BRANSON, Mo. -- I can't get enough of Table Rock Lake.
It's beautiful, and I love its laid-back vibe, but mostly I love its excellent bass fishing, especially when I fish with Mike Boyles.
I was able to slip away from a full agenda at the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers annual conference last week for a few hours of fishing with Boyles, who I met in 1993 when he competed at the Red Man Golden Blend Diamond Anniversary Bass Championship at Lake Tuscaloosa, Ala. Boyles, of Mike Boyles Fishing guide service, shares my love for smallmouth bass fishing, but more than anything, he loves to see other people catch fish.
We met late in the evening on Sept. 21. With only a few hours of daylight remaining, the temperature was still in the mid 90s. The humidity was also very high and the sunlight was piercing. All of this made being outside miserable.
We met at the Moonshine Bay ramp at Table Rock Dam and idled to the end of a point.
"A little flat stretches out here before it drops down to deep water," Boyles said. "As hot and bright as it is, bass cruise along here and feed all day long."
Boyles brought his hard-used and well-traveled Skeeter bass boat. He was in the process of restoring it. The gelcoat gleamed, as did most of the accents. His progress was notable by comparing the refinished areas to the few remaining sun-damaged areas.
He was in the bass boat because his specially designed bay type boat and split a bunch of welds, nearly causing it to sink. The manufacturer deemed it irreparable and was building him a new hull.
On the bow was a Garmin live sonar unit. Boyles invited me to fish with him on the foredeck, and we marveled at the clarity of the live sonar. We clearly identified fish on the bottom and around cover. We watched our jigs fall, and we watched fish move to look at them.
"You like this Garmin?" I asked.
"For people like Jacob Wheeler and Dustin Connell (accomplished pro bass anglers) who have been playing video games all their lives, Lowrance is probably a better option for them, but for regular fishermen like us, just get a Garmin and be done with it," Boyles said. "It's all you'll ever need."
I used a 1/4 ounce pumpkinseed jig with a plastic craw trailer. Boyles used a similar colored worm. I slowly dragged the jig along the bottom and felt a thump, followed by a mushy weight. I set the hook on a 14-inch smallmouth bass. A few minutes later, I felt a mushy weight. I pointed my rod toward the water as the line moved toward the boat.
"You're bird doggin' it," Boyles said just before I swept my shoulders forward and set the hook on a feisty Kentucky bass.
"Let's go fish this point on the other side of the dam," Boyles said. "It usually holds some nice smallies for me."
"Dude, we're catching fish right here," I said.
"I know, but I need some air-conditioning!" Boyles said.
While a blast of air-conditioning was certainly welcome, fish had abandoned that point. We didn't stay long before going to another spot near the Belle of Branson, a contemporary paddlewheeler that is one of Branson's premier tourist attractions.
"Who built that thing?" I asked.
"I don't know, but they built it right on that ramp over there," Boyles said. "To get it in the water, they crushed tons and tons of bananas on the ramp. When they were ready to launch, they just slid it right into the water."
"You're lying!" I said.
"That's what I thought when I first heard that, too, but I looked it up," Boyles said. "That's how they did it."
Boyles caught a smallmouth near the Belle, and then he caught a largemouth bass.
"We got the Table Rock Triple Play," I said.
"If we could just catch a meanmouth, we'd get the Table Rock Grand Slam," Boyles said. A meanmouth is a hybrid between a smallmouth bass and a Kentuckie bass. Table Rock anglers hold them in very high esteem.
Biting flies bedeviled us our entire time on the water. Boyles got a flyswatter out of a storage compartment. It was the old timey kind with a rigid mesh cloth paddle.
"Whenever I find these, I buy every one they have," Boyles said. "It's better than the ones with the plastic paddle because air moves through that mesh. It strikes faster than the the plastic ones. They move too much air, and flies get away."
"You need one of those Bug-A-Salt guns," I said. "Have you seen the commercials for those things? They're freaking hilarious!"
"Let me tell you about that Bug-A-Salt gun," Boyles said. "I had one out by a campfire a few weeks ago. I did the little hack where you remove the safety so you can shoot it as fast as you cock it. Man, I was massacring them! I shot the thing so much that I hurt my wrist. It still hurts. I mean, I can see being sore the next day, but I shouldn't still be paying for it now!"
You have to have the proper ammo to hunt flies with the Bug-A-Salt, Boyles said.
"It comes with this anti-clumping salt, but the grains are too big," Boyles said. "It's like shooting quail with turkey loads. I use regular table salt. It'll destroy a fly."
The conversation flowed in that manner for the rest of the evening. When Boyles deposited me back at the ramp, it was dark. An approaching front had dropped the temperature and stirred a gentle breeze. It was a fine time to be on the water.