jeb

I ordered one of those Rick Clunn rods from TackleWarehouse.com last week. It will be my first dedicated CB rod. I've not had a lot of luck on CB's over the years, but I do know they work. So I'm trying to dedicate more of my time to fishing them.

Me, too. Sitting on the fence on the new MGX at this point. I've heard mixed things so far.

It's kind of a ford vs chevy discussion as to brand. I was all set on Low when I went to get "modern" electronics a couple of years ago. But I got talked out of it by the sales folks at several stores as the initial HDS units had horrible, horrible reliability reps. And Low itself had an equally horrible rep at customer service. So I started researching HB and found out all about the SI world, which Low did not even have at that time. I now own two HB SI/DI units and they've been bulletproof. HB's customer service is also very, very responsive and top notch. Tons of software upgrades that brought me things like Down Imaging for FREE. I understand Low has improved on both the hardware and customer service issues. But do the math part of it, too. To get SI/DI on a Low unit, it's like an extra $600-$700 investment. And you need to mount a 2nd transducer to do it. It's all included on the HB's, and you only need one transducer. Makes it much eaier for mounting on a trolling motor. GPS and SI are huge gains in fishing tools. You can go right back to the same spot, every time. And you can see off to the side and not have to run over and spook fish to find them. I would not consider a unit that did not have those features anymore.

Sorry to hear about the ducks. Wife and I went fishing for a while today. The PC area is just loaded with shad balls and bass of every kind. Caught the black bass pretty good for a couple of hours and headed in. She got the biggest one, which I'm happy about. Always nice to see her have fun fishing.

No drops on this guy. He's been chasing does around the feeder the last few night, so gotten some more good looks at him. I think he wants a little somethin', somethin'. Crazy tall rack on him. I need to keep the camera handy.

Wonder if that's the same buck that has been at my feeder lately. Probably the nicest buck I've seen since I moved down here 6 years ago. Very tall tines. Pretty rack. I don't hunt deer anymore either. Just fun to see them every night.

Some folks actually call PC Cove Sunset Bay. Glad you had another good day fishing whites. I thought about coming down the hill once the wind stopped blowing yesterday, but never made it. Kill lots of big stinkys, or is the waterfowl season not open yet?

Went over to Swepco today. Kicked butt, like usual over there. Can't imagine how rough Beaver would have been. Although the PC cove didn't look to bad on the way home. I'm sure you could surf out on the main lake, though.

Water was pretty close to normal color in most of PC yesterday morning. Black bass fishing was pretty good in the area. Caught a couple of very nice smallies, too. I ran down to the Ventris area, but the water was pretty stained in areas down there. Some was from the big wind/waves beating the banks, but much of it looked like the mud that came in from the big rains last week. I did see/hear shad and stripers out more in the middle of the PC cove while I was fishing it. Fair number of striper boats back in there and the mouth of the Avoca cove. Me and my "girls" (2 German Shepherds) just tryed to stay out of the way. Good luck hunting. Hope you kill alot of those stinking geese.

PC is running clear again. Looks like it's flushing out the dirty water fairly quickly. FWIW.

I wouldn't call it muddy, but pretty stained from about the "beach" launch area on back into the creek. My side imaging was still showing a lot of pods of baitfish all the way back up in there, though. So the bait are still in there. From the beach on out, the water had a little more color in it, but still fairly clear. Tons of baitfish and big arches all through the PC no wake zone and into the mouth of the Avoca Cove. Black bass fishing was tough this morning. Chilly, too. Brrrrr.

Makes sense, I guess. No part of Beaver extends over the border where the other 3 lakes have at least some part in both states. Good to have info!

He was pretty close. 5" of rain in the gauge here on Prarie Creek in the last 24 hours. PC is running pretty muddy. Not sure how far it extends out into the lake, but I'd guess a good ways. Might get out tomorrow to see.

I have targeted the deep water active fish while black bass fishing too. Never caught anything but white bass (stripers, hybrids, whites). I know striper guys catch black bass too, but it seems low percentage. I also fish a fair amount of open, deeper water structure for black bass. So I'm not afraid to pull way off the bank and fish. Actually, I prefer it.

Yeah, I'm the same way. I've caught a few stripers by accident, mostly in the dead of winter. Biggest was 19lb on a hard jerkbait, and was fun to catch. But I'm a dedicated black bass fisherman at this point.

Good to hear they're going to protect the old hotel tower. It's a shame what has happened to it.

