Quillback

Article says "caught", but it was hit by a boat and someone retrieved it. Big son of a gun for sure. 165-pound fish caught at Beaver Lake (nwahomepage.com)

Nice King! They are strong fish, I miss fishing for them.

Very nice! If you're lucky there will be a "heat wave" meaning the temps might get up into the 70's.

HAHA, they were putting them away, they had put them on the roof of their vehicle the night before, planning to go yakking the next day.

Here's one for JF. Where you been John, haven't seen you post in a while? @Johnsfolly

Light rain now, didn't get a bunch, maybe 1/4"-half an inch. 71 degrees, got the windows open.

I thought some of the rain that has been coming through in the last week would've hit you up there.

Here comes the storms. 10 minutes after I took this pic, it got windy, dark, and now it is raining. Going to be a brief cool down however which is going to feel great!

It was downright nasty yesterday. In the afternoon, went to the outdoor gun range, then walked a couple of miles. Worked up a good sweat.

There is some sort of kiddie camp up on that hill behind point 22 and they are out there early circling through that area kicking up wakes. Makes it no fun to fish. Used to catch some bass off Pinnacle Point right on the channel edge. Haven't been up there in a while. Here's a nine something caught late May. Bet it would've gone over 10 when it had eggs.

Thanks for the invite, too much going on for me to leave here, but one of these days I want to fish that lake.

Never been there, but would like to give it a shot one of these days. Elites are going to be there July 27-30, catch some of the live coverage if you can and you'll see what they are using.

That gives you an excuse to do more fishing!

Those things were eyeballing us. I'm sure they were hoping one of us would keel over so they could have lunch.

MO put in some pretty big piles around the Big M area a year ago, as part of that project with Johnny Morris. They were sinking cedar trees, it made some big piles. Three years ago I saw AGFC doing the same thing around the dam area on Beaver, they were cutting cedars, hauling them down to the lake, taking them out on a barge, and sinking them.

I believe there are two types of whitefish, Lake whitefish and Mountain whitefish. Something else for you species guys to hase. I saw a Wardens show where they were watching guys catching whitefish on one of the great lakes that were making their spawning run. Fishing at night, cold weather, did not look like fun. Some of them were snagging, which is verboten and landed them in trouble with the wardens.

I'm sure I could eat one. A lot of people that kept them, smoked them. I never targeted whitefish, every once in a while I'd get one while steelhead fishing.

Haven't been to Big M in a while, holiday crowds and weather has kept me away. It was almost cold this morning, 59 degrees at the launch with some thick fog in places. Water temp was 83. Fishing was kind of weird, I caught 20 bass, 6 were keepers, and half of the bass I caught and I think 5 of the 6 keepers came on top, late in the morning when the sun was shining down and the water was calm. Caught several in 70 FOW that were largemouth, they came up a few times chasing 3 inch shad and if you could get that top water on them, they'd be all over it. I also have a little pocket near some gravel that for some reason has a late morning top water bite, caught 4 in there, they were spots. Caught some fish deep on the 3.8 Keitech, a few on jigs, the only smallmouth I caught came on a jig. Quit about 1030. Quite a few folks out there fishing today.

When I lived in Washington you had to go to one of the Indian reservations to buy fireworks. Not a fireworks guy myself, but had friends that would go to the rez and load up on the explosives.

They aren't that good to eat, from what I've been told. People do like to eat the roe, pan fried it is supposedly good. There were a couple of places on the Yakima river in Washington that were popular to fish when they were spawning, and they'd spawn early if I remember correctly, something like late January/early February. People would keep the roe, toss the fish. Never tried it myself.

Good stuff, I am thinking about chasing some gills, I love fried gill fillets. How do you rig your crawlers for them?

My 60's memories of maters were the summers I would spend with my Bootheel MO grandparents. Grandad was a farmer, cotton and soybeans, but he would always grow an acre of tomatoes. He'd pick them by the bushel. Grandma canned them and made a really good sweet relish, that I liked over Crowder Peas - something else they grew and canned. Sad thing was that I wasn't a big mater fan as a kid. They had a lot of connections with other farmers, either family or friends. They all had something different, sweet corn, peaches, watermelon, green beans, blackberries and grandma would go visit and pick all she wanted. She'd can her own cream corn, green beans, make her own desserts with the fruit, that woman could cook! Best peaches I have ever had, all the watermelon I could eat.

Browsing around this morning I ran across the Kerguelen islands. Located in the very south of the Indian ocean it is one of the most remote places on the planet. No airports, only way in is by boat. Climate is inhospitable, mainly due to wind. Only inhabitants are people associated with scientific research. Salmonids were introduced, brown and brook trout are the ones that 'took'. Some studying going on, neat little video, nice brown caught and tagged.

Biologists completed a stock contribution study on the Beaver Lake Channel Catfish population and there are good numbers of catfish in the lake. AGFC annually stocks 60,000 Channel Catfish (average size of 9 inches) in Beaver Lake to supplement the natural spawn and provide better fishing opportunities. To evaluate stock contribution, AGFC staff from Charlie Craig Hatchery and District Biologists have marked (adipose fin clip) the stocked Channel Catfish for the past five years. Around 270,000 Channel Catfish have been marked and stocked into Beaver Lake in the past 5 years! Staff can determine how these fish contribute to the fishery by sampling the lake with baited hoop nets. Catch rates of Channel Catfish were similar to the long-term average of around 10 catfish per hoop net set. Stocked individuals were caught in large numbers one year after stocking, and were not caught in the lower section of the reservoir near the dam until two years after stocking. Overall stock contribution ranged between 42% and 53%. Compared to their wild conspecifics, stocked Channel Catfish were marginally smaller in total length after age 2, had similar body condition, and showed similar rates of mortality. Our results show that stocking is important to the maintenance of the Channel Catfish fishery in Beaver Lake. This is a great time to catch Channel Catfish on Beaver Lake and if you catch a fish with the adipose fin missing, send us a picture! jonathan.stein@agfc.ar.gov

Took a break from growing tomatoes this year. I think I made a mistake. Got some good snow peas however. I just planted some squash and cukes, never have started them this late.