Haris122

I went down there on Monday, but not much to report. It was busier than I thought. The western bank of the spring seemed to have more access closer towards the red ribbon section than I remember. I think they must have cleared some vegetation from portions of it. Fishing wise I mainly threw my usual, roostertails and jerkbaits, without much luck. Made it all the way down to the red ribbon area without having caught a fish. Then couldn’t catch one in the red ribbon section either. Finally on way back up, in the run by the bathrooms, I tossed some sinking jerk/crankbaits into the turbulent water and got 3 decent ones in short succession before the bite died down there too. Lost another one throwing something similar further upstream where the 2 arms of the creek combine back together. That wound up being all the bites I got before I had to head back. I somehow lost my net at one point and never did find it, which sucked.

I agree there was something different. But I couldn’t figure it out, and I tried an awful lot of different things to figure it out. So whatever it was, it was very subtle I feel like. And it sucks that something that subtle can have that big an impact. What baffles me the most is that, earlier on, before the guy came up to the same spot, I had a good amount of bites from them, doing the same thing I did later on. I just figured I try something different in hopes of catching something bigger, thinking if nothing happens, I can always go back and catch a few more later. That’s the part that’s most annoying. He was throwing his roostertail directly tied on, whereas I had it attached to a snap swivel. He was using mono whereas I was using braid. He was throwing his with a baitcaster (I know it sounds odd, but true) whereas I was using a spincaster. But despite all that, I was having almost the same response as he did at first with bites almost every few casts (maybe not as often as him, but still pretty frequent). Then all of a sudden, I could hardly buy me a bite. And as far as watching him, I did that too. He told me what he was doing even, and at one point he even cast my setup a few times, to narrow it down, and he still got bites. He told me to try reeling a little faster, which I did, but it was still a bust for me, no matter how I tried to change my retrieve.

Still a bit high but people were putting in their boats regardless. Even though it was still above the top of the boat ramp by a bit. Lots of activity though. Lots of fish chasing other fish from the looks of it. Of course that was a few days back. Not sure how much the water dropped or activity changed.

Ouch why the hate for roostertail on here. I love those things. I also admittedly don’t catch much but that’s not the roostertails fault. I fished Joachim creek at Herculaneum a few days ago, and the little bass were active. Throwing the same type roostertail, at the same place as me, some older dude had 50+ times that he brought little bass in in the same time frame that I brought in 3. Regardless of how I tried doing it. Made no sense.

Can’t really give you much advice but if it’s any consolation, I’ve definitely been there. Took me several months from catching my first ever fish to my 2nd and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Several years where it was like what you were saying, go expecting to get skunked. It does get better. Maybe not by much but at least nowadays I usually catch something on trips where I give it some time. I fish same way too. Lots of roostertails and cranks. One thing I’ve had pretty decent luck with as far as catfishing, is regular Shrimp. I frequently save a couple pieces of it when I buy a bag of it at the grocery store and a lot of the time something will hit.

Or that the drag worked good enough from that reel.

