bobby b.

Went down to the dock thinking I had 2 hours to fish. The water was dead still. Cover off, boat dropped and then the north wind jumped to about 30. Boat back up and covered. Hoping I'm not stuck in the house all day - that's not good for anybody at my house. Sitting under the boatport now watching a every scary ski.

Thanks for all the input. I bought some of the 5# Maxima and like it and so far no tangles. Also still like the Nanofil. I will be buying some .008 dia. braid in the next Tackle Warehouse order - probably Suffix 832. Thanks again, Bobby

Have been out either early of the morning for a couple hours (longer if it is cloudy and cool) or a bit before dark most days in the last week. The bite went from mostly really nice keeper SM to lots of sometimes barely keeper LM or very short shorts. I'm thinking less than 5 KYs during the period with between 10 -25 fish per day. There was one poorer day in this period. In the start of this time period fish were in 15 - 20 fow whereas yesterday they were in 1 fow but today about 12 fow. Fishing thru the flooded trees can be a challenge at least for me. All locations were 45 degree big chunk rock or slab hard bottom. Fishing has been very consistent for me with locations lasting a couple days before needing to look elsewhere. Used the 1/16 oz or 1/8 oz Ned with the Z Man Cal. Craw Hula stick. WT up to 75 degrees yesterday and down to 72 today. All days were in the dam area. I would have liked to be mid lake or up the James at this time of the year but the ramp/courtesy dock uncertainty and debris keeps the boat in the slip for the time being. There still is some big trees floating in the lower end so night driving is not recommended. I have not seen lots of shad activity but would think that it is happening somewhere down here. Not too many wake boats yet but misjudged one yesterday and watch a tidal wave come over the bow. It has been very pleasant most mornings with minimal wind making the little guy fun to fish. PIcs - Typical SM in the beginning of the period and typical keeper LM at the end of the period. Bobby

Fishing has been good the last two hours of the last two evenings but I do have my new lucky charm (daughter). We have been finding fish in 15 - 20 fow on secondary rocky points however the keeper to nonkeeper ratio is about 25% and the SM to LM/Spot ratio is 90% and 50% are spawned out. 9 on Friday night and 11 last night. Last night I outfished the daughter for the first time but she had the keepers. 1/8 oz Cal. Craw 4 inch Ned.

I got out for just an hour before the storm hit today. Fished the same general area that worked 2 days ago. Found fish on a gravel secondary point. Caught 5 with 2 being keepers. The bite was extremely light except for this one SM. It (gender neutral pronoun 😊) wanted to be caught. On the first bite it let go pretty quickly but on the second throw it hit so hard or I jerked so hard that the 6 lb. carbon leader broke at the knot. It waited around for me to retie and this time it got boated. The first turd was deep in the gut with the leader and the second turd in the lip. I got to fish today as my daughter had to do MAP testing and was not happy about it at all. I heard some thunder pretty close and got to the dock just in time. The guy that moves out dock was there indicating a 5 inch rain is predicted. I hope that does not happen. Bobby

I note the same at the lower end. This time of year the weekdays are not busy at Indian Point ramp but the weekends are due to the derbies. There was a derby out of State Park yesterday so even with the cooler wet weather I noted a few more boats. Once the weather stabilizes the crazies will appear. I have noted some trash starting to appear in the water. Thats why I love the winter fishing. I have the whole lake to myself and no trash to pickup.

My 12 year old daughter is getting in to fishing. We traded in the Zebco 33 and fishing off the dock for the real thing (spinning rod) and fishing off the boat. We went out for 2 hours last night for the first time. She caught 5 including a 4 lb 7 oz LM and a 2.5 SM and a nice Ky. I can't believe the luck. She was fishing a Ned on a 1/16 head and would just let it lay on the bottom while playing around with bugs landing on the rod tip. I hope she stays interested so I have some one to fish with in my old age which started some years back. Also teaching her to drive the boat. Bobby PS I caught zero.

There are plenty of jobs but people just won't work if the government is going to pay them not too. As a volunteer I ran the biggest Food Pantry in SW Mo for 3 years that served 300 families every month. I saw the income from the clients and approved each to get food based on government guidelines. You may be amazed at the amount of total assistance people can get. It is one thing to help old retired people who cannot leave on minimal Social Security versus a health 20 - 50 year old who just will not work but yet has a $1500 cell phone with a $150/mo plan as well as Dish TV, etc. and sometimes a better truck than I drive. It also has something to do with money management. The Silver Dollar city Charity organization Love Inc. (Love in the name of Christ) offered a program whereby the Food Pantry provided food and Love Inc. provided job assistance and money management training and typically only 4 families signed up and after one or two sessions they dropped out. It was just easier to go the Food Pantry with the other 300 families. A few years ago a Task Force was establish by a bunch of ministers and business owners to work on the poverty issue in the area. They determined it cannot be fixed. Sorry - End of Rant Bobby

Imports from California?

Tip - you need to run a heavy gauge wire (#8??) to the black box of the Live Scope - should say so in the instructions - good luck

Please let us know where you end up getting it done, what you had installed and what it cost. Two graphs, Forward Facing sonar, and troller would take in excess of day to install and at $120/hr do the math. I know of one guy who had this same upgrade and got a great deal at $1300. What say you Wrench?

