Jeff P.

I'm really interested to see what others will say, and especially interested to hear how your next trip goes jb. I am from the Rogers area myself (currently live in Bella Vista), but I haven't fished Beaver since this Spring. I have been out every weekend for the past 6 weeks or so fishing the Bella Vista lakes. Fishing has been pretty tough, even talking to the guys at the tackle shops they all report slow fishing. My best tactic has been dropshotting around docks and brush piles, with some sporadic topwater action around dusk in shallow areas in the backs of creeks. Water temps were 60 deg. this past Sunday. If you don't already, check out the Outdoors report in the paper on Friday in the Benton County Daily Record, or find it online here http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Outdoors/. The fishing reports in there are usually more detailed than on the AGFC website.

I've caught a few with them on a small jighead, fished shaky style. Fishing them on a small jighead makes the bait appear like a small fish that is feeding on the bottom. I tried them on a dropshot rig without success, but only tried it a couple times. Around my parts the "fluke" style baits don't produce nearly as well on a dropshot as worms.

I'll just throw this out there, from personal experience. I couldn't figure out how to walk the dog for a long time. I just couldn't seem to get the coordination right in order to keep a steady walk going. Then, I switched hands and started using a LH reel, and it was immediately a piece of cake. If you have a spinning rod with the handle on the left, you might give this a try to see if it makes walking the dog easier for you too.

I've never tried it on braid, so I can't say if it would work for certain, but you might try a uni-knot end loop. I tie this on my monofilament when using certain poppers, and I bet it would work with braid. http://www.in-fisherman.com/magazine/guides/cg2003Sp_Uniknot/

I use Yo-Zuri Hybrid Ultra-Soft for every setup I have. I use the #4 and #6 on my spinning setups, and #12 on all my baitcasting setups. I used the regular Yo-Zury Hybird for a while on my jig and spinnerbait setups, but I switched to the Ultra-Soft. I will continue usiing this line for all my setups, though I am interested in trying some flurocarbon line for a couple applications (dropshot and plastics).

I used to also have bad line twist until I started using a swivel. I put a small #12 swivel about 6-8 inches above my hook. Now I don't have any problem with line twist at all.

I was sniffing around on Ebay tonight, and I came across something I had not heard of before. Several listings of a BPS Extreme EX "Limited Edition" series of reels (and rods apparently). These reels are silver instead of the standard green of the regular Extreme reels. Anyone know what's the deal with these? They are not available online apparently, and only at selected stores. Are they better than the regular Extreme line?

A google search led me to a couple results that were related to fishing. They are patent descriptions of some type of sinker that slides up and down your line when using a T-rig. I went to college but even I couldn't really understand it very well from the patent descriptions! However, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and read the summary, it appears to be a helical-coil design for a screw-in bullet sinker. Further down the page there are a couple other patents submitted by a fella named Pixton, so I bet that's where the name comes from. www.freepatentsonline.com/5490345.html

So far I've only used the 4 1/2" straight tails for dropshotting (also used them on a small shaky head). Has anyone tried the 6" worms on a dropshot with any luck? I am just wondering if a little bit bigger worm might get some bigger fish.

I have had good luck using the 4 1/2" straight tail worms on a dropshot. So far, these are my favorite worms to use on a dropshot rig. The two best colors I've caught them on are green weenie and bold bluegill.

islandbass that is a fantastic post, thanks very much for putting the time into that writing. I would like to nominate his post for a sticky, or even an article for the website.

Arkansas Resident Fishing License - $10.50 Trout stamp (required to take trout in certain waters) - $5.00 White River border lakes stamp - $10.00 (allows AR residents to fish the Missouri portions of Table Rock, Bull Shoals, and Norfork) Resident Hunting License - $25.00 Waterfowl stamp - $7.00 www.agfc.com Arkansas has some very reasonable fishing and hunting license fees, which I think is a big contributing factor to the popularity of both hunting and fishing here in the Natural State.

In the article titled "Winterizing Your Boat" by John E. Brady, I came across the following line talking about draining the lower unit oil: Last fall when I changed the LU oil in my boat, it was very dark in color and smelled like it was burnt. I asked around some guys I know who have boats, but nobody was quite sure what that meant, and that I should just keep an eye on it. I planned to change the LU oil again earlier this season, but I didn't use the boat as much as I had planned this year, so I haven't done that yet. Does anyone know what the black color with burnt odor means? Am I looking at a serious problem with the lower unit?