I had a brief stay down in Branson this past weekend. I didn't fish much, and when I did I didn't catch much, but I did get my nicest fish that I ever caught from Lake Taneycomo there this trip. Saturday afternoon we briefly hit up the public dock at Cooper Creek Access, and threw a few different stickbaits out there for about half an hour, to no avail. A lot of the time floating algae or whatever would get caught on the trebles and lip, and kind of make it a pointless retrieve, but I wasn't expecting much luck there anyway, especially with as little time as we were going to spend there that time. Late Saturday evening though, we hit up the trophy section near the hatchery in full gear and had some action. At first we tried a spot we came across while scoping some more of the place out, earlier in the day. It was a bit downstream past outlet 7 on the map. There we threw the stickbaits for about half an hour, maybe a little more, and after no bites in that time-frame, I was persuaded that we try our luck back upstream in-between outlets 5 and 6 on the map, a location we had some more familiarity with. For a while nothing was happening there either, but I eventually did get a bite on a small shad crank bait cast somewhat close to and parallel to the shore. That got me trying some more in that general direction when bam, in the middle of the night, all of a sudden something big hit and took off with my lure. Immediately dread set in. I was afraid I was going to lose it before I ever saw it, but in what was probably the next 5 minutes, the thing took drag, tried dogging away, but slowly but surely, got brought in close enough for me to make it out. What I had on my line, was a big Walleye. Another minute or so getting it close enough to me to net, and a very lucky netting later (the lure came unbuttoned from the fish as I scooped it in), I had in my net that big walleye. I can't say exactly how big it was, but I imagine easily 22" long if not more, and heavy. I caught a 18" walleye down there before, but this fish was clearly much more massive. Probably about as wide as 2 if not 3 of the one I had caught there before. I can't tell you exactly how much it weighed, but if I had to guess it had to be at least 3-4 lbs. By far my most massive fish I ever caught down there. After figuring out how to hold it up for a few pictures, I put it back in the water and watched it swim off. After that I decided to cast out some more in hopes of catching an equally impressive trout of some sort. I did catch a respectable rainbow that went maybe 15-16", but after letting it go, that wound up being all the action for that night before we took off, after ~3 hours of fishing. Sunday, it got to be about noon by the time we got back to the same spot to fish, by which point more water was being released again. We kept throwing the same stuff, along with some roostertails, but this time nothing came of that spot. After maybe an hour, I decided to try out the spot where we started out the night before. There ironically I caught another fiesty rainbow that went maybe 14-15", but that wound up being it in the brief half hour or so that we still had left to fish. Just to finally see what some of the lower areas of Taneycomo look like, we drove down to Rockaway Beach, and fished from the dock there, for another half hour, but unfortunately without any further action. Wish we would've hit it at better times in the day, and for longer, but overall I'm still pretty happy with that Walleye, and though I wish there would've been bigger or more of them, the 2 rainbows I caught, were far from my smallest ones from there, so I'd say it was a successful little trip.

Thanks for providing some options guys, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to end up doing. I’d like to check out the ones Gavin has and go from there since that seems like the best deal right now and I like the handle profiles on those.

Like to find a $50-60 5’6” or a 6’ light casting rod if possible for my small omega spincaster. Anyone know where to find any selection for them around stl, cause cabelas, bass pro, and academy all dont have them, and I usually only can find 1 type from denny dennis, and I’d like to upgrade a bit from that.

So a quick bit of background regarding this question, my favorite combo to fish with for a variety of species from trout to bass to crappie, is a 5’6” light action casting rod with one of the smaller zebco omega spincaster reels. I recently got me another light omega reel, and I figured I see if I can up the rod quality a bit since the only one I’ve found in the past that works, is a cheaper $25 shakespeare rod. I figure with a nicer rod to boot might keep even more fish from getting of. I knew it would be a bit tough to find but this evening I went to cabelas, bass pro, and academy sports and didn’t find anything that fit the bill. So anyone know of any places around St. Louis that has any kind of selection on light 5’6”-6’ casting rods?

My main reasoning was having stronger line for similar diameter line size, provided that it does other things about as good as the mono, which so far it unfortunately has not. In case I get a big fish on that peels a lot of drag I’d like to have that extra peace of mind that the line won’t get cut as easily from abrading against the reel. About a month back I had a real nice fish on that took me for a ride, and though the drag did a good job, it really helped knowing that the braid was not going to get cut easily if it had got stuck like the drags on a lot of the lower quality spincasters.

I have spinning reels that I use along with the spincast ones, and I know they’re more problem-free a lot of the time but while I can’t explain it, I have a personal preference fishing with spincasters. I have used braid in the past in lower quality spincasters and they did eventually cut into the pins and reel-head but it wasn’t that quick, and the drag on this reel seems actually quite a bit better so I think that would help it from extending the life of the reel for longer than those. I am going to look into some of these other lines too, so keep the suggestions coming.

Why are knots a pain? Is it worse than mono?

Push button spincasting reel.

I went this past weekend up there with some fishing buddies, but unfortunately I have very little useful stuff to report. We fished a good chunk of Saturday, and a bit on Sunday, but we had electrical and motor issues almost the entire time, which cut down on our fishing. Saturday they caught some crappie and a little bass around Ray Behrens and a few more crappie in the Spalding recreation area coves on minnows under bobbers and slip bobbers in shallow water, while I struck out trying tube jigs under slip bobbers and throwing small crankbaits close to shore, hoping for crappie and bass or anything else for that matter. We tried catfishing for an hour or so Saturday night from shore by the ramp on BB with some cut up shad but nothing came of that. Sunday morning we headed out from the South Fork ramp and fished a bit from there with no success, but electrical issues caught back up with us and we were forced to call it a trip before we got stuck out in the lake. Weather was quite nice, and a lot of people we're out, but water visibility was really low, less than half a foot I'd say, and there was lots of debris close to shore from the high water.