MOsmallies

Go flip/pitch shallow cover with a Black/Blue jig or creature bait. Or try a colorado bladed spinnerbait or chatterbait.

Great report Mike! Sounds like an awesome weekend full of catching!!

What Wrench said! A buddy of mine caught this 6.3 on a Buzzbait in July. You can see in the pic that his trolling motor prop isn't even in the water because it was so shallow. He had another that he claims was bigger blow up on his bait later that night. This is one of those resident shallow water fish. So many ways to catch them on LOZ and not enough time to try em all out!!!

Hey Ben... You may want to reach out to Bob Bueltmann with BassingBob.com and see if he'd be interested in assisting/partnering with your venture. He has created a pretty successful online fishing resource for the LOZ community and has a ton of contacts in the community. I would love to see Tan-Tar-A as one of your locations as our house is in that area... Maybe they could be a potential sponsor/site.

Oh I've done the same thing! That's how I caught my biggest buffalo ever... Thought I was sight fishing to a cruising bass and it ended up being a 20-25 lb buffalo that I snagged under the chin!

Best way to tell the difference between a carp, drum, and bass in the water if you are not familiar with them is to look at the shape of their tail... A carp's tail will be forked, the tip of a drum's tail will be rounded, and a bass will look pretty much straight from top to bottom

It was well worth the heat. Played golf the next 2 days in 100+ degree temps. That was way more brutal!

It was hot and muggy! As you can see I still had my shirt off at 2:00 am when that flathead was caught. Water temp was 89.6 at 2 am!

Bump and Price Drop... $28 to your door

Just got back home from a weekend at LOZ. I was hosting 6 other guys for a golf weekend so my buddy and I were only able to fish on Thursday night before the rest of the guys showed up. I hadn't been down since the very beginning of June so my expectations weren't high on being able to locate fish. Somehow we stumbled on to some nice fish! First point we tried I lost a 3-4 lber right away on a magnum shakey head.... Fished a bluff pocket near that point next and my buddy caught a 5.2 on a 10" worm. Moved to a secondary point just inside from the main lake and I caught a 16" that was so thick and fat that it went 3.2 also on a 10" worm. Jumped across the cove to another main lake point. Hooked a big one on the big worm in a 20-25' brush pile. Just kept tension until she swam out of the pile... She rocketed to the surface and jumped before bulldogging under the boat. Finally lipped her and knew she'd challenge my personal best. She went 6.7 and like my 6.6 last spring she was only just over 20"... Fat as can be! We were pumped to say the least by this point. Got a few pics and released her. Next cast, my buddy hooks a 3.8 off the same point. Had I not lost that first fish, we would've had a 21-22 lb limit. The bite slowed down considerably after that with only one more short and a 5.8 flathead that had me really excited for another moment. Didn't catch many numbers, but the size was outstanding! A night I'll never forget!

Thanks

I have 4 topwaters for sale as a lot.... - Arbogast Jointed Jitterbug with upgraded Owner split rings and Owner hooks. Brand new just out of box (Black) - Ima Skimmer. Brand new just out of box (Ghost Minnow) - Lucky Craft Sammy 100 with upgraded Mustad KVD hooks. Slightly used but in great condition (Chartreuse Shad) - Lucky Craft Sammy 85 modified to remove a ball bearing so it sits more horizontal and upgraded Mustad KVD hooks (Ghost Minnow) Asking $30 TYD. PayPal only. Reply here or shoot me a PM if interested. Thanks, Paul

I'm very interested in the Head Turner if you could ship it to St. Louis... I'm willing to pay for the shipping as long as it's reasonable. Let me know if you are interested. May be interested in the other Falcon as well if you'd wanna make a deal on the 2.

Hell of a crappie! Great numbers on TR for any time of year but especially this time of year!

Yep we are at the 25 mm (Kinchlow Hollow) and I think Shangri-La is the closest... It gets pretty shallow durring winter draw down, but usually there are no issues launching there. The owners live in Tennessee, but they have a hippie-kinda guy named Bill that keeps an eye on the property and collects the $5 for putting in an taking out. Nice guy. Like Wrench said the parking situation isn't the greatest though. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Impressive smallmouth! Looks like a northern fish by how fat and tall it was. A healthy fish for sure! Congrats!

Yep... There is not a better head on the market than those made by... dtrs5kprs Great quality, price, and customer service!

I like this bag/box a lot!

Hmm... It's just a Flambeau rust proof box... I wasn't aware that certain boxes won't mesh well with the elaztech... I thought it was just normal plastisol that it didn't mix well with

I showed my father-in-law the ned rig about a year ago but it wasn't until our family vacation to Black River Lodge a couple weeks ago that he really fell in love with it. My brother-in-law and nephew were also amazed at its effectiveness on the river smallmouth so I told them I'd make them up ned rig kits when we got home. They all fished minnows almost exclusively for the last 40 years and now they've gone as far to say that they think the ned might be better than live bait. I took advantage of Tackle Warehouse's 4th of July sale and ordered 3 bags each of my 4 favorite colored ZinkerZ's.... A bunch of 1/16th and 1/8th oz. jigheads from Dave and a bottle of Loctite super gel later I think they should each be set for a while...

I may be wrong, but I think in the past, Bo said that adding the slip sinker allows him to fish a smaller profile jig but still have the necessary weight to fish deeper. Similar to a walleye tactic one of my buddies uses... When he's trolling and the walleye want a smaller sized bait, he'll rig a small crankbait with a swivel and heavy egg sinker about 5 feet in front of his crankbait (basically carolina rigging a crankbait) so he can fish the smaller bait deeper. It has worked really well for him!

I don't believe so but we are not positive. The guy who caught and kept them is from the Centreville/Black area, so he may have been up in one of the forks of the Black.

Your pics and videos are always top notch! I really enjoy following your trips on here and facebook!

Wrench is definitely your guy! He won't BS you. Has always been extremely helpful to me and my father-in-law!

Looks like Don Iovino's Crankbait has arrived. Things have changed quite a bit from when we all thought he bought the original Wiggle Wart mold. http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Major_Craft_USA_Zoner_Hunter_Crankbait/descpage-MCUSA.html Looks good though!