Hog Basser

Just this guy, hit right when the lure hit the water.

They don't have a huge impact on bass (as stated in the article), but can wipe out their forage base and especially shad. In a smaller lake such as mine (53 acres) a fair number of them can make an impact pretty quickly.

casting net would be fun with that bunch of fish....if legal in your area.

Folks with private fishing reservoirs in our area use a variety of methods to keep them away. One guy has cannons on timers that go off every so often throughout the day. Most people just shoot to scare them away when they find them on their water. But they always come back. We have a ton of dead cypress trees in the middle of the lake and I'm wondering now if they are the culprit.

I've seen these birds discussed on this board before. I'm not a fan of them at all because they can devastate the forage base for my bass in our private lake. This article has some of the best detail I've seen about them. https://www.bassmaster.com/conservation-news/cormorants-impact-fisheries

@scottyboy you alive?

A common misconception is that all geese are bad to eat, but you can prepare just about any type in a way where people can't tell the difference. Down here, the speckle belly is the prized goose for meat and cooked right it can be like a tender steak. Canadian is next up and snow or blue geese are considered sky carp. But I've known people to cook snow geese right along with the specks to serve to their guests and no one eating them was the wiser until informed afterward. The whole cream cheese/jalapeno/bacon usually does the trick. I also like to marinate them in Italian dressing for 12-24 hrs first as well. I've also done a tight bacon only wrap and put them on the smoker for a few hours with great results.

I fish weeds and lily pads a lot from shore on a pond on my place. I use an owner beast twistlock weighted hook and put a brush hog or lizard on and drag over the top until I get to a hole to drop into.....then BAM! I get a lot of good hits that way.

Interesting......seems logical, but I'd definitely like to hear more once some of you try it.

I forgot to update this back then, but I got my trifecta! Although it wasn't bass, but crappie for the fishing portion....couldn't pass up the good crappie bite we were getting. Got me a limit of ducks in the morning, crappie in the mid day and a nice fat doe at the end of the day.....not too bad of a day! I'm going to try it with bass next year.

Anyone can use a crossbow during bow season in Arkansas. Nice bow!

There should be an easement, I've dealt with property ownership in Arkansas and you have to give an easement to access the land. Don't give in. Sounds like they are well known with local authorities and not really upstanding citizens from what you describe, so doubtful they have too many people on their side. As a landowner, if one of my neighbors shoots a deer on their property and it runs to ours, they just call to let us know and retrieve it....no big deal. Their only worry is not walking up on one of our hunters and getting shot on accident, hence the need for the call (also as a common courtesy). I do have another neighbor that erected a new deer stand on the edge of their property with a good view down our new levee I'm not too thrilled about, but that's another story. I also have lakefront property with corps easements to access my dock. If the government has to give you an easement, so does this guy. If the sellers sold you property without an easement (unlikely), they knowingly broke the law by not disclosing this to you and should have to give you your money back. Again, don't give in to this guy, the law is on your side...you just have to make it clear that you will not be bullied (in a calm and peaceful way). Looking forward to updates.

Home Lake is a private lake on family land. 53 acres of bass fishing heaven. It is a 3 hour drive and I would live there if I could, but I take frequent trips and my new job gets me down that way a lot more. I've caught several 5+ pound bass and I know there have been 8 lbers caught there in the past....I'm hoping they've continued to grow. I regularly catch 3+ lbers whenever I go and I've been managing it for bass growth. They are looking very plump this year! Just had the place 3 years now.

Took my two again this last Saturday to a pond while mom was working. We didn't catch anything, but they had a blast trying and stayed with it much longer than in the past. They made me change their lures 3 times! Few more years and I will have them tying their own.

My sons are 5 and 3 and have been fishing for a few years now. I would guess they were each about 18 months when they first held a pole. Attention span is key. Started them out on dock demons (short poles) for bluegill with worms. Now the older one just wants lures to cast out and retrieve and the younger one is obsessed with catfish since he caught a 2 pounder off the dock with some of his mom's ham last summer (when he was just shy of 3 yrs. old). Between them and my friends' kids, I stay really busy for about 30 minutes baiting hooks and removing bluegill, then they move on to swimming or something else. Of course they might come back to fishing 2-3 times during the day while we're hanging out on the dock.

I fish a lot of rebel craws and jig & craws this time of year, but they really work year-round for me in my spots. A few years back, the rebel craw was all they'd hit around this time.

Another Pad Crasher guy here.

First time out, my 130 in rainbow trout caught me three 3 lbs. bass in a span of about 30 minutes. Sold! I now have about 4 additional colors. And it casts a mile.

Yeah, Quail are all but nonexistent (wild) in the state now. There doing a lot of research on it at the AG&F. There are several places in the state that pen raise them and set them out for paid hunts though.

Haven't had much time on the water this winter, did a little crappie fishing with mild success. Got out for about a 30 minute span to bass fish with one of my sons (age 3) and some friends kids with snow on the ground. First cast, caught a 2.5 lber on an old crankbait I've had in my box for years and don't know the name. My friends 8 year old girl caught a nice 3 lber on a Mann's Baby 1- I set her up with. Then I caught another 2.75 lber on that old blue crankbait again. It was so cold, we didn't last much longer than that with the little ones. But fun to get out. So short answer: crankbaits

I doubt the big pond (especially with how deep it is) has been completely wiped out. They will eventually recover, but be mostly smaller for a while. You can definitely overfish a pond that size, but you won't completely wipe it out unless you drain or poison it. Seriously, 60 ft deep is really deep for a 12 acre pond, is it a quarry pond? I help manage our ponds of 9, 12, and 53 acres and have to actively remove (and yes, I eat them) bass between 10-15 inches to keep the population under control so they don't become stunted. Trust me, they will recover. It is good to remove some fish over the span of the year, just not all at once. I need to remove around a 1,000 lbs of bass per year from the 53 acre pond to keep it from overpopulating. The cormorants and other predators help with that a little bit though.

We did get our big 20' hunting boat in there, so I know there were definitely deeper channels. I just remember there being a lot of shallow areas too. I would give it a try for sure. Seems like there was concern of pollution in there a while back too, but I may be remembering that wrong. Edit: I did a quick google search on Hollis lake and found some hunting forum postings from a while back. Apparently it is all private and completely surrounded by private land and you need permission. There are four different owners of the land surrounding the lake and they lease it out to duck hunt. I definitely wouldn't go there during duck season, there will be a lot of hunters and they will run you off if you don't have permission. They also mentioned it is difficult to access with all the posted land around, so you may have to take it off your list. Duck leases are going for $5K to just access a part of the lake.

You could also look at Northwest Arkansas. There are a lot of small towns around Beaver Lake. You also have access to trout fishing on the White River. A little more hilly and more scenery in Northwest Arkansas. Dardanelle is one of the better known lakes for bass fishing and hosts plenty of tournaments, but so does Beaver Lake.

It's been a long time since I've been there, but I duck hunted Hollis many years ago. I remember it to be mostly shallow, but I could be wrong. It's probably been close to 20 years now since I've been. Good luck on your adventures....looking forward to hearing about it!

Wow!!!!