Quillback

I stink at estimating fish from photos, but sure looks like at least a 5 lber to me. Congrats!

That is some great fishing!

I think he should go ahead and take his family, the fishing is out of this world!

Maybe I'll watch that later. Maybe....

Launched at daylight, fished until 1130 today. It was a cloudy morning so I hung in there a little longer than usual, but the best action was early, after 9 AM it got slow. Found some top water fish off a steep, deep bank first thing in the morning. Mix of small spots and largemouth. Caught them on a small popper, ultra light spinning rod and 6 lb. test. Makes catching a 13" spotted bass a lot of fun. Top water bite lasted about 30 minutes, then shut down for the most part, but several times throughout the morning I would see a few come up and chase shad. They are eating really small shad, the shad look to be about 3/4 of an inch long. Last time out I saw bass suspended over deep water on the sonar. They would hit a drop shot, but it was hard to get it in front of them. I wanted to try something else, so decided to bring some spy baits with me. Never have had much luck with spy baits, but clear water, small shad and suspended fish made me think it might work. First cast with one I caught a 17" largemouth, which would be the biggest fish of the day. Caught a few more smaller fish on the spy bait, but never could get another good one on it. Had at least a half dozen bass grab it and get off, those small trebles, though sharp, just don't do a good job of keeping fish pinned. Caught a couple of smallies on the Ned rig in 15 FOW, got a couple more on a c-rig with the UV Speed Craw. This post has been promoted to an article

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.