Haris122

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.

Went down there finally, last Friday from 3 to closing time. I was hoping to "calibrate" my new "Omega" spincast reel I recently got before I head down to Taneycomo later this month, but things didn't go quite as hoped. I got in my waders and started fishing at ~3 pm, just past the first riffle near the fish cleaning station where the parking lot ends (going downstream), and within maybe not even the first 10-15 casts, throwing a little sinking rapala in rainbow trout color, I had already caught my first fish. Pretty unusual for me, so I figured maybe it's going to be a good day. The fish was a rainbow, a little on the smaller side from that of a regular stocker. After that I made my way uneventfully further downstream at a brisk pace, until I got just past the riffle by the bathrooms. There I got 2 good bites and one where it got off instantaneously. The fish would bite, I'd feel a good hit, I'd start fighting the fish, only for them to get unbuttoned a few seconds into the fight. I went further downstream until I got down to the red ribbon section, by which point I had had another 2 bites like that. There I caught a little smallmouth, and figured maybe my drag was set a little too light, as I had problems even bringing that little guy in quickly. Guess in the thrill of the moment and the sudden luck of the first fish, I didn't notice it being that loose, and honestly when I'd pull on it, it felt like it was set firm enough. I wound up tightening the drag down some more, and yet somehow still lost another 2 fish, though this time one of them stayed on a bit longer. I'm hoping to make it down there again next week, to see if I can adjust things enough to where the frequency of lost fish is much less than what it was that time. I did have the barbs bent on the trebles of the stuff I fished, but it is a little odd even for me, to lose that many of them these days. Some guy down there that was from Arkansas and fishing similar lures as me, said he got 9 of them, and thought maybe I needed a different rod, as I might not have enough backbone to set the hooks right, so if I don't figure it out by the Taney trip, I might look into getting a 5'6" light action, casting rods that's a little "faster". At the same time, I've fished with this rod for a while now, and I don't remember having this many problems with hookset before so my suspicion is, it's the drag on the reel.

Yeah, I'll check into that next time I take the truck in for service. For now I'm going to assume that's the curb weight distribution and call it good. Wouldn't make sense if they'd want the majority of the payload distributed more on the front axle, when it seems there's already more weight on it from the motor and such, especially with the rear axle being rated as the stronger of the two on top of that.

You lost me here. At what point did I say that I'd be putting the weight just at one end of the bed or the other? What I was trying to figure out was just how much I can put in the bed. At the end of the day, regardless of how well it gets distributed, I think it's a safe bet to assume most of said weight in truck bed, will be more distributed to rear axle than front. You mean the weight distribution section, right? I have to ask for your interpretation on it. Is that saying that, that is how the payload should be distributed across front and rear axles, or is it saying that's how the curb weight is distributed across the axles?

I guess, just another thing to throw out here, so this truck is supposedly capable of towing 7000 lbs. If the tongue is supposed to handle 10-15% of what's being towed, wouldn't it stand to reason the bed area could handle about 1000 lbs, since 15% of 7000 lbs is 1050 lbs?

As far as how much the load will weigh, I'm just picturing a scenario where I load, let's say a certain number of bags of concrete with a known weight per bag.I know it probably wouldn't happen often, if at all, that I get that close to the upper limits of what this truck should have in the bed, but it's best to know exactly what the upper limits are, so I can use it to full effect if need be, but not push it beyond what it should handle. I also recently borrowed my dad's older canyon truck a few months back, and got something like either a cubic yard, or half a cubic yard of gardening soil in it, and at that point it occurred to me, maybe it was more than it was supposed to have in it, because the bed did drop down some. Still drove fine back and everything but in hindsight I should've thought a bit more about how much I should actually put in there before I actually did it. I think I'm going to have to disagree with this point. These days the light pickups (Colorados/Canyons/Tacomas etc.) seem plenty more capable than say my dad's late 90's Sonoma, and he put that thing through it's paces. As far as capabilities, I would say they're closer to like a late 90's/early 2000's 1500/F150 trucks than the Rangers/Tacomas/S10's of the late 90's/2000's. But yeah, like you said I highly doubt I would use it much in a manner that would really push it's upper limits, but it's just really good to have a good idea of what those limits are, just in case.