Quillback

Thanks for your reports and the technique info you have provided!

If you want to protect songbirds, focus on domestic cats.

I can't stay up past 9 PM but glad to hear you guys are getting them.

I have started to throw a little heavier sinker, 1/2 oz, but I've been using small baits like the Zoom Ultravibe craw. I plan on going tomorrow and I think I'm going to try some bigger baits, trick worms and lizards and fish them in the deeper water outside the beds and hope for some better fish. I'll probably just end up catching fewer smaller fish, but I'm going to give it a try.

That's another one, people fishing from ramps or from the courtesy dock. I don't mind them fishing, but what is aggravating is when they leave their lines in the water and get all huffy when you pull into the dock.

A 7.5 lb. wallie is a beast in my books, congrats on that!

I think the worst are pontoon boats trying to get on the trailer when there's a good crosswind blowing across the ramp. Not that I get mad at them for it, but that's a good way to tie up a ramp for a while.

Excellent, glad to see you got into them with your son!

Got a couple dozen today, maybe 10 around keeper size, but nothing over 16", mostly largemouth, couple of spots and a couple of smallies. Dragging a c-rig with a craw was my best bite, fishing water 5 -10 feet deep. I did get a half dozen or so fishing a Damiki Stinger weightless rigged Texas style. A stinger is a soft stickbait like a Senko, except the tail tapers down to a point. Throw it out there, twitch it a bit, let is sink, twitch, until you get it back to the boat. Stinger bite was good early in the back of coves, but once the sun came out they did not like it anymore and I had to go back to c-rigging. Got quite a few drive-byes on the Stinger, I think they were moving it away from beds and not really eating it. Water temp went from 57 early and was getting to 61 when I left about 2 PM. Water has cleared up quite a bit in the point 23 area, but going up the White from Big M the water still has a brownish color, with a couple of feet of viz, but it is fishable. Lots of folks out fishing today.

Nice, especially for a 25 year old boat.

Thanks for the info, I'm going out tomorrow AM and was concerned the latest rain might have murked up the water, but looks like that did not happen.

The Bella Vista POA and US Coast Guard Auxiliary is offering a free, and open to the public (you do not have to be a Bella Vista resident to attend) boat safety class, Saturday, May 4th at Riordan Hall, 3 Riordan Drive in Bella Vista. Class runs from 9 AM to 5 PM. BV boaters can receive a 10% discount on boat registration fees, and you may be eligible for a boat insurance discount upon completion of this class. To register (you must pre-register) send an email to safeboating4all@yahoo.com. I'm told there are about 25 seats left, so register soon.

Caught a couple of nice browns years ago on the White below Bull on Little Cleo spoons, can't remember the exact size, but shad sized ones, 2-3". Spray painted one side white, cast them up stream and try and imitate a shad that's been through the turbines and is dead or dying and rolling down the river in the current. Those browns also feed on sculpins heavily, might be worth trying the soft plastic Goby imitators (looks like a sculpin) that have hit the market in the last few years.

Ya'll are welcome, I plan to record it as I think I'll be out fishing tomorrow AM.

ESPN2 will show the Elite tourney on Bull tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 AM Central.

A couple of other local lakes, Grand Lake is #15 and Bull is #18. Beaver did not make the list.

Here's what the article says they used to rank the lakes: "Asking every states DNR to give us catch rates, population studies and stocking schedules for all the fisheries they managed. From there, we sent the list to B.A.S.S. Nation presidents and conservation directors to rank each of these bodies of water based on the tournaments they held. And then we had a panel of Elite Series pros, outdoor writers and industry professionals finalize the lakes list and rankings."

Yeah just get the renter-guest ID and you can fish the lakes. There haven't been any LMB stockings in years, in spite of the heavy pressure the bass do a good job of reproducing. There have been crappie, catfish and redear stocked from surplus produced by AGFC hatcheries. But if you have a problem with that you should take it up with the AGFC, you'll get nowhere complaining about it in this forum. Trout stocking has been paid for out of POA funds, so has threadfin shad stocked a couple of years ago. I shouldn't waste any more time on this, but the "elites" and "non-natives" that live here are folks who worked hard and long to earn their retirement, teachers, police, firefighters, nurses, doctors, lawyers, farmers, factory workers, military who served their country for 20-30 years and small business owners. I'm sure it's possible to run into a rude Bella Vista retiree, it's happened to me, but I find that if I'm courteous and respectful to folks they'll usually treat me in the same manner. I was always taught to have respect for my elders, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Funny stuff!

Bassmaster magazine has come out with their 2013 100 best bass lakes. LOZ is ranked 31, Table Rock ranked 39. Is LOZ a better bass lake than TR? If so, I must be pretty darned good. I've never fished LOZ myself, but might be worth a trip someday if it's that good.

Yep, give it about 6 weeks and I'll start complaining about hot weather.

True - But if we excluded all of the above topics, we wouldn't have much left.

Last week I watched "Bass - The movie", part 1, they did feature some guys fly casting for largemouth, which is one thing you never see on the conventional bass fishing shows. It looked like fun, one guy was using a surface frog type fly and fishing it over surface weeds, and another guy was shown fishing a shad pattern. I liked the looks of that shad fly and it got me to thinking that one of these days I might get a fly rod and do some bass fishing with it. I think that, at least in the bass fishing world, fly fishing is not viewed as a technique that will load the boat or win tourneys.

I did see a cruiser, he went up the White, chugging along at about 20 MPH with the bow up in the air about 30 degrees thereby pushing out a maximum wake, then 2 minutes later the wakes crashed into the shore producing rollers that were big enough to surf on, then 10 minutes later the cruiser rolls by doing the same thing but going in the opposite direction. Thankfully they disappeared up lake and I never saw them or any other cruisers for the rest of the day.

Nice one, pound for pound, I don't know many freshwater fish that fight harder than those hybrids.