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Was watching Alton Jone Jr throw a new line through deal and thinking: if he just would downsize to a 2.8 he would be getting so many more bites. But- these guys just chuck and wind so fast- I’m sure they feel like the little swimmer deal is just too slow, especially without the FSS. Was pulling for MDJ but when I saw the weather today I knew he was cooked. I wish somone had a cast counter on him because he must have made 10,000 casts with that crank bait this week.

They were in the same area again this AM. Swimbait and topwater- again the quality was really good. Multiple 3’s and a spawned out 4z

I have been impressed with how Beaver is fishing this spring. Went out this AM and once I found them I had the best day I have ever had at beaver in terms of quality- all in about 40 minutes. multiple LM pushing 4… huge white, nice smallie, small striper. Couldn’t get pics of them all because it was fast and furious but there are a few. Shad spawn starting and I found a bunch of them in a small space and just had a ball. Quality was impressive.

It’s cool watching these guys fish a pond I also fish. (Will be fun to watch them at Beaver next week). BUT Watching these guys catch 50 2 lb fish just doesn’t feel like a premier fishing event. Makes me feel better about my table rock average though! As for Beaver- I have spent the last 15 years driving past the Beav to fish at Table Rock. But man, Beaver is fishing as good as it has in the 17 years I have lived here. Very impressed with the quality of fish right now. Not sure how well it will hold up to this many pros but I’m betting the average size will be higher next week than it is this week.

Caught one on Topwater at Big M Friday am. Found a couple of groups of fish bunched up. They were smashing the jerk bait so I didn’t try to force feed them the topwater for long. It’s close.

I don’t know any details but last year his wife got very sick and passed away. He stopped doing videos then and I’m assuming sold TablerockFishingIntel. Whoever runs it now has let it really languish. Always liked Eric’s reports and sad for his loss.

I put it on my trolling motor- which also has a transducer for my Humminbird on it, made sure it was facing the right way and level.

That’s not right- maybe you should check on getting it warrantied out. I plugged mine in, turned it on, and was off to the races with no adjustments- worked great out of the box. L

2D was good! Honesty- I didn’t mess around with the DownScan much but I will next time. My understanding is this is the standard Lowrance Chirp and DownScan with their “Fish ID”. The Active Target is the latest version. My Brother has LiveScope on his boat and I do think Garmin’s scope is a little more clear.

Fished the Big M area over the weekend. 4 guys, two boats. Caught a lot of fish… almost 100 fish Saturday between us. Bottom line: there are a lot of ways to catch them. Most of our fish were on either a top water or a 3.3 swimbait. We caught multiple spawned out LM throwing walking baits in bushes that are still in the water. A few on spinner baits as well. So, there are a few shallow fish left for now. The schooling topwater deal is kind of weak but it’s there. Look for gravel points near spawning areas. We would see a couple of fish feeding on the surface- it was kind of spread out and not aggressive- but they would eat a topwater some. We stayed around those fish and they ate the swimmers pretty good. Almost all of these fish were spots that had not spawned. Also caught some on topwater near docks where Shad spawn… On the top water: bone colored walk the dog was by far the best performer. This was my first trip with my new Lowrance Eagle Eye 9. If you are unfamiliar: Lowrance launched a forward facing sonar solution that costs $999.99. My boat is older and I just can’t justify sinking $4 or $5k on a full on Livescope set up. the Eagle Eye 9 has no box in the back of the boat- just a transducer that plugs directly into the 9” graph. This is Lowrance live target 2 technology. With traditional 2D and Down Scan as well. They hit the $999 price point by having fewer sending units in the transducer- so they don’t need a box to “stitch” the images from multiple sending units together. The result is a blind spot- kind of a triangle straight down and extending to about 30 degrees forward. Other than that- this is exactly like Lowrance Live Target 2. I was VERY impressed with the performance. My takeaway: 75-80% of full Live Scope/Live Target technology for 33% of the cost. Also- due to not having the box in back, very low power pull- and simple installation. Great solution for older boats, John boats or kayak fisherman. Couldn’t be happier with my purchase.

Sooooo great to see a report from Bill! This forum is better when you are here!

We were there this AM as well. Lunched at about 7:15 and was off the water by 10:30. Short but good morning- found some jerk bait and swimbait fish deep and then tried cranking a little bit- only got one bite cranking but it was a good one: 3lb lm. WT was 50-52ish- we mainly stayed on main lake stuff. Once the sun got up it seemed to get tough.

After going YEARS without hooking anyone I have had a minor hooking pandemic break out in my boat the last 2 seasons. The most recent being my daughter putting one into the side of my nephews head…the line trick works every time and every time we have been able to continue fishing. Knowledge every angler needs. And great report! I haven’t had a great Topwater bite like that in a couple years- just haven’t timed it right. I might have to make a trip over this week.

Wait- what’s going on? I loved Bill’s posts! What happened?

We were over fishing Wed - Friday AM. Water temp up the White was low 70’s. Fished from Rock Creek area down to shell knob. Water is clear above the Kings. Below the Kings it gets dirty and that was not good for us. Wednesay was cloudy before a nasty storm, Thursday bluebird sky and little wind. Today it was blowing hard. We had 4 guys in 2 boats and caught over 150 fish but we did work for them. We fished hard- until 8:30 Wednesday, fished from 5:30 to 8:30 yesterday and was on the water today at 5:45. Yesterday was a little tougher with no wind or clouds- but we kept and it and got them to bite. This morning was better with much better quality today with some wind. The fish are biting and they are biting in a lot of ways. Most consistent pattern for us was topwater- throwing either a pop-r, buzz toad (white), or spook in and around the bushes. Gotta get up in them. My boat did better closer to main lake areas and front of pockets. My brother’s boat did better in the back of pockets- but it needed to be flat- no steep stuff. Also caught some topwater fish off shore early but that bite wasn’t great and those fish were generally smaller. Should get better. Yesterday I caught a few on a 6 inch glide bait around docks- had to be bigger docks on deeper water. We caught them on a swimmers, on spoons, and jack hammers. Interestingly- our fish were a mix of post and pre-spawn. There are all fish in all phases right now. Basically- keep your lines wet, fish how you want, and you should be getting some bites right now.