Quillback

They did make some other points. The dams have completely altered the river ecosystem, to compensate we flood the river with hatchery smolts, these smolts require human intervention to reach the sea. Predators such as Caspian terns, cormorants, and pikeminnows are thriving in this new environment, the smolts are easy pickings for them. Basically we're spending hunreds of million dollars each and every year on salmon restoration efforts, but as long as the dams are in place we'll never be successful. Mention was made of the definition of insanity. Some great photography BTW.

It's great news, congrats to the team that snuffed the scumbag!

Tonight at 7 PM CT on PBS, Nature will profile salmon issues in the Columbia and Snake river basins.

Benton Co. Daily record had a little blurb about a couple of tourneys that happend on Friday. The Childrens Miracle Network tourney had 93 boats, winners had 4 fish for 14.1 lbs (praire creek weigh in). Walmart/Sam's club in house tourney was won with a 5 weighing 8.12 lbs. So bass are being caught, but not surprisingly appears to be tough fishing.

Curious after this storm if Grand held up OK. Anyone have any info?

Drove over to the Lost Bridge North COE park today, ramp is still usable, however courtesy dock is 50 yards from shore now. Water is still clear with a greenish tint, water temp is 56. View from the ramp Prime "on the water" camping spot by the ramp. Lake is dropping, you can see the high water mark on the pavement.

Wow, I wonder if the bridge can withstand this, unbelievable!

Stopped by Windsor, a guy fishing by the dock told me one of the POA folks told him the ramps would probably open tomorrow. Down by the spillway a couple of guys were throwing cranks and had 5 nice bass (2-4 lbs.) on a stringer, hated to see nice bass like that kept, but that's the way it is sometimes. Saw several bass chasing shad by the dam, they are definitly biting. Water had really drained off the golf courses, Sugar Creek is still high and muddy but has dropped considerably since yesterday, hopefully we won't get a lot of rain tonight and tomorrow.

I was over there this morning, water is so high that the new dock at the dam ramp is a couple of inches under water. Ramp is still closed. Water is slightly stained, but not too bad. I did a circuit around the road that goes across the dam, everybody else in BV had the same idea, 3 trucks parked there and I saw about 8 others do the loop in the 5 minutes I was there, once the ramps open it's going to look like the Normandy invasion there will be so many boats out there. Water is high at all the other lakes, Avalon ramp is close to being unusable, and the water is stained brown. The back launch at Lomond is usable if a person can drive the boat off their trailer. The road into Lake Ann is closed. Little Sugar creek is the highest I have ever seen it, golf courses are getting flooded, there's going to be a lot of expensive damage to the courses. Where 71 crosses into MO right before you get to MacAdoodles there is a lake now on both sides of the road. The little brooks that meander through the golf courses are now raging brown torrents, pretty amazing stuff.

Drove over there this afternoon, ramp still closed but the water's high enough now for it to be opened, looks like about another foot and water will be going over the top of the spillway, and seeing how much more rain is on the way that should be a sure thing. Maybe they will open it Monday when the POA people are back at work.

Trophy, I hope you come out of this OK, it's unbelievable how much rain has fallen with more in the forecast..I hope the forecast is wrong.

Yeah the rain can stop, I may take a drive over there this AM to see if they have opened the ramp.

Yesterday evening when I checked the Beaver gauge it was at 1118, this AM it's at 1120 and rising, that's an impressive amount of water in a short time.

Man has it rained today in Bella Vista, it stopped for a while late this morning into the afternoon, but it's coming down again. Had hail last might and again this monrning, but fortunately no damage except for a couple of broccoli plants that got beat up. If there's a bright side to this, it's that fish populations are up in Beaver because of the high water the last couple of years, looks like it will be another hight water spring, the graph for the water level is shooting straight up, water should be in the buck brush soon.

Yep, I did not mean to imply it was something you could use to get an exact weight, I have found it to be close however, but that's only using largemouth. And it can get you in the ballpark if you ain't got nothing to weight your fish . State of OK wildlife department keeps lake records for largest fish, just saw where a fellow caught an 11.4 lb. bass out of Lake Holdenville. Length 23.5, girth 20.5, ran it through the calculator and the calc said 11.09, so it was in the ball park.

Yeah it's a political furball, people that live on the lakes but don't fish want clear water, if there wasn't a fish in any of the lakes they would be happy. I'm hoping that they allow the fisheries biologist to manage the lakes, and just stay out of trying to give their "advice". Drove by Windsor today, ramps still closed, the water has reached the bottom of the ramp so I'm thinking by next weekend,or maybe the middle of the week, assuming it rains as predicted, the ramps will be open.

I caught a bass this winter with almost the same dimensions, it weighed 9.2 according to my scale. Here's an online fish calculator, that gives an estimate of 9.8 for a fish that's 25 long and 16 girth. I think you may have underestimated. Heck of a fish by any measure! http://www.bassresource.com/bassfishing/fishcalculator.html

I'm not sure what it means either, they used to dump fertilzer in the lakes but some of the non-fishermen who lived on the lakes did not like the pea green water color so they stopped fertilizing. We'll probably get something more specific soon as to what they'll be doing. Back in the fertilzer days Lomond had a pretty good shad population and some sizable bass so I'm hoping they come up something that will improve overall bass size. They have stocked threadfin shad in Lomond in each of the last 2 years, first year they either got eaten or died off during the winter, I haven't fished Lomond in a while I wonder if the shad made it this year.

Take it easy on the little fellers . Yeah there are a lot of those small bass, I'm strictly catch and release when it comes to bass, but you're right, on some of the lakes it would not hurt to harvest the some of the smaller ones. The lakes bio tells me that he has just gotten approval from the AR DNR to begin some sort of nutrient enhancement program for the lakes, in the long term that should help bass sizes improve.

Thanks for the heads up, I just need a day where the wind isn't blowing up a hurricane.

Yeah I could not tell where they were at either. They did not seem to be fishing bluffs at all. They were working the jerkbaits faster than I do usually, guess I learned something there. Some pretty nice bass were caught.

I hear there's some crappie to be caught in that lake, I bet you'll do well.

Thanks for that link. I did some research and as far as I can tell, High Octane gas, 89 or 91 can contain Ethanol.

Hey Birdwatcher, I've heard of that catfish bite in the rocks in June but never tried it - any general areas on the lake you would recommend? I have also heard shrimp beneath a float works well for the spawning cats, but again, just what I've heard.

At noon, according to today's paper.