Here is an excerpt from the Arkansas Game and Fish weekly fishing report for Beaver Lake, AR: For those of you not familiar with Beaver Lake, it is a clear water lake, and there is not much at all in the way of aquatic vegetation. The cover most commony found is standing timber or stumps, and most of the structure is very rocky. Water temps are currently in the low 60's to mid 60's in some areas. I have been catching them good so far this Spring on crawdad colored crankbaits (wiggle wart), senkos, and jerkbaits (Smithwick rogue). Every week I read in the fishing report that people are catching them on spinnerbaits too, but I have had zero luck this spring with a spinnerbait. So my question is this: "If you only had spinnerbaits to choose from, what kind of spinnerbait would you choose?" I'm looking for general recommendations such as colors, blade config, weight, and depth/type of cover to target. I look forward to your responses!

100% of this applies to me. Thank God I was born a guy.

A few years ago I used to smoke them more often than I do nowadays. My favorite sizes of cigar are the robusto and the corona. I don't smoke or chew tobacco, so the longer cigars don't do any good for me they just make me feel bad. Back then I had settled on the Padron cigars as my favorite brand. I really liked them alot, but if I'm not mistaken there was a bad weather year that wiped out a lot of tobacco crops in Honduras, and my local cigar shop stopped carrying them. I have a few forbidden sticks in my humidor right now, that I brought back from Germany last year. Also have a couple Fuente's and a Macanudo. Macanudo was the first cigar I ever tried, I still remember the day.

I have 2 BPS Extreme baitcast reels, 1 Pro Qualifier baitcast reel, and a 6 1/2 ft BPS Tourney Special rod (Med power and moderately slow action, I really like it for crankbaits). I have used all of these products the entire season last year and I am well pleased with the performance of all 4 products. If you are able, look for these items on sale and you can save even more money.

Would one of you guys be able to post a picture showing the way you rig you fat ika's with this hook? I have some of the G-Lok hooks but I'm not sure the best way to rig the hook in them.

This is an interesting topic to me, because I have a Humminbird 565 mounted at the console of my boat, and I'm looking to replace the bow sonar I currently have with an Eagle Fishmark 320. I'm pretty pleased with my Humminbird. It has very good resolution (640 vertical pixels, 320 horizontal). I played with the Eagle Fishmark 320 at a local store and it looked really good also. The only complaint I have about my Humminbird is that it loses the bottom signal around 50 mph. I have my transducer mounted in the bilge, installed with fiberglass resin, levelled, etc. The Lowrance guys all claim that their units can read the bottom at 70 mph. This would not be any concern if you were mounting the unit on your bow though. At trolling speeds I'm very happy with the picture I get on my Humminbird. The 640 veritcal pixels really do give a nice, clear picture. To sum it up, I don't think you can go wrong with either unit. They are both very comparable.

Around here where we have lots of clear water, when the fish start going deep in the summer there are two colors of DD22 that the tackle shops just can't keep in stock: pearl w/ lavender back and chartreuse w/ blue back. For night fishing, I also have a black/red DD22 that works very well.

I would call the manufacturer of the sonar/transducer and ask if they have a tech department, you might be able to ask them about the transducer. However, I would bet it should work fine.

What would concern me is the shape of the shoot-through transducer vs. the transom mount one. Most shoot-through transducers are shaped kinda like a hockey puck (and are usually called puck transducers because of this). The transom mount transducers have a more hydrodynamic shape, so that the drag on the transducer is reduced as you are going through the water. You also might have a hard time finding a mounting bracket that will work.

If I'm fishing early in the morning I always pack a thermos of coffee, it helps to wake me up and I always try to eat before I get on the water because once I get started on the lake I want to be fishing as much as possible. For lunch, nothing can beat a PBJ sandwich. Bring lots of water or tea when the weather is warm. I also always have a pack of beef jerky on the boat. For night fishing, I rarely bring anything to eat, just plenty of sodas, tea, or waters.

1/4 oz chrome/blue back

I highly dispute #1. I won't give out my sources, but suffice it to say that I know the people who would make this decision, and it's not true.