When did that happen? Bobby

I know that this subject has been addressed many times and I have gone back and reviewed the old threads but here goes again. I am not satisfied with the line I have on my spinning reels. Baitcaster are not an issue. I've used Invisz for some time but am tired of the curls and having to drag the line behind the boat to straighten it out and in cold water it is even worst. I have tried some braids like Power Pro and am not a fan of the dye coming off. I recently landed on Berkley Nanofil and thought this was the answer. I like the white color because I can see it but feel like I need a floro leader. Although I recall Bo saying that leaders are not needed with braid. For me tying on a leader is a pain but more so it seems to break at the leader just below the knot. At times I don't use a leader with the green Nanofil but note that it frays some near the lure when dragging a Ned etc. I'm thinking now about Suffix 832 in a color called Ghost. So I am looking for the best braid or braid like line (not mono or carbon) with maximum casting distance on a decent 2500/3000 series reel to throw 1/16 - 3/16 oz Neds and the like. What brand, line weight, and color and what knot if you use a leader? Bobby

Things have really changed over the last few years here at TR. I built my house here in 2006 and did not retire until 2016. Earlier I had bought a nice 15 acres on Truman for $17k and planned to build there as it was closer to my kids in the KC area but a friend introduced me to TR and over time I came to love it here. But since I retired in 2016 it seems like everything has changed. The pressure on this lake is unbelievable. Soimetimes I look on Zillow and think about moving to Truman or BS but I have a 12 year old that needs to stay here.

True - the proper term is probably authorized by the manufacturer (i.e. Garmin) to do warranty work and get paid for it by the manufacturer - BWMPS at first was not an authorized Garmin repair location until I bitched that Ulrich could not fix by Force for 3 months due to backlog. The BWMPS tech Keddy was more than adequately trained so Garmin authorized them so that Garmin would pay the labor on my Force repairs. Keddy did my complete Garmin install on my new Ranger Z519 and in fact had to do some rework on the preinstalled wiring harness that Ranger did.

so what kind of ground - i.e. points ?, dephth?

Branson West Marine and PowerSports can do a good job with good price

I did not have adequate training in my new Z519, 225 Pro XS. Early on running pretty hard I had to cut power fast without trimming down and the boat slide sideways a bit - scared the **** out of me. I can understand now how any little thing could result in a tragedy. 45 - 50 mph is my normal speed now - occasionally going up to WOT (69mph) on glass water without another boat in sight to heat it up to get rid of condensation in the engine.

So what about other factors. Today we are: 2 days from a full moon falling barometric pressure in the last 24 hours high flow coming off of a rising lake dirty water in some places, gin clean in other areas very cloudy and some rain I'm thinking an excellent day for fishing but I always think that unless it is 20 deg and 30 mph north winds. I found this device on ebay call Anglers Edge Speedtech? made by a bunch of software engineers that adds all of the factors above into a little device and it says that this morning until 11 am is the best time to fish. I THINK THAT THESE ARE THE SAME SOFTWARE ENGINEERS THAT MADE MY GARMIN FORCE TROLLING MOTOR. 😀😀 Bobby

The cormorants have been on the lower end for several weeks now, fishing with the gulls and loons.

That sounds like it lost its marbles - please let us know how this turns out - I'm betting you will be getting a new motor.

I'm wondering how all the trees disappeared on the Corp property so that the homeowner could have a nice lake view.

Interesting - Stone County has one of the most detailed and intrusive property data systems - I heard that they got a grant for it some years back. It appears that recently they removed some of the detail regarding how much your neighbor paid in taxes because of complaints from those paying more. To answer your question: Chimney Rock LLC Company Number LC0729193 Status Active Incorporation Date 3 April 2006 (about 16 years ago) Company Type Limited Liability Company Jurisdiction Missouri (US) Registered Address 406 Rapture Rd Shell Knob 65747 MO United States

No I don't believe it would take you back - but search on OAF - I think somebody (Archdale?) figured out a way to load the older software - sounded risky to me.

As I have previously reported I have replaced the Force three times and the foot control once. Getting a new one from Garmin delivered to my door is less than 24 hours. When I got the last one I decided that I will NOT update the troller (probably every). I have now decided that all three failures occurred either during the Active Captain software upgrade or shortly after. If you decide not to upgrade and then later do so take care because to get to the final upgrade, Active Captain goes thru each of the previous upgrades and it is hard to know if and when it is all done and repowering before it is all done will "brick" the troller. My tech (at BWPS) told me the other day that we should update the software a couple months before the 3 year warranty ends so I can get a new unit. 😀 However, the replacements are not new but rebuilt. BWPS offers a third party extended warranty for all electronics on the boat including the Ranger stuff like the Merc Eco meter, switches, pumps, etc so that takes me to 6 years on everything electronic on the boat. Regarding updating the chartplotters that can be done with a SD card without issue. Regarding the boat backing up on spot lock, I just got use to that. Testing tells me that the GPS location is determined by the console unit - to check turn off your graphs and hit spot lock and see if it stays - not that this is a viable solution. I still think the Garmin stuff is beyond excellent - the graphs are so user friendly - awhile back I discovered that the graph collects data like water temperature and date when you set a waypoint - I noted last week that the water temperature on a spawning bank that I had waypointed last year was much warmer last year at this time when I set the waypoint. I read that on the new Lowarances units you can add text notes to the waypoints. Cool. I wonder if the makers of this stuff are in such a big hurry to beat the other guys to market that there is not enough field testing. Bobby