If A Realtor Tells You?

[Bill Babler]

Usually this time of the year folks start to come out of hibernation and have paid that last Christmas Master Card bill. Their thoughts turn toward plying the depths for the fantastic fishing we have on the Rock.

My phone has been busy and I have gotten the usual amount of calls from newbies that have just purchased a lake home of the Rock.

OK, they have got their digs and are ready to reap the bounty of crappie that their Realtor has told them the lake is full of.

They tried a little last fall and put a few beds under their new docks but just have not had the success they were led to believe they should be having. After all they were told the lake was STOCKED ON A YEARLY BASIS WITH CRAPPIE, and was if not the best one of the best crappie lakes in not only Missouri but the entire country.

The question, is why are we not catching any and would you guide us and show us where these boundless limits of crappie are.

My new response is "Have your Realtor guide you and demand his fee back if he does not produce said crappie as he or she were more than willing to tell you leap onto your unbaited hook here." Of course that was prior to you signing the sale papers on your new lake home.

Maybe it is selling real estate everywhere, but the folks here that do it would tell you the sun was shining if you were standing in a pouring rain. I guess if you believe it, its on you.

Just because there is water, does not mean fish live in it.

I throw up my hands. Sheee!!!!

[J-Doc]

Lol!! Sorry but the way you put it was funny.

It's true. Realtors will tell you anything to sell property. Poor people don't know any better but, if they didn't do Amy research on the lake itself, shame on them. If they were THAT determined to catch said fish, they should have researched it themselves.

Never trust a used car salesman (sorry if any of you are one)

Never trust an attorney

Never trust a sales pitch if any kind

Never trust a fart

It's that simple. :-)

[Bill Babler]

One of my buddy's told me the 3 things to never do when you turn 60

Never pass a restroom.

Never turn down $E--yum yum

Never trust what you said of the stinkum.

I'm throwing in the Realtor deal. for a 4th.

[Jerry Rapp]

LOL! But the realtors did their job very good. Even though they had no clue what they were talking about (crappie) . Hello? Folks, if you are working with a realtor this post is priceless. If you have a question, hire an expert about it (roof, sewer, leakage, etc.) Much less fishing. DO NOT EVER BELIEVE A SALESPERSON. Common sense. Find out the answers on your own, their job is to sell stuff.

[motoman]

Oh man; that's great bill! Shame on those folks for not doin their research.

[Bill Babler]

You know I have encountered this for the 20 plus yrs. I have been in the business. Folks want to believe what they want to believe.

Even when I first started guiding here in the 1990's crappie were really starting to decline as a yearly fishery. YES, you could catch them during the spawn, for a few weeks, and in the Winter around the docks, but in reality if you were a crappie guide you would have starved even then.

There is so much misinformation out that it would be extremely hard for a person to know what is truly possible when it comes to catching the elusive Table Rock white perch.

Go online right now and look at the websites of the resorts on the Rock. The stories are just unreal. Lots of them saying that Table Rock is stocked on a annual and even a Simi-annual basis with; crappie, walleye, largemouth bass, catfish and bluegill.

You as a person that just sees this magnificent lake would assume it to be teaming with the above mentioned. Here is the kicker. IT AINT.

There is not a lake in this state that gets the pressure that the Rock has. It is dark now, but just minutes ago right before dark there were 4 bass boats in sight from the lodge. It is fished and fished extremely hard, 365.

Here is a pretty good analogy. We fished the gulf of Mexico day before yesterday out of Captiva Island with a very good guide. We fished 4 different GPS locations up to 20 miles offshore that he said by his book he only hits every 6 months. During the rest of the year they go untouched. He said his locations are not fished by other guides and I can believe it as they are marks in nothingness. We would catch a dozen of each stop. He said if he went back the next day or within the month it would be very slim to nothing, he had to rotate. He said he had over 1000 locations on his map to keep his clients in fish, and kept a very detail log of how often he fished each and his clients success on a seasonal basis.

I was telling him there were location here that get fished 300 plus days a year and at times a dozen times per day. He just shook his head.

It is just not as easy as folks coming into the area are sometimes mislead to believe

[dtrs5kprs]

Obviously they did not use Tim Sainato or Jim Strong as agents.

[Bill Babler]

That would be my guess too.

[J-Doc]

Captiva!! Love that place. Was hoping to go back this year but that may not happen now.

Last year I got an 80lb tarpon off Captiva. If anyone is going there.....look up Capt. Ozzie Lessinger. He was just on the Bass2Billfish TV show. Little did I know, he was filming that episode right after my trip. Ozzie amazed me. We met just before sunrise, he drove his flats boat out into the bay and after a 15min run, stopped the boat I'm the middle of the bay miles from land anywhere and without a GPS turned on bodily stated....."there should be some tarpon here". And on cue, 4 tarpon surfaced and started daisy chaining within 50ft of the boat. It's as if they were his pets. Now there is no way he was able to mark a spot based on landmarks. Water was all around us and land was at least 1.5miles away. And 80lb tarpon his like trying to catch your buddy's four-wheeler too. Drag singing on a spinning rod for days.

Sorry. Off topic.

So what did you fish for in Captiva? Awesome place. I'm jealous!!!

[ness]

REALTOR® stretching the truth -- making a home sound better that it is? Shocking!!!