I got Bit

[Bill Babler]

Again today, due to no fault of my own, we got seriously bit mid-lake.

Lots of guide traffic,and everyone catchen-em.

Talked to 4 different guides and most trips netting between 40 and 60 fish 1/2 day with most fish in the 13 to 18 inch catagory.

Also spoke to Leanord and he fished Roark. Caught a 20 plus inch Brown.

Who gave him permission to be that far from the dam? Guess its ok as he gave me a few bugs in retrebution. Kind of like trading beads to the Indians. I think he even caught the fish during daylight hours. Could be a first.

Thru God's good graces, we had 4 browns today from 19 to 23 with 3 over 20.

Clients took pic's and just didn't want to keep the fish out of the water longer for me to also photo them as they were pretty pooped.

All came on 64th oz sculpin jigs on 2 pound test on long rods. Good to catch them with, hard to get them to the boat and released in a timely fasion.

Didn't think they needed any more wallering around for me to photo.

[Arkie Farmer]

Awesome!

...wish I could have found a Brown in there too lol.

[BrianK]

Great report. here's my humbling one...

Ok so i'm starting to believe in getting a guide for the next trip...

I too thought i could catch a few fish but was pretty humbled by Taney this past sunday (11th).

After reading Frenzels and Bill's reports, and craziness of 2 fish per minute...i'm thinking....what a bunch of liars.

Ok, not really, just that i have alot of learning to do on tailwaters.

Boated from Cooper Ck up past Fall Ck. fished from 1030 till about 2:00 dodging boats and hoping we didn't turn into one of Phils / Bills horror story statistics.

Caught a few (maybe 10-15 between the 3 of us)but definitely not the 40-60-150 fish being touted here.

Didn't see folks hauling in the fish either so I didn't feel that bad at the time...now i'm wondering??? maybe should have gone further up? repeated the drift until they turned on? or until we turned on? different stretch of river? nightcrawlers? powerbait? anything.

So we left with tails between legs...ran down to Norfork dam and did a little better on Monday.

Big thanks to Phil and Leonard for hooking us up! (or trying at least) Great to finally meet you guys. Keep the 4 fish per minute reports coming and i'll be back!

Brian

[Bill Babler]

I am going to cut you guys in on a pretty big seceret. All the guides in the mid-lake section are doing nothing but sight fishing.

We are moving some and keeping the trout in sight at all times. Big schools of stockers are just roaming the flats from below Cooper Creek to about Roark Creek, you just have to look for them. They are swimming only a foot or so under the surface and look like black clouds in the water. They are also midging extremely heavy.

They are so easy to find, it is ridiculas. If you see a congreation of guide boats, we are there for a reason, look at what we are doing. I am litterly standing on my trolling motor chasing these shcools, from one side of the river to the other.

It is just kind of a turkey shoot, you throw the baits infront of the schools and they just swim thru your offerings and bam!!! At one stretch yesterday we had 18 doubles in a row.

The only problems we had were other fisherman running their motors thru the schools of fish and pushing them back to the bottom. They just had no idea the fish were there and were really not paying attention to the water.

I AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR FISH, NOT LOCATIONS. THEY LIVE EVERYWHERE AND NO WHERE, THEY ROME.

Did talk to another guide that fished from Clay Banks thru Lilley's and said he struggled pretty much all day.

Arkie, the browns for the most part came off some of the old grass beds from the old business 65 bridge to about bass pro. We were following the stocker schools and caught the browns.

Think maby they were following the stocker schools too!

[FRENZEL]

I lost my glasses last week and felt like a cripple with out them trying to spot trout the other day. Didn't realize how much I actually did chase them around till I could't see into the water. I hate not being able to see my jig too.

[BrianK]

wow. yeah, i had no idea.

sshhhhhh.

b

[Bill Babler]

Thought maby since you didn't get them really good Brian, that I was helping.

I'll just keep my my shut from now on. Didn't mean to offend.

Sometimes it's hard to tell how much information to give on this forum. I tend to overdue. Not to speak down to anyone but to offer as much assistance as I can. Sometime it comes out different than the intention.

I'll try to do better in the future.

[crappiefisherman]

Please dont take this wrong, but, when a man shuffles in the water to attract fish its bad, but if you follow clustered schools of stockers in guide boats its ok?How many years of good ole fishing knowledge and expertise does it take to chase stockers>?

[twhit]

Wow.

1. Bill, I didn't read your post as the slightest bit offensive and not sure that the response by BrianK was meant sarcastically, maybe it was. I appreciated your comments. When I have a slow day on the stream and see others being successful, I wonder what they are doing differently so I find your willingness to comment very helpful.

2. Sight fishing is part of the sport. Sure, from a boat is a little different, but not any different than following the fish finder on Table Rock. Its all about if you want to fish for numbers of dinks or work hard to find the bigger, older, wiser fish. To each his own. Nothing wrong with either--that is why they put stockers in the lake--to let people enjoy the sport and catch some fishies.

3. Shuffling is a whole other story that I don't have the energy for right now. Not a big fan, I will say that.

Ah, the politics of fishing...

[Bill Babler]

Never really equated catching moving schools of midging rainbows as shuffling. Guess it could be deemed as such...NOT!

Guess they are just to easy to find. Spoke however to several dozen people on the dock today that really were not doing much that would have loved to have been able to find and catch-em.

Next time I see midging fish I'll make sure I ask the 6 year old sitting next to me if they want to not catch the easy ones or just go look for some that are more challanging.

I'm sure dad will say, "thats what I'm paying $350.00 a day for, so my kids will have to work as hard as possible to catch fish".

This is Spring break. 99.9 percent of the clients we are taking are childern and adults that could flat care less how they catch them, they just want constant action, period.

Guiding is not fishing, It is guiding. Nothing matters more than numbers. 1, 10 pound brown, 1, 5 pound rainbow, mean nothing, compaired to 10, 1 pound rainbows.

On the majority of these trips, if you caught the state record brown or bow, it had better be mixed in with at least 30 other fish or you would have a complete fit thrown, as we just didn't catch much. That is guiding parents and children.

A buddy of mine had a trip a few years ago and his client caught a 10.5 lb. rainbow and a brown over 8 on the same trip. I have taken the client 5 times since. Told me he just flat didn't catch enough fish with the other guy. Didn't eat trout, just loved to catch them in bunches.

We had 3 Browns over 5 lbs. chasing those easy to catch stockers the other day. They were never mentioned or cared about. The only care was sissy caught 5 more fish today than bubby.

These fish are not usual, if you are following the post. Right now 10 fish caught in the restricted area will weigh 1/2 as much and fight 1/2 as hard as 10 fish present in the bait area.

If you can catch-em.