jeb

I'd also include the LC Gunfish to the list. Kind of a Popper and Spook all in one.

My Skeeter came stock with 3 Deka's. They did not last 2 years. I put some Sam's Club Everstart's in it about a year ago, and am happy with them so far. I have AGM's in my dirt bikes, and they make sense there since it bounces around on the trail a LOT, and the battery can even end up upside down at times! But they don't make sense to me in a bass boat, at least for the huge price they get for them. They don't really last any longer, and splashing battery acid is an issue I've never had in any of my boats. I've learned over the years from owning many deep cycle batteries in boats and RV's that, as you found, they do not last as long as we'd like. I've found the best way to squeeze more life out of them is to check the water level regularly, try not to run them way down between charges and get a quality charger that shuts itself off when the batteries are charged.

I fished the island area for about 1.5 hours. Got a couple of bites swimming a white swimmin' fluke, but no hookups. No surprise. Patterns on Beaver rarely hold up for more than a day at a time! I spent the rest of my time bass fishing. Caught 2 nice spots, obviously full of eggs. Caught some small ones on topwater, and a really nice smally on a jig. Water is still pretty stained in the PC and Avoca cove area. Much clearer on the main lake and even up in Ventris.

Planning on heading out there in a while. I'll be in a gold skeeter with a couple of cute girls with me. German Shepherd's, but cute none-the-less.

Nice fish for sure! I might have to sneak out there this evening, too. Never heard of a "boattail" grub, though. Do you mean paddle tail? Thanks for the tips. Would love to catch some eater Wally's.

No, I'm sure it was a LM. I saw the guy hold it up. And it's in the pictures Quillback posted a link to above. Check out picture 20 of 30. Not a great looking bass. Probably an old fish, I'd guess.

At this tourney, I don't think that would've been illegal, at least from the rules they gave out. I know some circuits are very strict about stuff like that, though.

Yeah, just after I posted the stuff above, the wind picked up and blew pretty good the rest of the afternoon. Would've been a good morning to fish, after the rain had passed through probably.

I got a hardcopy of the results at HLS today. Clunn won, as the link that Quillback posted says, with 14-15. Dandy bag of fish! 20 teams had bags of 10 or more pounds. Our bag was good for a tie for 43rd out of about 147 teams. 39 teams had zero fish. Looks like the weather liars were wrong again today. The wind has not been howling out here in the Prarire Creek area today like they said it would. An occasional good gust, but otherwise fairly low speed stuff. Like Quillback says, the wind really got up for a while yesterday. Probably 25-30mph sustained for a couple of hours.

Anyone else fish the CMN tourney yesterday on Beaver? Quillback and I fished it. Our first tourney ever. Had fun, like any day out fishing. And it was for a good cause. We didn't expect to set the world on fire, and didn't with our 5 fish, 8lb 6oz bag, but it seemed like it was somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure I'm a tourney guy, though. It was interesting to try one, but didn't enjoy the "traffic" aspect of it, waiting around, etc. I can see where folks would get into it, though.

Sam's is still open, they just moved kitty corner from where they were. I go by there everytime I come to town and they are almost always busy. Las Palmas at 200 W Poplar is a very good Mexican place we enjoy quite a bit. Friendly staff, great food. Try the Fajita Quesadillas (sp?).

Looks like we missed the bad stuff. Not much rain today in the PC area, about 1/2" more. PC is running high, and the lake is up a couple of feet, I'd guess. But PC is still pretty clear.

It's a bad thing, at least if it's at all like last year. It muddies up the water and makes fishing much harder. We have 2.75 inches in the rain gauge so far from the last two days in the PC area. And they're saying the worst is going to be today. Sure looks like the Corp is on the wrong end of it with the lake levels this year. Time will tell.

Wow. I wish some of that kind of fishing would find it's way upstrearm and over the top of the dam into Beaver. Incredible stringer of fish.

Heard and saw loons on the lake yesterday, too. They're not around for long, so enjoy them while you can. I usually go to a lake in Wisc for a couple of months during the summer and have loons around me quite often, at least daily, while fishing. Never tire of seeing or hearing them.

We just finished a double order of your combo fried rice. Great, as usual.

I'm also a certified diver. Advanced Open Water PADI. Diving on Beaver sucked last year. Visibility was horrible most of the year except down near the dam, and even then it was not great. Sure hope the water clears up again like it used to be. Ever since we got those floods last year, the water has never really cleaned up completely.

Probably correct. The funny/sad thing about the tourny guys complaining about the small bags is that they often times blame "meat fishermen" instead of looking in the mirror, where the blame probably really belongs.

Good restaurant. We love your food. Now I have a good excuse to stop there more often.

I understand about your caution about more laws. But when a spawning female is pulled off a nest, transported miles and miles from where it was, bumped around in a livewell, have to find new spawn areas, etc, I just think it's obviously better for the fishery to not be doing that. I'm not saying to close bass fishing altogether, but just have a tournament hiatus during the spawn. Heck, the way some organizations work, they seem to almost target the spawn period. Like the Bass Masters classic recently. Just rubs me wrong, I guess.

I agree, FNF. Many states up north do not allow bass fishing until after the spawning period should be over. I don't know if they could close the season down here, but they should at least not allow tourny's during that period. It just has to be very stressful on the fish.

Restaurant name? Always like to patronize local joints.

I buy my license at a store (HLS) and have never gotten a reminder. I may have to start doing it by mail or online if they send a reminder. That would be nice. Not sure what the norm is for states, but in MN, pretty much all licenses expired on the last day of Feb each year. So if you didn't get your license until December, for example, it was really only good for 2-3 months. But it was nice that you always knew when it was time to get the license renewed. In Ark, the fishing license runs out 12 months to the day after purchase. That's nice because you get the full value of the money you spent, but it makes it hard to remember when to renew. So a notification would be awesome.

Very little total out of the rain so far near Prarire Creek. About 1/2" of rain in the gauge over the last 3 days. Prarire Creek as it feeds into Beaver has not come up at all and is still very clear.

What Quillback said. It is, unfortunately, slowing way down for the A-rig. I'm just happy I was an early adopter and got in on the good times with it.