What Ever Happened To The Length Limit Change On Spots In Beaver?

[Stump bumper]

It happens but I rarely deep hook a bass and do a awful lot of fishing with 12 inch plastic worms. I f you deep hooking so many your slow on the hook set.

I use a very small hook on 4in worms on drop shots alot and on a drop shot there is not a hook set just weight then reel. That accounts for most of my deep hooked fish, but that was not many this year, way too busy flying around the country on work this year.

[Bass Ivy]

I dont think there is near as many shad in Beaver as in Grand Lake not even close. Yeh I see see schools of shad on the Lowrance in Beaver but usually just small schools here and there. Sometimes Ive seen big schools in Beaver but never nothing like Grand. Ive seen them on Grand on the finder just solid every where. You didnt have to look for shad on the finder they were just every where. I havent been on Table Rock in a long time and I havent been on Table Rock in the winter time ever. But I will just about bet there is alot better forage base in Table Rock. Look at the Kings River arm how far it runs and the James River is massive. War Eagle on Beaver is not much it runs to a dam and that is the end of the line even the white River arm on Beaver runs up a good ways but it ends at a dam too. Although Lake sequoya spills over and Im sure lots of Forage fish are raised up river from there. I see alot of skinny bass on Beaver. The ones on Table Rock are fat as pigs as far as I know. And like another person mentioned about not ever being checked on Beaver. He is right Ive never had my live well checked in my life on Beaver. Ever. And there are alot of people fishing out there that wouldnt know A spot from a Largemouth and probably keep all they catch. I know of a guy that bass fished that didnt even have a golden rule in his boat or anything to even measure a fish. He was always braggin about how many keepers he would catch. One of my other buddies bought him a golden rule for christmas. LOL. One time that guy without a golden rule was fishing at Monte Ne and one of my other buddies was in the boat with him. I was in my boat by myself. I was following them around talking to them and fishing behind them. They had more fish than me. When we got done I pulled up beside them and handed my golden rule over to my buddy. They started pulling fish out and by the time they got done they only had one or two keepers. LOL. So then I gave my four keepers to the one guy who didnt have rule. Cause he liked to eat fish. I caught a double that day on a spook. Keeper Black and kentucky at the same time. That guy was always telling me how many keepers he was catching all the time. Ive never heard him bragging again about how many keepers he would catch after my buddy gave him a golden rule for christmas. LOL But now he can go out there him and his boy and catch a mess of Kentucks and fry them up Myself I never kept any Largemouth, Kentucks, or Smallies. If i wanted fish to eat I would eat whites or crappie. But I eat more Flatheads than any other fish out of Beaver. But now I will eat some Kentucks if I think it will help out in the lake. I was fishing a tournament out of Prairie creek one night. At the weigh in there was a game warden watching the fish come in. And a guy put a short fish up there to be weighed and the warden wrote him a ticket. On Beaver that is the only time Ive ever seen a Warden check fish on the lake. In my opinion they need to check all the boats coming in off the lake at the ramps sometimes. ive always wandered how many short stipers and hybrids get taken out by all them boats under the bridge at night in the summer time. About 90 out of 100 of them people dont even speak english. I used to catch some hybrids and small stripers fishing under the bridge at night with lights, and turn them back. I figure most of them people doing that couldnt tell one from the other. I bet alot of short crappie get taken out too.

[Quillback]

I hear you on the shad in Grand lake, that lake is filled with them.

[Bass Ivy]

Supposedly the stripers were added to Beaver to eat alot of the Gizzard shad in there that are too big for any of the other fish in there too eat. I just imagine them stripers eat anything they can catch and fit in their mouth. The Biologist disagree about the stripers hurting the bass fishing. I figure they do hurt the bass fishing some, but I dont think they are hurting it too bad by eating small bass because if they were actually doing that they wouldnt need to remove the length limit of Spots. Im sure they eat lots of Threadfin shad though. I wish Beaver had at least twice the amount of shad that it does it sure woudnt hurt nothing. I bet the stripers probably eat alot more threadfin than they do gizzard shad..

[Bass Ivy]

Yeh Grand is just crawling with Shad. All the striper guides around here used to go over to Grand to catch their shad to use for bait over here. I dont think they do that any more though. I know on Beaver I dont even try to catch shad to fish with. you can run all over the lake and spend all day trying to catch some. Plus they are a pain in the butt to keep alive so, I just go buy me some brood minnows and go fishing. Ive got a small pond here at the house Im going to drain it, and clean it out. and Im going to stock it with golden shiners. When I get ready to go striper fishing and I want some big Brood minnows Ill be able to just go out there and get me some. The brood minnows they sell at the bait store are still pretty small they will grow quiet a bit bigger than what they sell. We have one pond here that is almost two acres and its over 20 foot deep in the deepest part. A few years ago I started throwing my left over crappie minnows that were golden shiners and brood golden shiners in there. There are some big Golden shineers in there now. The pond is just so big and deep that I cant seine some out of it. When they spawn they make alot of forage for the bass in there.

[jeb]

I don't see any more or less schools of shad on TR than I do on Beaver. Always seems about the same. I always find lots of schools of them on both lakes. Never fished Grand. I was talking about these sister lakes on the White River.