Thanks to all forumers

[M.Bigler]

Hello, My name is Mark Bigler and I am a senior from KSU. My family has had a house at Shell Knob for about 40 years now and I have been fishing TR since I was 3. I found this website as I was doing some internet research on fishing reports for TR last week. My family was headed down to Shell Knob to our lake house from the 1st to the 5th. Some of you might know it, our dock is the blue one with the well house that is between lost island and the bridge along the main river channel. Its the only one with a well house still on the lake I believe.(or that I know of) Anyways, after finding this site and learning about drop shotting, something that I have never heard about or done myself, my father and I were able to catch the most and best quality fish ever. At first I was worried because our boat has really outdated electronics. But fishing familiar areas we were able to locate several huge trees in 40-60 feet of water and were catching 20-30 bass a day. The biggest spot we caught was 19.5 inches and I caught a 6 lb walleye, my biggest so far.

I would just like to thank everyone on this site, especially Bill Babler for sharing their information with other anglers regarding fishing reports and techniques. Without this website, my trip would have just been another filled with lots of fishing, but not many fish. -Mark Bigler

[munch]

Hi Mark,

We usually fish down at Milford lake near your area but stay near Kimberling city end of July each summer. Have a electric trolling motor on my boat now so will give fishing another chance down there in a few weeks. Hope it is alittle easier to hold over structure and fish. My wife and I love the lake and don't mind fishing all day but never have done real well. If you don't mind me asking what where you using while drop shot fishing?

[M.Bigler]

First we were using 4 inch watermelon mini lizards, but later we just started using large night crawlers. I think the live bait outperformed the plastics in the particular area where I was fishing.

[munch]

Mark, Thanks for the report. The nite crawler report will make my wife happy. That is all she will use and just laughs at me trying all the other stuff. 9 out of 10 times she catches more fish so I can't argue. Do you usually hook the worms in the middle? How about the lizards or artificials.

[M.Bigler]

Just use a gamakatsu #2 drop shot hook and a half ounce drop shot weight(thats what I used) and hook the worm or lizard at the tip of the head once through. Just let the thing dangle.. Im not an expert on drop shotting or anything, all I did read atleast a dozen articles and visit just as many websites researching the technique before I went down there.

[munch]

Mark,

I to have found this forum very helpful. Not only is it nice to hear from the experts but from people like you that take what they say and go out and sucsessfully catch some fish with those methods. I will take this info with me in a couple of weeks and hope to be as sucessful. If I can't catch fish up around Kimberling I might have to find your hotspots around Shell Knob. Not sure if I will be able to afford the gas to get there though I Appreciate your time to answer my questions

Lynn