duckydoty

I switched to trolling today and caught 7-8 of them big green things. Still looking for them walleyes with no luck. Good to see you out there Bill!

made for a mighty fine Christmas dinner!

Got out for a bit after some Christmas festivities this morning. Mr. Babler was already on the water. Fished KDock area for about 20 minutes then decided to do some scanning all the way down to Mincy. Did not see anything that made me have to stop and fish so I headed back up to Snapp. 1st cast with the mega bass and caught a nice crappie. Had to work hard for everything after that. Ended up with 4 keeper crappie, 10 shorts, a nice yellow perch and one of them bass that Mr. Babler was enjoying catching. Still looking for some walleye. Might try trolling bottom bouncers tomorrow.

Fished K Dock and Snapp again for a couple hours today. Three or four other rigs were in the parking lot and some fellas were having fun four wheeling above the flats there. Little to no wind again today but lots of cloud cover. Water temps were 43-44 degrees. Worked the roll off just above the dock for about an hour with the mega bass 110+1 and caught 3 nice keeper crappie. Went up to the brush pile on Snapp and threw a swimming minnow for another hour. Caught 12 off that pile with only 4 of them being keepers. Headed in after that. Merry Christmas Ya'll!

Dead

It can bend your drive shaft and mess up your lower unit

Ouch!

I just finished up 5 days off in a row. Should probably work a couple of days this week. Sure can't wait to get back out there though.

No guts........No glory!

You can run to lookout with the water off. The narrows is a little tricky

Took a vacation day from work to help my brother build a covered porch. Finished up with that by 11 a.m. and decided to try and catch a walleye or two. Put in at K Dock and started fishing the roll off of the flat to the main channel. It was bright and sunny, very little to no wind, a lot warmer than it has been and water temps were right around 43 degrees. 1st cast, jerked the mega bass 110+1 down seven or eight times then let it sit. 8-10 seconds later gave it a little pop. Five or six seconds later, the line got heavy. I set the hook and reeled in a nice crappie. Not what I was looking for, but not a bad consolation prize on my first cast. Picked up three more big crappie and a bass on the jerk bait in the next hour and then switched to a swimming minnow. Caught a couple more keeper crappie then decided to head up to a brush pile in 26 feet of water on Snapp. Ended up catching a total of 10 keeper crappie and 10-12 shorts by 3:30. Boat started running rough so I decided to head in rather than chance spending the night. No walleye today, but the crappie sure did bite good. Smallest one I kept was 11 1/2 inches.

Fished K Dock up to Snap on Bull Shoals today and saw a few golden eye and a dozen geese. Not much as far as water fowl.

Fishing Bull Shoals

My plan is to fish for walleye Friday. Will stop by in late afternoon early evening to see how everyone is doing and, of course, get an autograph from Chief. Can't miss an opportunity like that. May fish Saturday afternoon also.

I too had a great time at Jig Fest. I want to thank Ham again for taking Phil and I out on Thursday. That was a beautiful part of the river. I picked up on a technique he was using that was very productive and tried it myself several times during the trip with good results. Yup, Ham, I was watching....LOL! Enjoyed fishing with Les also on the second day. The food, companionship and stories were incredible. Looking forward to next year already!

Anyone against me bringing a few bags of walleye to add to the fish fry Friday?

Had a gentleman look me up this week. I met him on OAF well over 10 years ago and used to night fish Taney with him every time he came down from STL. I started guiding in Alaska. He started taking trips to Michigan and we just lost contact about 10 years ago. He used to be Midge Magic on the forum. We finally got to fish together again last night on upper Taney. Fishing was pretty good down by the boat ramp with pretty hard hits. Dead drifting white mink sculpins (my go to night fly) produced the most fish. We might have caught a dozen each. Water was dropping out and the fish fought really good. I think the largest one caught was about 18 inches. Al caught one 15 inch brown. I ended the night up below the rebar hole. Lots of nice ones rolling in that area but I think we only landed 3 up there. Great night fishing, and catching up with an old friend!

