Seth

How many people do you know that actually wear a life jacket when running their boat? I can't think of a single person who actually wears one except when required for tournaments.

I run an 1860 Legend SS vbass and love it. Several buddies have Alwelds and they very nice as well. If you're running areas with a lot of "can opener" boulders then you may want to look in to something with a thicker bottom. Most of those setups come with inboards though and cost a lot more. Boats like mine can take gravel strikes all day, but it doesn't take much of a rock to open one up. Ask me how I know.... That's what insurance is for though.......😁

Damnit man! I'm sorry to hear that. I'll send a few up for you and your family.

I need to try and make it down for some spring training games next year. Cari would all for it, we just need to plan ahead so she can put in her time off request soon enough. We'll be at Busch for the opener this year so I'm pretty stoked about that! Hopefully the weather cooperates for us.

How many times he say "SON!"? 😁

It's about time somebody beat those boys. They've been on a roll! It seems like every year we have something going on that first weekend of March and can't make it down there. I'll let dad know you said hello.

It was. I've only made it down for the winter tourneys the past few years so I spent my time pre-fishing below Fall Creek preparing for those. This was the first time I'd been down just fun fishing in a while so I was able to actually go hit the trophy area. My only regret was not having more time to do it since we had to get back home. I'm hoping to make it back down for a few of the charity tourneys this year. I'm not as serious about those so I'll gladly go play in the trophy area on those trips.

Same here. I’ll drift when needed but give me a jig bite any day! The jig bite was better for me last two days than it was in any of the winter tourneys. Not sure if they have changed up their stockings recently or what but it was a pleasant surprise. Definitely felt like old Taneycomo again.

Fished yesterday evening between Fall Creek and Trout Hollow. Driffting scuds worked OK, but I think them cutting the generation hurt that bite a bit. My best bite ended up being a 1/8oz black jig in the slower water across from the upper end of Trout Hollow. Had several solid fish around the 1 pound mark. Biggest was a 17” brown. This morning I fished the trophy area. Best bite was black or white jig along the bank across from Trophy Run. Also hit a few pockets of fish along the bluff wall between Lookout and the Narrows. Nothing huge but quite a few chunky 16-18” rainbows. No browns wanted to play.

Fished 1:30-4:30 and landed eight. The water visibility is around a foot. I threw the jig for a while, had several bites that I missed, and managed to land one. After messing with the jig for a few hours, I gave in and started drifting rainbow power bait on the bottom and caught the other seven. Four were decent sized (13.5-16") and the other four were dinks that I put back. There were a few fish on stringers when I arrived, but I only saw one other fish landed by another angler while I was there.

We're heading down tomorrow evening. Going to snag for paddlefish on the James arm on Wednesday and then hopefully meander over to Taneycomo Wednesday evening. If not then definitely Thursday morning. Hopefully some of those shad will find their way through by then. I always look forward to fishing when the gates are open.

Smoke is a hammer, especially when it comes to the best five format. He'll be a force again this season for sure. It's also no surprise that Wheeler was right there near the top again. It doesn't seem to matter what the format or body of water is, he's always right there! The highlights don't show much FFS going on. Looks like it was mainly shallow around docks and sight fishing. Just goes to show that there FFS is a tool like anything and not always needed. These guys are good enough to know when they need to get away from it.

So many seem to hate on Maramec, but I feel like the quality of fish has been really good for several years now. The past few times I've fished Montauk, it was hard to catch fish worth cleaning.

I fished 7:30-10:00 and caught six on a black/yellow jig. The water was high and dingy so I'm sure bait would have worked a lot better. They seem to have a lot of very nice-sized stockers in there right now. Of the six I caught, three were 15-17", one was 14.5" and the last was 13.5". I didn't have a lot of time so I didn't get to explore anything below the river bend by the back parking lot.

I kept a laminated copy on me for several years after they came out with the app, but I never used it a single time and quit messing with it.

Auto renewal is the way to go for this stuff since you need it every year. Just make sure your credit card info is up to date! If your card doesn't work, they send you an email letting you know. I think they do this three times before it stops trying to renew automatically. I thought about buying a lifetime hunting and fishing license for the convenience of not having to buy a new one every year, but this makes that a bit pointless. I'll wait till I'm 60 before buying that when it's dirt cheap.

Well heck I thought you were talking about at some point at least in this century lol. I was born in 86 I wasn't thinking about Oktoberfest much back in those days. 😄

I hadn't heard of it being shut down. Heck they still had it in 2020 when Covid had the world shutdown.

I can see it now. Oneshot will hit up the wineries with good tasting wine and then head over to Oak Glenn for the dance party! I've been to one Octoberfest and that's how my day went anyways. 😁

A small split shot should work as long as you keep it close to the bottom. You could also just tie the scud off to the bend of your jig head as a dropper fly. Spread them about a foot apart and try to keep your jig a foot above bottom and the scud close to the bottom.

Anybody that doesn't like putting some fresh BBCs in their mouth is a liar! 😁

It's a custom built 7' MHX light action that a friend made me. I paired it up with a Shimano Stradic FL 1000 and 3# Maxima Ultregreen. We've been fortunate enough to do very well in the Taneycomo tournaments so I decided to splurge on a really nice trout setup. I'm not sure if I actually catch more fish with it than I did using my $120 Airstream/President combo, but it sure is nice to fish with.

We watched a couple eagles get it on across from Lilleys on the bluff Saturday during the Masters tourney. First time I've ever witnessed that. I wasn't sure if I should keep fishing or stop and take my hat off like the national anthem was playing while they finished. 😁

@Hog Wally I think ol Jeffro could bust a 15# sack of smallies out of the crapper at the boat ramp if he tried!

We only had two fish in the live well by the time the water shut down and had to come down lake and finish out our bag with jigs. Four of our fish were better than a pound and four were 3/4 pound stockers. Numbers were actually not bad, but catching one over 12” was not easy! The flats were dead for us and we had to fish out in the channels to catch anything.