spahog

Well put Phil. From somebody with no dog in the Table Rock fight, this forum gets ridiculous sometimes. FatBoy keep doing your thing and don't let the naysayers tell you otherwise. It's always the same group of people that rush to judgement and call people out. They rush to posts when somebody outside the "circle" is catching fish. As soon as I read your post (because it did seem a little braggadocios), I would have bet money on who the first reply was going to be. Who cares if it's an embellished fishing story or not. At least one person has stood up and said FatBoy has been catching them, so why does it matter to you guys. It's fine to be skeptical, but to take it to the next level and publicly call someone a liar is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with you, walk away. Champ - not once did he even imply anyone was a bumbling fishermen. Not even close. He was not condescending in the least nor did he imply he was catching them better than anyone. He simply said he was catching them.

Lots of nice sacks Saturday. 32nd place cashed the last check with 9.87.

No limit in Arkansas.

Jolicious - Sorry for the misinformation. I for whatever reason must have either not received or accidentally deleted the email.. I have received all the others he has sent out regarding results and standings, but did not see that one. Thanks for the correction. EDIT - Just went back to my deleted emails and found the email from the tournament director addressing the situation.

A little off the subject, but does anyone else here fish the Everett series? At the April tournament, the second place (I think it was the second might have been third) failed the polygraph and was disqualified. However, I never hear any formal response from the tournament director. By not letting everyone one know what happened, the tournament director is doing someone a disservice. Either the rest of us by not publicly identifying a cheater, or the gentleman who was disqualified if it was due to technicality such as kill switch mistake, etc.

Polygraph?

Christie's 6-08 was the second biggest weighed in the flw on beaver dating back to 2005. A co-angler caught a 6-10 in 2011. Although, Beaver may not give up a lot of big girls, it's obvious looking back over the years that it's tending the right way. Each of the two everett tournaments, the big bass has been 7+.

It is definately NOT a condo.

As Stump mentioned, when the fish go to the beds those are good pockets to fish. This past spring when I was in there, people were up there working, although it didnt sound like there were many of them. Definately a project where funding dried up, but I'm not sure it's completely been given up on. They might just be on the 10 year plan now due to funding. However, those are only my assumptions and in no way based on fact.

J-Doc - The "castle" the original poster is talking about is not where you have your blue circle. Its straight across the lake from there. Its the cove right in the top center of your photo. You can make out the structure if you look closely.

Chris Johnson, who worked at HLS, will run their fishing dept from what I've heard.

No it wasn't J&J - Stump. It was "Boat Place" further north on 71B near the Monte Ne turnoff. Never heard anything bad about J&J.

Mobile and Wolf would get my vote. I tried the Boat Place on 71 in Rogers the last time I needed a little work done in an attempt to get a quicker turnaround. I came away very displeased. They are the type that will tell you that pretty much everything needs to be replaced because it will eventually go out if you don't replace it. On top of that, I caught them in 2 separate lies to me. Nothing big, but just enough for me to question their integrity.

Feather - You need to start fishing tournaments then. 17 pounds would have won just about every local tournament on Beaver this year, and some of those are 6 and 7 fish tournaments.

The meeting is irrelevant. The fishermen not the tournament director made that decision, so I'm not putting anything on Johnny. After re-reading my original post, I agree that it is unfair for me to say "majority of those voting against it." It wasn't a majority, just a few members. I was simply making a statement about a few members (a couple of which are my buddies) who cited conservation related concerns as a reason. Obviously, I don't think that's the reason it was banned. I'm not trying to get on a soapbox here. I fish tournaments all the time, so I'm no supreme conservationist myself. I'm just saying it is fact that Castmasters as a club is well behind the other clubs in terms of taking appropriate steps to ensure fish have the best chance at survival. He can get upset about the way people treat their fish if he wants, but it's not the fishermen's decision to structure a 70+ boat tournament with no flights, no mandatory weigh bags, or no reasonable place to weigh fish. I completely agree with your assessment that it is near impossible for a 2 man operation to run a tournament with that many boats. However, as tournament director it's his responsibility to manage that. His personal integrity related to the treatment of fish doesn't alleviate his responsibility of ensuring proper controls are in place to protect all fish weighed in one of his tournaments. Again, this isn't a personal attack on Johnny. I don't know him, but by all accounts he is a really good guy. His tournament got really big in a relatively short period of time, and I just don't think the proper changes were made to adjust to the growth. Just my thoughts.

Fishermen for Christ banned it too. Watersports Association (Chris Johnson) is the only well-known series on Beaver that has not banned it to my knowledge. While I have no problem with it being banned, I hope that all multi-rig baits are banned (i.e. frontrunner on a spook, double fluke, carolina rig with a jig, etc.) The thing that bothers me about the ban is that the majority of people voting against the rig are posturing by saying they are voting against it for conservation, etc. reasons. In reality they are voting against it because it either takes away some of their advantage or they can't catch fish on it. I wish they'd just be honest about why they don't want it. Castmasters is definately not concerned with conservation. I have fished it for the last 5 years and only miss two or three tournaments a year. Last year near the peak, they had approximately 75 boats without flighting takeoffs/weigh-ins, requiring fish to be weighed in their bags, providing weigh tanks, or even renting out the pavilion. So the weigh lines would be huge with everyone's bags of fish sitting on the hot parking lot pavement killing fish. Needless to say, I was happy to see Chris start the Watersports Association this year. The A rig bite has definately slowed down for me, but I think it has more to do with conditions than the fish being "conditioned" to the A rig.

wc - What kind of line are you throwing those rigs on?

Ky derby is typically in early October, but I've heard nothing about it this year.

Lost Bridge South is good to go.

It was a six fish tournament. It took 21 lbs to win. There were 3-4 16 lb bags. There were 21 bags >12 lbs (2 lb average). The impressive stat was that the big bass was 8.13. HLS won the 2 boat and 8 boat leagues and Beakart won the 4 boat league. I wasn't familiar with the winners, but Tim Clark was on the team that caught the 8 lber. They had 4 fish for 16 and change and placed 3rd.

Arey was fishing Blackburn. He caught his 5 lber at the very last point on the right all the way back in Blackburn.

There were actually only 76 boats, but it was still a great turnout. 17 and some change won it.

Hours are actually 630-1030.

Wolfe Boatworks - second to none IMO.

Stump, For two people it is $40.