Quillback

Some good fish for this time of year. How was the boat traffic?

There's a point across from the Dam Site park where there's a drop off almost straight down to 100 feet. They were coming up there this morning feeding on shad. Mostly small fish, but saw a couple of pops that may have been from bigger fish. real intermittent, maybe every 5 to 10 minutes they'd come up for about 30 seconds. That was the only place I saw any consistent top water activity. May shoot right over there next time early and see what happens.

Launched at daylight, fished until 1030. Fishing was spotty, caught a dozen bass, biggest was a 14.5" meanmouth that I measured. Caught a couple of smallmouth and a spot about that size. rest of the fish were 10-12" spots and largemouth. C-rigged a UV Speed Craw, tossed a Zoom Finesse worm on the drop shot, and caught 2 on top water. Fish were mostly deep, 20-25 FOW off rocky/gravel points. Surface temp - 85.

Surprised you were able to get so close without waking it.

With a forecast for cooler weather I decided to make the trek to Table Rock. Had a location tip from rps, and the fish were where he found them last time he was out. They were all deep, 20-30 FOW, not a lot of them on the finder, but enough to fish for. I caught most of them on a c-rig UV Speed craw with a couple of drop shot fish and one on top. Put 8 in the boat before they just stopped biting about 0830. I spent too much time messing around with baits trying different stuff, if I had stuck to the UV Craw I'm pretty sure I would've boated a few more. You just don't get much time to fish before they shut down and the rec traffic starts going, I was off the water at 1030. Must've have been some kind of Master Craft get together today, had a pack of 8 of them come by me, talk about wakes, holy cow, thought I would get seasick. Surface temp was 85. This sorry looking bass was my biggest. This post has been promoted to an article

Congrats!

I'll be curious to hear what your opinions are on the various blanks as far as which ones fish the best.

NTSB report on the sinking of a DUKW on lake Ouchita in 1999 that killed 11 people. Executive summary places the blame on the canopy preventing people from exiting the boat, lack of reserve buoyancy, and a couple of other contributing causes. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/MAR0201.pdf

Some reading on the DUKW, if anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW

Very nice!

Wow, that is a whale of a rainbow, congrats to Shirley!

A beauty for sure! I'll take an estimate on length if you don't mind, just curious.

Thanks for the update. I might venture out there Monday myself, supposed to cool down a tad by then (I hope). It's been a few weeks since I have made it over that way. I'll be happy to find a jig bite, I like fishing them.

This is one of those things that when you hear it you say to yourself "How the heck could this have happened?" I was watching the new last evening and the weatherman was talking about that storm as it approached, he said it was racing in at about 55 MPH, and I thought to myself that it sure could be an issue for anyone out on the water. Going to be a tough one for friends and family of the victims.

Yep, they've been stocking them for years as far as I know.

Always been a fan of grey/green for fishing, polarized of course. I wear prescription lens, so unfortunately I can't get by with the cheap ones. Never have had the "purple haze" problem. Was that what Hendrix was singing about? 😁

I have been through that cut many a time. Nice place to have a house! How is the Ned working right now? Haven't thrown it in a while, but might soon. I saw someone on Table Rock was having success on the smallies with it recently, so I might throw it some myself.

Going to be stinking up the entire campground if it doesn't drift away to somewhere else.

Used to live outside of Seattle and fished for steelhead quite a bit. Loved it, and I miss the good old days. Fishery went downhill about the end of the 90's. I live in Bella Vista and am happy with it. A lot depends on what you are looking for in retirement, NW Arkansas area where Bella Vista is located is a busy urban area and it is growing, may not be for you unless that is what you are looking for. As far as Mountain Home area, it is a great place to live for a fisherman. Bull Shoals for lake fishing and outstanding trout fishing in the White river below the dam. If you have any question about Bella Vista, feel free to shoot me a PM.

First time out in a couple of weeks, I was hoping the fish were in the same places they were a couple of weeks ago, but they weren't. Caught a half dozen bass, 5 were brownies, one was a spot. Nothing big, 13-15" fish. C-rigging a UV Speed Craw got them, fish were deep, they came from 20-30 FOW. I launched about 0545 and was off the water by 10 AM. Pleasure boat traffic was picking up, it was hot and no wind, I was ready to go. I saw only two other fishermen all day, pretty good sign that things are tough. Surface temp 85 when I left.

I knew once these things showed up in Table Rock, it was only a matter of time before they made it to Beaver. I didn't want to get too close to it in case it turned on me and charged, but got a shot of one as it was moving from it's roost to the water. I have no idea what they feed on, but it may have something to do with the dead fish in the foreground.

I've got a Perko cutoff switch installed by my batteries. I flip it off when I roll the boat in the garage and hook up the charger, flip it on when I roll out to go fishing.

I have fond memories of this day last December. Next day the cold front moved in that lingered for a couple of weeks and basically deep sixed the top water bite. http://forums.ozarkanglers.com/topic/61506-december-20-indian-creek-arm/

On my infrequent night fishing forays I have discovered that the light from my depth finder attracts bugs, in turn bugs attract bats. Not unusual in that situation to have them bump my line every once in a while. Feels like a bite. I don't like having bats flying around me, so I usually don't run the depth finder. Don't need it anyway when I am night fishing.