My drive home takes me along PC cove. I was driving along there about 4pm yesterday and saw someone with a dip net in the very back of the cove apparently trying to catch bait. Never seen anyone do that before. But I have seen a fair number of folks back there with a casting net, including guides, with mixed success. Hard to understand why anyone would be mad at anyone for doing that. Beaver is thick with shad/bait.

Thank you very much. Those darn sky carp are a blight. Hope you shoot them all.

Yeah, I hear you on the short drive. I live about 1/4 mile from where I launch my boat. It's where an old road goes into the lake. So a public area, but not an official ramp or anything. And I keep my boat in one of our garages all ready to go. So it's like 5 minutes from thinking about going fishing to the first cast. I leave my trailer in the water, too. So no parking lot games. Very simple process. So going to a different launch is a bit of a hassle in comparison. But running 20+ miles down the lake each way to get to the dam is not my idea of fun, either, especially with the mornings getting cooler. Plus, my truck gets better mileage than my boat! Good idea to run to other parts of the lake to try and find more active fish. Some guys love the rivers with the murkier water and some current. Some love the clearer water down by the dam. But there are TONS of areas in between that also have good fishing. Rocky Branch, Van Hollow, Ford's Creek, Ventris, etc, etc. You could spend a lot of years fishing Beaver and never hit it all.

When I want to fish down by the dam, I usually trailer over to Lost Bridge North. My boat has a 225hp motor, so the lake is all available anytime I'm on it, but I'm not one for running long distances usually.

I bought an 09 SX on closeout on a whim a couple of years ago. Had the same issues with the magnetic brakes not being adequate. It ended up on a shelf pretty quickly. I had/have several of Abu's high end reels, the Premiers, so I just bought another of those to use instead. But I heard on the 'net that Abu was fixing that older style SX. So I contacted them and sent it in. About 1 week later, I got a brand new, current generation SX (black with red anodizing) in the mail! Was quite surprised by that. Figured they'd just fix the old one. The newer one has 2 more magnets and is a much better reel. Make sure you pull the reel apart, like any new reel, and properly clean and oil the bearings, too. Still not as good or as versatile as my Premiers, but much better than it was.

Some of the points have large signs on them with the point number printed on them. They are navigational aids. Some maps have them on them, some may not. My AID map does for sure have them listed. Fishing on Beaver is tough right now. So don't get too down about it. Some of my best fishing on Beaver last year was Nov-early Feb.

BFL results I don't feel so bad about the limited number of fish we've been catching on Beaver lately after seeing that!

Congrats on the new boat! Beaver Lake, as you will find out soon enough, is not an easy lake to learn to catch bass on. There is abundant structure like points, rocks, current bends, humps, bluff walls, forests of trees, etc, etc. And there is also plenty of forage for the fish right now. We saw so many schools of minnows today, it's a wonder the fish ever bit anything artificial! And there are 3 types of black bass that can sometimes run together and like the same things, and sometimes not. Basically you need to figure out what the shad are doing. The predator fish tend to follow them around the lake. And this time of year with the waters cooling, the shad should be moving to the backs of coves. And that was happening recently, but then the really cool weather and cold rain (3.75" here in the PC area over the weekend) kind of changed the pattern. I'm not sure what the shad are doing now. Haven't seen the white bass working the mid-cove shad balls the last few days or anything. So you'll have to figure that out along with the rest of us. What baits to fish is always a good question! Today I used topwater, weightless and weighted jerk baits, texas rigs, senko worms, carolina rigs, etc. So you need to be ready to try different stuff to figure out what they want. And they may want one bait down towards the dam and something else entirely up in the river arms. Not trying to discourage you, just trying to say you will have to put in some time to find where the fish are and what they want to see. Might start with shakey head jigs and small finesse worms in some kind of green color. Rig them weedless. Try them along sloped gravel banks in larger coves and around and in trees. Try different retrieve speeds, but probably slow and shaking the jig a bit would be best to find them.

I doubt you'll be overly impressed by Academy, at least from a fisherman's POV. We've had one here in Rogers now for a couple of years now, I guess. Rare that I go in there anymore. Limited selection of baits and tackle, very little high end stuff at all, not very many sale prices, etc. I'd much rather drive to BPS in Springfield. But their H20 line of lures have some decent choices and are very reasonable compared to the high end lures they copied. Work well, too. Always easier to lose a $5 bait in the flooded timber on Beaver than a $20-$30 one!