Bull Shoals Half of my Trade a Trip 5/8 5/9 5/10

[netboy]

Great trip Ham.

You are gonna love the Venice redfish trip. Be sure to take an 8 wt fly rod along. Nothing better than a 10 lb red on the fly. 

Also might want to check out an offshore trip for some tunas, snappers or a ling or two.

That area is the best saltwater fishing this side of the world.

 

[Gavin]

Awesome! Good for you guys!

[Ham]

I’m a big fan of having some extra water in the lake to improve the spawn, but Gee Whiz this starting to get silly. The lake continues to rise day after day and they aren’t attempting to watch water out with water coming in. 

My ideal level would be 663 or so because that puts water in the bushes, but most ramps are still viable at that point. If the COE wants to keep the water > 664 every Spring, maybe they should develope a few more ramps AND parking up and down the lake that are useable up to say 680. It’s a beautiful lake that still fishes well at higher levels, but it stinks when accessing the lake becomes really difficult because of lake of available boat launches.

another day another 1/4 foot higher. It was more like another 1/2 foot higher until the last couple of days. Lots and lots of floating wood and other garbage. Watch out for logs and get some of the trash out of the water if you can. I tried to catch a tricycle that I could see on bottom in 6 foot of water, but I could not get anything to stick a hook in the wheels were down in brush.

rant over. Off to do yard work.

[Fish24/7]

 kolr10 website has some recent info about the lake level. Yard work, yeah that's what " cut" my day short yesterday lol New push mower worked great!

[curtisce]

great being able to swap a trip like that. We're heading to Venice in  August. Like to be able to do it without having to hire guides.  

[Ham]

We need to get a gang together and tote yaks south. Redfish are pretty easy to catch if you can get to them. We would have to work a little more in yaks, but that’s no big deal. 

[mixermarkb]

Spending a little of that hydroelectric money on high water lake access would surely help. I'd even be for a program that shares some of that revenue with the resort operators on the lake during flood years, maybe in the form of offsetting their lease payments. It's got to be hard to run a viable tourist biz during a flood...

[Bill Babler]

That is one cool mixed bag. All you needed was a catfish and a walter to really have the Bull Shoals slam.

[Ham]

Bill, Inwould have been glad to catch either. I did catch a Big Drum, but no pics so I guess it didn’t happen. 

[BassMaster#1]

Just wanted to add that the fishing has been fabulous...stayed at sisters creek resort and didn't have to go far to find fish as sisters creek was full of them....caught multiple smallmouth all in the 2lb range.  I kept the boat in 20 - 25ft of water and was nailing them on cranks and swimbaits.  Guess we were catching spawning fish because they still had fat bellies and red tails.  Was catching smaillies on top water in the morning in Howard creek but guessing they already spawned as bellies were not fat.....did nail a big walleye on the crank in sisters creek that would have went 8 - 10lbs but net was to small and my buddy let her jump out.  It's just a fish story now, but all fish were smallmouth with one or two largemouth mixed in.  Smallie were have way back in the coves or cuts of the creek arms  and evening bite was great with cranks up to last light