jeb

I agree. Nice to see them making good use of them, no doubt.

They spread them out a little last year. Not sure exactly how they placed them this year. Will have to check it out with my Side Imaging next time I'm out.

Seems the Pea Ridge Civil War park is clearing trees to make the battle field more like it was during the Civil War. So they're taking the cedars they clear and putting them in Beaver as cover. They did this last winter, too. Anyway, they were down at the lake doing that today. The trees are around the area about half way down the Prairie Creek cove, where the old road used to go into the water. I hear they are also planting them somewhere around the Ventris area. I assume near the ramp between big and small ventris coves, but I've never graphed around the area enough to find. Fishing has been very sporadic. I've caught them on spoons, A-rigs, jerk baits, jigs and deep crankbaits. But not catching a lot on any one thing. Just a weird winter so far this year. Hard to pattern.

Are you fishing it like an A-rig? Or dragging it on the bottom? Or ??

Isn't a C-rig a Carolina Rig? Nice job on the 2 arm umbrella rig, though.

Yeah, that was my thought too, Stump Bumper. Trot lines have no limit of hooks, AFAIK. But I think they also limit the kind of fish you're suppose to catch on those, don't they? The Ranger's office actually told me that there "were no limits" regarding that on Beaver. If someone finds printed and/or online information to the contrary, please post it up. I could not find anything in the regs about it on the AGFC website or my handbook. So for now, I'm going with what I was told by the AGFC.

Sorry, forgot to mention this to you when we were hunting together yesterday, Quillback. But I called the AGFC enforcement office in Eureka Springs about this very thing on Friday. They assured me it was legal to have hooks on all 5 arms of the A-rig, at least on Beaver.

Yeah, Aaron at HLS said it was 16+ for the winner. Dang nice average sized fish for Beaver!

A few? Their rack was pretty much cleaned out when I was up there yesterday! Looks like you maybe bought a bushel basket full of them. :-) Or maybe they're just selling well for the A-rig? Anyone been doing anything on the A-rig around these parts? Sure is a hot bait, and pricey for what it is.

I saw a sign today at HLS that said entry was $60. I know nothing about it beyond that, sorry.

I think the same chip works on most common units. They sell for $150 for the current Premium edition, at least at retail. You can often find good deals on last years chips. Cabela's Bargain Cave is a good spot for those, and maybe ebay too? For most mapping fish finders, they have a lot more detail. On the "High Definition" lake maps, like Table Rock and Beaver, they offer topo lines as close as 1' apart as you zoom in. They show things like marinas, no wake zones, old foundations/bridges, uncleared timber areas, etc. More like a good paper lake map. I think they really do help fishing success. One of my 'birds came with the "NVB" bundle, which means it was preloaded with Navionics Premium. So not much gain to put a chip in that one, except for updates since that version was current. My other 'bird came with just the base map and the South Premium chip in that unit provides far great lake detail.

They suspend almost perfectly right out of the box, or at least mine do. That was in 50-52 degree water on Beaver. Just a slight heads down attitude. So it should not take much weight at all to get them to slow sink. I'm in Ohio for Christmas and checked the local Bass Pro for the Pro Blue's yesterday. They don't carry them at all this far north, it seems.

Wow, I did not know they were made in Cassville. I go by there everytime I go up to Springfield. Small world, and all the better reason to buy more of them.

This might help

I've fished both of my Pro Blue STX's now. Neither one filled with any water at all. And I was watching them for that very thing, too, since I've had it happen to Megabass 110's.

All I saw on the backside of the island was your boat. Crappy weather all week, so probably good duck hunting weather. Hope you bust a bunch of them.

Ended up blowing the $100 budget out of the water. Picked up another Loomis stick at Hook, Line and Sinker in Rogers for bigger crankbaits. It is the CBR906. Very happy with it so far. Light, pretty sensitive and good flex.

I wondered if that was your spread. We spotted you on that little island hiding behind all those duck decoys when we were headed back to PC from Rocky Branch. Good looking setup, glad you got some ducks.

I saw you drag in a couple of those. We were fishing in the PC area around 2pm. Good job, nice mess of fish there. Sure was a nice day to be on the lake, too. Very comfortable weather yesterday. We were after black bass, and did pretty well. 7 total, 6 legals, biggest was an 18.5" LM on a jig down towards Rocky Branch. Mixed bag. 2 SM, 2 spots (1 dink), 3 LM.

She was a very nice looking fish. Very healthy. I wish I'd taken a picture of her belly. She was eating well, that's for sure! Nice fat fish. I've seen a few 5+lbers on Beaver over the years that looked like they'd been in a bar fight, so always nice to see bigger ones still in good shape. Hope they work well for you. Now I need to stop talking about these things before everyone gets some and educates all the big girls.

Thanks. As I said above, I caught her on the Pro Blue STX. I also bought a Midnight Blue Silver and French Pearl, but neither of those have been wet yet.

Yeah, you could say that. It was caught on Lake Windsor. And she's still there to catch, of course.

Finally got to fish it today on a Bella Vista, Ark lake with a good jerk bait bite going. Had a GREAT day with it. The big fish loved it. Here's the biggest girl, just over 8lbs. 8lb fish do NOT grow on trees here in NW Ark, so it's quite a prize. My biggest fish this year by about 1/2lb. 6lb Pline Flouroclear, Stella reel, Loomis SJR783 GLX rod. Pro Blue STX, completely stock except hooks were sharpened. I did break one barb off the rear treble on the 8lber. But I've busted hooks on the 110's, too. I switch all the hooks out now, but wanted to fish the STX stock once just to see. Quillback was fishing an Ima Flit in the front of the boat, and was also catching fish. He eventually switched to the MB Vision 110 and did catch fish on it, too. But the 2 biggest fish of the day came on the STX. So I'm pretty impressed with the STX at this point, as you can imagine. I'll for sure be buying more of them to go with, and probably eventually replace, all my 110's.

Fished the rod today on Beaver Lake. I got the "Wright & McGill Clunn Reaction Rod 7'8" Med Deep Crank" rod. I was surprised at how wide it is in the reel seat and foregrip area. Reminds me of a pool cue! And it is really heavy. I should mention that all of my other rods are fairly high end. Dobyn's Extreme's, Loomis GLX and NRX. So maybe I'm a little jaundiced on the weight and shaft thickness issues. But I held my thoughts until I could fish it. I mounted a Revo Premier on the rod. Nice, light reel to try and make up for some of that weight. But to no avail. Thing just weighs a ton. Put a Bomber 6 series fat free shad on it, which I've been fishing a lot lately. I did like how it cast the lure and the action of the rod was nice. I fished it almost exclusively for the first hour or so, and caught a couple of small fish on it. Then I picked up my Dobyn's DX784 (same length rod) with a 3/4oz football jig and it was SO much lighter and easier to handle. Again, not knocking the action of the rod, but it will flat wear you out casting big lures. I knew it would be mushier feeling than my graphite rods. That's kind of the point of glass to have less feel, but more give to help set the hooks in fish on cranks rather than tearing it out of their mouths. And that was certainly true. I had NO issues on my graphite rods telling I was ticking trees, rocks, etc. With the Clunn rod, you could kind of tell you were hitting something, but it was far more vague. Not a huge deal with cranks, I guess, but worth noting. I will not be keeping this rod. I just can't fish something this heavy. I'm a fairly big guy in good shape, and I work out often. I ride dirt bike competitively. So I'm not a wimp. I'd always told myself on casting rods that price and weight were not important. But I was wrong. I want a rod that handles like this Clunn rod does, just with half the weight. I "get it" more now.

Will do