Four Rivers has a walk in area if you do not draw into the drawing hunt. 50% of the allocated hunting spots are held by reservation holders and the other 50 % go to what we call the poor line. The poor line is when you walk in and try to draw into the hunting spots that are still available. Weekends and holidays are harder to draw in because more people show up. If you follow the drawings on the Mdc website you will notice trends when you would be more likely to hunt. Week days during the end of the season. Always have a back up plan. If you don't draw in, find another spot you can walk into or try rabbit hunting somewhere for the day. The biggest thrill of it is drawing into a hunt that there is a good chance you won't be lucky enough to draw a pill low enough to hunt. I've had to put the duck gear down a for the day a few times, but I've also drawn good numbers on days where 50 or more parties were trying to hunt too.

Get with a seasoned hunter and go hunting with them. Best tip I can give you. Next best tip is just get out there and do it. Even at the duck parks. All of us started out green. Carrying gear can be a good idea and a bad one. I have bitten off more that I could chew on more than one occasion. I have a spot I like to hunt every now and then that is a mile or more back from the closest parking lot. Tried packing in all the gear I wanted and thought there had to be a better way. Went out and bought the largest deer cart on the market. It was rated for 450 pounds. Thought to myself, I can take more gear. About died trying to get 450 pounds of gear 1 mile in from parking lot through wet muddy fields. Now if I would have stuck to just the gear I would normally carry on my back, it might have worked out? Also tried the deer sled thing.....again over loaded and about died trying to get everything in to the hunting spot before shooting time. Finally learned to down size and hunted out of a canoe. Great way to hunt but can be a little slow paddling the 2 miles down the lake I hunted on. After the hunt was done, had to paddle the 2 miles back up the lake. I did that 60 days in a row. Had strong arms after that season The most fun I've had was when I turned the Seado jet ski into a duck hunting rig. Used the prior deer sled as a tow behind decoy sled. Could fetch downed ducks at 65 miles per hour. Jet boats don't work good in duck water. Had mine out one December and it was 16 degrees outside. Ran over a weed bed and plugged the inboard jet intake. Had to strip down and go swimming that day to clear the intake. Not fun! layout boats were used a couple of seasons ago. Loved them for smaller water. Not a good idea on big lakes though. I can honestly tell you, I have never worked so hard at something to have fun Hope some of this helped on at least what not to do, but that's half the fun of it all dont be scared of the duck parks. A lot of the people that go there are pretty green themselves. Most over call. If you get set up in a blind. Call sparingly and see what happens, I'm sure you will have fun

Put in at kdock around 9 yesterday morning for a lazy day on the lake. Trolled 3 rods using 2 ounce bottom bouncers and crawler harnesses going between 1.5-2 mph. Stayed in 17-25 feet of water. Picked up 2 keeper eyes and a short in the kdock area then moved down the lake a couple of miles to a flat with quite a few brush piles on it. Picked up one more keeper eye and 7 more shorts down there along with 1 keeper bass that was released and 3 more shorts. Also caught a hand full of big hills down there till running out of night crawlers. Started fishing the brush piles with swimming minnows and picked up 2 keeper crappie and a dozen shorts. Ended the day throwing a mega bass 110 +1 over a brush pile that when trolling caught most of my short eyes and one keeper on. Caught one more short eye and lost a big one at the boat. Spent what was supposed to be a lazy day on the water reeling in a lot of fish.

Just got back from my hunting/camping trip and was able to concentrate on the Jig Fest. Checked the calendar and got the "all ok" from MCD. I'm in. Same days as Phil.

I love my mud motor! Good Loki g rig Marty!

Yup, I should have fished last night too.

