Haris122

How long did that big brown take you guys to bring in?

I can't see it too good, but here we go. So what's up with that necklace you're wearing.

darn Smallieseeker, that's a hell of a lot better than my public land hunting experience this year (or any other year so far for that matter).

Thanks on the info guys. I'm surprised of those incidents, all 4 were firearm related. I've tripped and fell pretty good a few times in the woods, usually stepping into a hole or real soft ground deceptively masked by leaves to look like it's a safe step. Thankfully I was able to keep the muzzle pointed away from me as I fell, and either didn't have a round in the chamber, or the safety did it's job.

I got hunter certified something like 9 or 10 years ago, and I remember at least from a little before that, to up until the last 6-7 years, MDC used to have a brief explanation of all the serious accidents that happened during rifle season, either as part of a general write-up of opening weekend/all of rifle season, or as a completely separate little article. I think they had the same during spring turkey season too. It basically explained the situation as far as they knew it, something hypothetical like, "real cold day so guys put propane heater on max in shooting house, guys dozed off, propane heater malfunctioned, eventually exploded, killing one and injuring the other hunter in process". For some reason they stopped it, or at least only give a very brief mention of it nowadays, that's very lacking in detail. Anybody else remember something like that or am I going crazy? I feel like that would still be helpful to read up about to keep you vigilant on what kind of things end up going wrong. On that note, anybody got any more info on what happened in those cases? As far as opening weekend went for me, well, I was at work. 4th year in a row that opening weekend hit on my weekend shift. I wasn't too upset about it since I hunt public land, and figure I'd rather have the following week completely off to go instead like usual, mainly because of the safety standpoint with there being less people outside of opening weekend. This year however I wasn't able to make things happen during the 7 days I went out. I actually only saw 1 doe with a little one in tow, in those 7 days, and I didn't shoot cause of the younger one. Hopefully going once during antlerless will work out instead.

I went yesterday afternoon down to the Big River at Brown's Ford. I had checked it out once several years back when I tried fishing from shore, but that went nowhere, so this time, with the wind being forecast to be low, and the water probably low cause of the dry weather, I decided to give it a go with the kayak. I got there and first surprise was how muddy the water looked. It was a little bit discouraging but I decided to try it out anyway. The entire time I was fishing with two rods, on one I had a slip bobber set up with a little crappie tube on jighead. That was supposed to be my backup, cause I figured at least I'd have a lot of bites from sunfish on it. On the other rod, I had a shallow diving crankbait, figuring if there were bass or anything else predatory, and bigger around, that's what they'd go for. I decided to start by paddling upstream as far as I could and then make my way down, but fishing along the way. At first signs were promising, I saw little minnows jumping like they were being chased by bigger fish, I kept having bites on my slip bobber setup, yet somehow I could not hook them. It went that way for a while, until finally I caught my first fish, a little longear sunfish, then eventually I lucked into a little spotted bass not much bigger than the sunfish, once again on the tube. Pretty soon even the sunfish bite started dying down. I couldn't get bites in even some of what seemed like the best water for them, slow little backwaters with vegetation weren't even producing. I got to some steep mud banks figuring a good cast along might illicit a decent fish into biting on the 3-4 foot diving crankbait, but nothing happened. I got close to a riffle with some rocks that were on the bank and tried there again, nothing, shortly followed by me getting snagged and losing the crankbait. By that point I was too unmotivated to get out and portage past the fast water of the riffle, so after trying briefly to paddle up it, I just kind of gave up and started my float back down. More of the same followed. I got back to the ramp, then decided to try a little further down from it, until I got near another riffle not far away, and then turned around fishing up towards the ramp again. I caught another 2 little sunfish and that was all. A little after 8 I called it a day, and loaded back up and left.

Which main 2, 35 and 33? I've fished a good chunk of the smaller ones too over the years. For some reason though I just tend to gravitate to 33. Guess it's that hope of a big monster seems more likely in a bigger lake like it, but who knows. I like 28, 34, 37, and 38 too. Heard a lot of good stuff about 36 but rarely have I had much luck on it for whatever reason. Do ok on 35 from time to time, but it and 36 have a lot of vegetation in it in the warmer months, and I just don't know how to fish them effectively when they get all that milfoil or whatever it's called, in them.

How do the squawfish fight, and are there no salmon or trout? From the pictures, the area looks like prime trout/salmon country but no pics of them.

