Quillback

Had to get out before the Big Chill. Not a bad day to be out, chilly, but the wind wasn't too bad. There were some bites to be had, 2.8 Keitech and the Ned rig both produced. I caught 13 bass, 2 of them were spots, but the rest were smalls. 4 keepers, all in the 15-16" range. The Ned fish I caught were in the trees back in Indian. Keitech fish were out in the main lake basin, rocky points with wind were good. Some fish were shallow, 5-10 feet, but you could get bites out to 25 feet. Fish are scattered, you have to keep your head down and keep fishing and eventually you'll run across some. WT is still at 51, but I bet we'll see a dip.

Nice fish, great pics!

I think I'd rather stand out in the dark, cold and wind than take a trip down old 71. That road was brutal!

"Bitter cold, windy, and dark." Man you gotta suffer to get an AR river sauger. 😄

Sounds like a neat place to fish except for that darned rip-rap.

It was my privilege to take you. Always good to make new friends too.

Might get a little sketchy in a few days.

Looking good!

Too cold for an early start today, so I waited until late in the morning and was fishing by 1100. Decent fishing today, there were some dry spells with no fish, but every once in a while I'd find a few grouped together and would get a couple of bites. My first three were on the Ned rig, but I decided to go with a 2.8 Keitech and that worked better. My two biggest smallies came in 20 FOW slow rolling the Keitech right off the bottom. The other fish ranged from right on the bank out to 20 feet. I caught a dozen bass, 10 smalls, one LM and one meanmouth. Spent all my time around the dam basin area, never went back into the trees in Indian. Only striper activity I saw was a couple of swirls near the dock at the Indian Creek ramp right after I got the boat on the trailer. If a feeding frenzy had broken out I would've gone after them, but a couple of swirls and that was it. I saw one other bass boat and a couple of rec boats. No striper boats to be seen. WT 51 Thought this mean was a good looking fish: My two best smallies:

Congrats! A true Polar Bear, that was a cold wind blowing yesterday.

I'll probably never do it, but thanks for the advice!

I like rock piles. I like brush piles too.

Neat looking fish. Always thought it would be neat to have an aquarium with some darters in it.

Personally, I'd rather have you and any others that know where the big ones live, send me a map with the correct spots circled. Going out on the lake and looking for bent poles, even with the use of binoculars, is tedious.

There's a place in Huntsville AR that I have hunted a few times. It was good training for the pooch. Farm raised quail are pretty tasty too, good to go home with a few. Can't beat hunting wild birds though, and I miss my days of hunting pheasant, quail, and chukar when I lived in Washington.

Good to hear you are getting it back!

Went yesterday myself, caught a dozen short fish on Ned rigs. Lots of junk in the water from the rising water and some stain too. Not seeing any deep fish at all.

Looks like a gully washed out.

That is one big animal. Would be interesting to know what it weighed.

Get to stay as nice digs and do some fishing, that is great! Looks like you had the bank fishing all to yourself too.

That's a good 4 hours!

WOW! Now that is a walleye!