Living The Dream! Oh, And A Fishing Report

[Sore Thumbs]

Man. If someone doesn't want to fish after reading that then they never will. Nice post.

[danop69]

Great post. That's what it's all about. Can't wait for my week of bliss at the end of June. Beautiful lake indeed!

[Ron Burgundy]

If u live close enough to drive to Bull Shoals go there for walleye, that will save u lots of frustration .

[9LB]

Come up to Stockton and we will always get enough for a good dinner. Small snaky skinny little worms but they fry up nice

[2 in a boat]

Wow, thx so much for all the responses;

Jason thx for the welcome. Believe me I've been out at times when you could put a piece of straw on a hook, wiggle it, and catch fish. Other times you through your tackle box at them, your buddy's tackle box, and borrow a couple lures from the boat you met and still can't get a fish. It was a great weekend of steady weather patterns, fish hungry just off the spawn, and I got lucky and found the pattern the first evening out. By no means do I think it's the norm, you take it when you can get it and hope it's enough to get you through the next 3-4 bad trips. lol I brought the goggleyes up with my neighbor and he also said they were great eating. He also told me that they do not fall in the same 15" limit as the black bass, which I did not know, and there was no limit. The first couple I caught I'm thinking, a 15" Rock Bass would be pretty hard to come by. I'll give them a try on the table.

Powerdive, well from a professional that's quite a compliment, thank you. On the walleye that's the info I'm looking for. I've fished them enough that I think I can find them I'm just not sure where in the cycle they are on the Rock. I'm guessing with water temps at or above 70 they have pretty much spread out evenly on the main lake points and getting into their summer pattern. Do they slowly stage their way out away from the rivers until they are dispersed on the main lake? Like out of the rivers for the spawn, concentrate on the closest feeding locations and then slowly disperse over the entire lake? I know around here they are just finishing their spawn. And the closest deep points are not only the closest to the river, they are the only two gravel points on the lake, our lakes are small. On the Rock thee are a lot of feeding spots between the river and the dam. Do they move out over a 4-6 week period, or once the spawn is done they head towards the dam and everywhere in between in a matter of a couple hours and set up for the summer?

eyedabassman, I have to add to your comment. Through this whole process, and anyone that has ever bought real estate knows what I'm talking about, the people we dealt with in the KC area were absolutely the best people to deal with I believe I have ever encountered. From the Title/Escrow people, cable TV, electric, Insurance, even the tax office and county seat, didn't matter, I was so pleasantly surprised at how nice and helpful everyone was down there. And you can tell the difference when someone is giving you the canned "hi how are you" speech and don't really give a crap if you're drawing your last breath, and someone who is actually in a good mood and WANTS to help you. Heck we had a little mix up between the tag office and county seat and didn't have the right paper work to register our boat on a Friday afternoon and were headed back Sunday, and the county seat had already closed for the day. I left a blank signed check with the lady at the tag office and she promised come Monday she would call the county seat, get everything squared away, fill out the check and finish the paper work and send us our paper work with a copy of the completed check. I'll be darn come Wednesday it was all there in our mail box, from a bureaucratic organization, are you kidding me, unheard of. So you guys that live down there should really be proud of how accommodating and nice everyone is, reflects well on the community, I was very impressed and wanted to give them people a shout out.

Champ, I rarely keep more than a couple fish, usually walleyes, or a mess of whites or crappie if I get on them, and I usually have a couple messes of cat fish in the freezer. Occasionally we'll have a mess of bass and I agree they are renewable as long as we don't get greedy. Nothing upsets me more than a guy that shows me his freezer and brags on the 50 lbs. of 1-5 year old freezer burnt fish they'll never eat, what a waste of any fish even carp. But usually the bass are keepers that got hooked deep and are hurt and bleeding. This past weekend I kept two keepers like that, both LMs. The smallies would just suck it in their mouth and try and run off with it, but them LMs, dang they just inhaled that little swimming minnow all the way to the exit chute. But why not smallies, do they that not reproduce in the Rock like the LMs or spots? Just curious.

Ranger Z22, I hear you loud and clear and believe me my ego does not get in the way of me asking for help when I don't know what the heck I'm doing, I don't care what the wife says. lol I don't ask for directions because I have a map and I'm not lost, I know where I am I just don't know how to get to where I want to go from where I'm at, that's different than lost. But Mr. Babler and Champ, maybe a new market for you and maybe you already do this. I would pay full fair for a couple hours, what you charge when it's your boat, your equipment, your gas, to have you go out in my boat with me and my HB 998 and show me how to work/read the darn thing. You bring some appropriate lures, rods, etc. maybe, but my boat. We'll go out a couple hours and you can school this ole country boy. And I know of several other guys that feel the same way. Ya, take me out with your fish finder, boat, lures, and I'd learn a lot. Take me out in my boat with my gear and show me how to use this stuff I spent too much money on, and buddy I'm grinnen like a wild pig under a persimmon tree in September.

Ron I hear you on Bull Shoals. But the Rock kinda gets an unfair bad rap for walleyes in my opinion, and I established earlier what my opinion's worth, because you have Stockton, Bull Shoals and Greers Ferry what, an hour away in different directions. Not many lakes will stack up to them. Compared to most if not all Kansas/Oklahoma lakes, the Rock is an absolute phenomenal walleye fishery. My dad grew up in Cedar Creek MO and on the white river long before TRL was built. I have a bunch of Aunts/Uncles/Cousins still down there and we would go down when I was a kid to visit them and that's how I got turned on to the Ozarks. I had one uncle a stones through from the water on TRL and one the same distance on Beaver. I brought my soon to be wife down for the first time about 2 months before I proposed, (too many years ago so don't ask lol) it was love at first sight. Not with me, with the lake, I had to work on her a bit before she was convinced I deserved a second look. lol She fell in love with TRL and that was it, if we were going to retire on a body of water it was TRL, period. So even though I thought about some other lakes, wouldn't have mattered, what she wants I want her to have it just takes me some time and a few knots on the head to realize it. And since I'm new I better make one thing clear right off the bat, I kid around a lot about the misses, but I want to go on record right now and state that she was the best thing to happen to this ole Mississippi leg hound, period. Put me on the straighter and narrower, gave me beautiful children and a wonderful home full of love, and put up with my sorry butt for a good number of years, which ain't easy. So don't take my failed attempts at humor to serious.