Man, that is tragic. We had just been down there a few days before. I personally wanted to go on one before but just never got to it. I wondered how that could happen seeing them riding around Branson in good weather but now it makes sense. From the footage it seemed like they were stuck between a rock and hard place, cause they had those windows closed to prevent water from coming in from the waves. I always figured worse things worse, you could always jump in the water but I didn’t realize that area actually closes.

Yeah, I hear you. I had a little hole in my waders too, but by the 3rd night it seemed like it was leaking pretty good. I can definitely see how it wears on you when you're trying to focus on fishing, especially in that cold water. I hope to sync up some other time too. Usually only get the time to go down there only once a year, but I have been tempted to go more than that.

I will caution, there's no pics taken of fish, and nothing as hardcore as Jester's all nighters. Me and my gf went down there starting Friday, and we got down to Branson late Friday night. Since this wasn't going to be just a fishing trip, we didn't fish that night. Saturday took us a while to get other Branson stuff done and since the water was running at full blast for a while, we only got fishing at 7pm. On the plus side, we stopped by Lilley's and I saw Duane, and said hi (or was that Sunday). He gave me some good tips that they were hitting early morning and late at night. Saturday night we fished only for a few hours as my gf was not the "night fishing in leaking waders on her birthday" kind, fishing by the 2nd parking lot by the hatchery (the one between the upstream most one, and the one by the water discharge). Thanks to JesterHK's and Duane's tips we managed to get a couple in each, fishing with stickbaits, but said leaking waders, prompted us to leave just as the fishing seemed to be heating up. It definitely seemed like they really only started biting for us once it got dark. Sunday night we were about to get going sooner at the stairs just downstream of the boat ramp, when the storm came through. Instead we waited for over an hour in the car, for the storm to pass. Finally we started back at it around sunset, without much luck there. I had one fish get off, and gf had a few bites in a few hours, before we decided that nothing was happening there. She seemed done, so I decided just to take a look again by the 2nd parking lot from the night before, and cast a few more times, at which point they kept hitting the husky jerk the way Jester mentioned. I netted one, lost another, and had another 3-4 bites in the 10 or so casts I made there. It was a bittersweet feeling knowing I couldn't convince my co-angler to continue fishing there instead. So that was that for Sunday. Monday night we got to same parking lot around 8, and fished until 12. This time we capitalized on Jester's slow retrieve method, and I got 6 ones in, and gf got 4. Again, the bite seemed to heat up after it got dark. After a little while I started trying other stick/jerkbaits just to see whether they will hit other types too, and the answer was yes. However, after a little bit it's like they started learning, and their bites became much more cautionary as the rest of the night we mainly kept getting missed bites. I thought it might just be related to the different stickbaits I was throwing, but gf kept throwing the huskyjerk, with same results. By 12 the bite seemed to have died down completely so we left. I woke up again Tuesday morning for a few hours, for one last attempt to hook into a monster, but the bite was definitely not like it was at night. After I went through a good chunk of my stickbaits, I finally even tried roostertails, spoons, and jigs, all to no avail. Eventually I switched back to the rainbow trout colored rapala I had got one bite on, and got another 2 bites, but couldn't keep any of them on the hook. Eventually it was time to head back home. On the way back we also checked out the wonder of wildlife aquarium. We didn't have the time for the other exhibit that day, but plan on doing it next time. I thought it would be underwhelming giving the steep ticket price, but as others have said, it was pretty cool, and lasted long enough to be worth it. I just wish they'd actually have more signs on their aquariums. And not that it might matter much to most people, but it seemed like sometime they'd jumble fish together in a display regardless of where they were from. Really just nitpicking in that regard. It was pretty darn cool, that's for sure.

Me and my gf are headed down there later on next week for a couple days. Not just for fishing but that will be a major consideration. Looking forward to it.

Is that in a Spincast reel? Not Spinning, right? Any recommendations on lower stretch mono?

It's kind of hard for me to let go of the 5'6" rod. I feel like it's the perfect size for most areas I fish. But I might have to do it still if you guys think it's not enough. I think even bigger problem than size would be finding the kind of handle that I really prefer. Don't see them around like that a lot. I have been actually using 4# solely on that setup for a while now, but as far as braid, they say it isn't supposed to be used in a spincaster. I've done it before with a medium setup, but never the light action ones. Not sure why really they don't suggest it, as it worked all right for a while that way in the medium rig.

Did I miss something, or did they not yet at least, declare the lake to be left to fall apart or get drained? I was interested in checking that lake out, seeing how it seems it would be out somewhere pretty wild and more untouched than most but that might just be me romanticizing it's image in my head.