jeb

I chatted with Gary Loomis at Edge rods booth for about 30 minutes. Such a wealth of knowledge and drive for excellence! Really the highlight of the exhibt for me. His drop shot casting rod was really cool. Talking with Gary Dobyn's was neat too, but he was a little more guarded with his information. GL calls a spade a spade! Very cool show, though. I'd only been to the Beaver Lake FLW show before this one, and this is an orders of magnitude bigger deal. Probably headed back over today as the wife wants to check it out, too. Good to see Ike and VanDam doing well! Had to be a darn chilly day on the lake, though.

Sent you a PM

No, staying 24v. Moving to a Terrova i-Pilot Link. They just came out.

I'll send you a PM when I'm ready to sell it. Probably later this week, early next week. It's available with or without the co-pilot module.

Aurora Canvas up in Battlefield, MO (south side of Springfield) makes some very nice covers. I have one for my Skeeter and it's very well made.

Will have a 24v Minn Kota Powerdrive2 for sale soon, 70lb. But nothing 12v.

The guys have hit a lot of the good ones above. Another would be the Sam Walton 5 and dime on the square in downtown Bentonville. It's a small museum of the early Wal-Mart days. Daisy BB gun museum in downtown Rogers, if you're interested in that kind of thing. If you have time, spend a day in Eureka Springs. Tons of shopping and eats over there. If you go, make sure you have a drink at the 3rd floor bar in the Crescent Hotel. Great view from up there! Bubba's BBQ is excellent over there.

Yes, they are Marine birds, which we commented on when we saw it. I have no clue where it may have been out of or going to. Just cool to see one. They don't have a great record though. I don't think I'd want a ride on one as they fall out of the sky too often for my tastes.

Not that kind, this kind. Quillback and I were on Swepco today and I heard what I thought was a chopper going over. Finally looked up and saw one of these going by. Very cool! I'd never seen one in person before.

Agreed Quillback. The STX's suspend much better out of the box than the 110's. And they seem much more durable, as you mentioned. Good idea to replace the hooks on the STX. But I've had trouble with the 110 hooks, too. I've busted a few of them. Their hooks look cool, but are not sturdy. So I swap the hooks on all my jerkbaits.

Thanks for the report, John. Nice to hear they are biting. I went out on Saturday. Normally I avoid weekends, but had a couple of hours to kill. I don't know if there was a tourney going on or if it was just the first nice Saturday in a while, but the PC lot was busy and there was a boat on every main lake point down to the Rocky Branch area. I got blanked and called it a day after a couple of hours. Just hate fishing in a crowd.

I like the RC STX quite a bit for that kind of jerkbait. I had far more success with them last winter on Beaver than I did my collection of Megabass Vision 110's. Actually, the Vision 110's I have (probably easily a dozen of them) are 4th string baits for me. The Spro McStick and STX are pretty much a tie for me as they both work very well around here. And the LC jerkbaits work really well, too.

I lived near a Cabela's in MN for years, too. Most of their stuff is priced at MSRP. They have more sales now than they used to, though. I also find the prices at HLS to be consistently better. I do buy stuff at Cabela's, but if it's something HLS carries, I always check there first to see if they have any in stock. They do have a bargain cave at the Rogers store. I've gotten some GREAT deals in there so far. Bought a stainless steel BBQ grill for my dirt bike trailer for $50 last week. Normally over $100. It was a display model, but in perfect shape.

Prarire Creek is back to a trickle and it's running clear. Looks like the dry ground soaked up a lot of that rain.

We were out there yesterday. Lowest I've ever seen the water on Swepco, and it's only been a couple of weeks since we were there last. Ramp is still fine, though.

Hard to see the rise here in the PC area. Prarire Creek is up a tiny bit and stained. But if the lake is up, it's not by much.

Checked out the coppermine area on Friday while fishing. There is more than gravel sticking up now. Very dangerous spot. I took the long way to the bridge from PC, also. Way to shallow to risk. There is also a point that sticks way out from the north/first island as you're going from PC to, say, Ventris. It's basically straight acrcoss from the mouth of Coos Hollow. It's really shallow well out into what you'd think is the main channel.

Kind of pricey, IMO, at $45. I was expecting it to have more detail. But it is handy, especially now that the water is down. http://swamplandtackle.com/GPS_Lake_Maps-list.aspx I believe there are other choices that might have more details, but not sure where to find them.

I bought a map for my HumminBird that lays out the river and creek channels on my GPS maps. So it makes it easy to follow the channel in any areas I'm not already dead sure of. There really are a lot of things out there that can ruin your day right now. Be careful!

You mean the town of Beaver launch on Table Rock/White River? If so, I'm surprised that's open. That was getting way shallow last summer.

It already is open the public, but I'm not sure it would have the appeal it does now anyway if the plant closes. It will just be a matter of time until the Florida strain bass die off (maybe the first winter?). It'd just be another small lake in the area, I'd guess.

I know a couple of guys that work there, and they've been telling me about that possibility for a while now. We reap what we sow when we have politicians that are more interested in a "green" agenda than good jobs and healthy economy. Sad state of affairs.

That smallie was long and fat. I'm sure she was filling up with eggs. I am becoming more and more of a WW convert. I've fished them here and there, and have had some moderate success, but I'm trying to put my head down and really get to know how/where/when to fish them right now. They seem to produce a few less bites, but almost always quality fish. So a decent trade off so far. I was hoping the wind would help the WW bite, so we braved quite a bit of it and fished exposed and semi-exposed points even with the white caps. But it just did not work for us.

Good info, for Beaver. I sent Lilley a note asking him to move this to the Beaver forum. I noticed the PC ramp was mostly ribboned off when I as out there Wednesday. That parking lot has been pretty empty lately.

They change colors based on time of year, bottom composition, etc. I scuba dive on Beaver and have seen several different colored ones in the same area. Size varies a lot, too. For a current description, see "nwaoutdoorsman" post towards the end of the "Beaver report 1/5/13" thread in this forum.