding on to your rod and dealing with getting frequent hang-ups, and it may be hard for a 6 yo to do all that. Not to mention bite detection on a moving setup that is bouncing off rocks on the bottom. If you want to do the anchor to the bottom deal, It all depends on how fast the current is and how deep. I'd bring weights from 1/4 oz up to 1/2 oz. If I had to choose one bait, I'd go with Power Bait in pink or chartreuse. I'd use a #10 Eagle Claw gold treble hook and mold a ball of bait just big enough to cover the hook points. I always like to use night crawlers. I always used a whole crawler on a #8 Eagle Claw bait holder hook from one of those snelled leader packs. Hook that crawler through the middle so that those little bait holder barbs are in the body, but leave both ens of the crawler free to wiggle. You have to be careful casting the crawler as it might fly off if you snap that cast out there, so just lob it. Redworms are good too, so are crickets, use a smaller, lightwire hook for crickets and worms. Another idea and a way to keep the 6 yo entertained is go catch some grasshoppers, trout will eat them too. I'm sure you know this, but the White river can come up really fast when they release water. Make sure you are fishing from a place where you can get up on the bank quickly if it starts coming up. If the 6 yo isn't having fun with the trout thing, you can always go over to Bull Shoals, find some place where you can fish off the bank, and toss a cork out there with a red worm 3-4 feet below the cork, try and find some bluegills, the size won''t matter much to him, but if you can find them, the action will be fast and nothing is better for a youngster than seeing that cork get pulled under. I don't know that area too well, but maybe there are some small ponds around, usually the ponds will hold a bazillion little gills and are a great place to take a really young fisherman. And gills love grasshoppers too. It would be great to find a grassy bank where you could catch hoppers and then use them to catch gills. You'd stay pretty busy and have fun. Good luck! '

Well you got some fishing time in, you''ll have to go again, make those fish pay for only biting once.

Probably some distant relatives of mine that are still in the old country. 😀

Wife of a good friend has a job where she gets unlimited time off and sick days. Gets paid over $100K/year which is not unusual in the software world. Things are booming in NW Arkansas, I'm not crazy about it, one of the reasons, is as you see also, is traffic is ridiculous. To fish Table Rock or the lower end of Beaver, I have to drive through Pea Ridge. Along the narrow 2 lane HWY I have to drive to get to the lakes, there are hundreds of new houses, plus new apartment buildings. They've just recently moved a bit east of town and are clearing land for a couple of more BIG housing developments. Hundreds more houses if they can sell them. They aren't small houses, either, small lots, but good sized houses that are going for, I'm estimating, $400k at least. Someday there will be a bust, it always happens.

My grandad was born in 1914. When he was a toddler he contracted what they called Rheumatic fever. No doctors around, no hospital or ER to got to, no medications to give to him. All they could do was wrap him in a wet cloth and hope that would break the fever. It worked, sort of, he lived but it damaged his heart and he always had problems with blood pressure that was too low and died when he was 56. He had a sister that died when she was 2, I believe it was influenza. It's hard to beat me in a game of "How miserable were your ancestors". 😀

All I have to do is reflect on my ancestors lives of just a couple of generatons ago - they were farm laborers before we imported farm laborers. They had nothing. Things nowadays aren't that bad.

I want to make it to a KC game one of these days, it would have to be a day game. Drive up there early in the AM , see the game, drive back. Probably be a 16 hour day.

Yep, if you can keep a 6 yo interested in trout fishing for more than 15 minutes, you're doing pretty good.

Did you fish or were you an observer?

Junior cranked two HR's last night. Hey the Royals are playing the Cards this weekend!