With the new crossbow law in effect in Missouri, I decided to go out and purchase one each for my wife and I. This is the first time in 9 years that I have been able to hunt the first month of bow season. I'm usually still in Alaska till mid October. I found a new to me place to hunt during spring turkey season. The problem was, it is about a 5 mile hike in from the closest parking lot. Now that's not too bad if just hunting turkeys, but I've been seeing lots of deer back there too. The only other way in would be by boat and with that, I would be committing a full day to the woods. Not such a bad thing if a full day is available. I came up with a possible solution early this summer and started putting the system together along wth getting myself in shape. A mountain bike and tow behind bicycle cart! I spent the summer biking up and down these hollers in the Brandon area to get ready for the hunting season. The system has worked better than I could have dreamed. It takes me about 20 minutes to bike the 5 miles in and I can easily carry all my gear. The cart has a gun rack attached to a side rail for my crossbow and plenty of room in the cargo area for pop up blind and swivel seat or climber stand. The bicycle has a rear rack with saddle bags that can carry extra clothes, lunch, back pack and anything else I might need. Two weeks ago, I was hunting back in the spot on a foggy morning. Heard turkeys fly down and about 20 minutes later, they appeared like ghost out of the fog in the field in front of my blind. The three big toms slowly worked their way across the field towards me while scratching the ground and feeding along the way. At about 35 yards, two of them stood straight up looking my direction. After about 2 minutes of a stare down, all three of them slowly turned around and started working their way away from me. At about 40 yards, I put my sight right on the base of the neck of the closest bird and pulled the trigger. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. The neck was attached only by one thin piece of skin. My first ever archery season turkey kill! The tom had a 10 1/2 inch beard and one inch spurrs. That afternoon I decided to hunt close to the house and ended up taking this small 8 pointer at 30 yards. U committed a couple of full days to the other spot that I bike into this last week, but took the boat. During the middle of the day when I normally don't like to hunt, I had something else in mind to do. I would hunt till 9:30 or so in the morning, then troll crawler harnesses and bottom bouncers for walleye till 2:30-3 in the afternoon, then hunt again till dark. Turned out to be a pretty good plan! My bother and dad came down for opening day of early goose season. I just so happened to have been noticing a spot where the geese had been hanging out while trolling for the walleye. We headed out for a blast then cast mission. Ok. This week, on my days off, I got back on the hunting in the morning, trolling during the day, then hunting again in the afternoon. Tuesday morning, I had a dozen toms come out into the field in front of my blind and somehow missed on a 30 yard shot???? About 9:30, I headed for the boat to chase walleye. Fishing was good. Boated a 7 pounder, a 19 incher, 3 shorts and a bunch of big bluegill till the wind picked up too much. Headed back t the woods carrying the climber stand this time. Was looking around a pond just inside the woods from the field I have been hunting for a good tree and 5 hens exploded out of the brush. Set up the tree stand about 80 yards away on the edge of the field. About an hour and a half latter the 5 hens came back working their way down the brush line of the field. I poked one at 20 yards pinning her to the ground. She flopped off the arrow, took 3 steps and fell over dead. Headed out of the woods early and jumped 2 does about 100 yards from my stand. Turkey and walleye sammiches that day. Yesterday after work, I biked into my new favorite spot and set up the ground blind looking for a doe. About 5 pm a doe came out in front of me at 30 yards. I though, easy shot! Wrong! I squeezed the trigger and heard a louder than normal thwack from the crossbow. The deer instantly spun on its heels, and I watched the arrow fly by the deer just missing her. I was wondering how that was even possible! I got to looking around to see if I hit a twig or something and found this. a new hole in my blind! About an hour latter she came back on the other side of the blind snorting and blowing for about 10 minutes before finally walking out to within 20 yards. I made sure I was clear of the blind this time and let her have it! She ran out in front of the blind then into the woods where I saw her the first time and I heard her crash. I'm color blind, so could not see any blood on the damp ground and had to trail her by tracks. Just as I was calling for back up, I found her. I still can't believe I did not see blood with a shot that did this I got her all loaded up and ready for the 1 mile bike ride out of the woods This was the easiest I've ever had it getting a deer over a mile out of the woods and I did not even break a sweat!

My wife and I fished from the 76 bridge up to Powersite yesterday morning bottom bouncing crawler harnesses and trolling 7 mm flickershad 1.5-2 mph. Caught 4 short eyes and 3 short bass in 3 hours. Stayed in 15-20 fow till it got what I felt like was too hot to fish. Nice relaxing morning ou there.