Leaderboard

The weather and water were perfect.

Fishing wasn't great. Eric had the biggest with a 14" fat smallie. He had a couple largemouths with a few smallies, all mine were smallies. he caught the biggest smallie on a ned rig. I caught a few on the 1/25 tri olive jig, and jerkbait/wiggle wart caught a couple. We ended up with 12 or so

Here's their forecast for this year. Fishing for black bass should be excellent in 2024. Largemouth bass are plentiful throughout the lake as a result of the high lake levels over the past several years. An abundant year class of largemouth bass was produced in 2020 and these fish should reach the minimum length limit of 15” by spring 2024. Quality largemouth bass are present in the lake as well. The percentage of largemouth bass greater than or equal to 15” was 28% throughout the reservoir during the spring 2023 electrofishing surveys. These surveys also revealed an abundance of spotted/Kentucky bass in the 11”-14” range, with nine percent of the spotted bass captured in the spring surveys exceeding the minimum length limit of 15”. Smallmouth bass fishing should be good again in 2024 with good numbers of keeper size fish available. Largemouth and spotted bass comprise the majority of the black bass population in the river arms, while smallmouth bass comprise a substantial segment of the black bass population in the main lake from the Highway 86 bridge to Campbell Point. Anglers need to fish a variety of water depths and types to find bass. Outside of the spring spawning period and in the fall, bass are often found in deeper, offshore water. Extended main lake points, humps, and bluffs are productive areas. Jigs, spoons, and drop-shot rigs are effective during summer months in the 10-25 foot range or deeper, depending upon the depth of the thermocline. Largemouth and smallmouth bass can typically be caught fishing on the bottom while spotted bass are commonly found suspended over deep water following schools of baitfish. Good electronics can greatly increase your chances of finding suspended schools of spotted bass. Table Rock Lake | Missouri Department of Conservation (mo.gov)

Well Cody sounds like a good trip to me. That and since we didn't hear a report yesterday I thought you guys were still stuck on a gravel bar. No @Daryk Campbell Sr to push you off. Thanks for the report and yes a beautiful day for anything outdoors.

Nice Rock bass🤣. Maybe it's the guide. I caught one myself during jigfest when fishing with @gotmuddy😉

Looks like the river was right at 660cfs when we were fishing, IMO it felt about perfect

Looks like a good time to me. I wish I would have been in that boat.

The best thing about the 11pt area is a total lack of cell service for miles around. Give him time.

True. Lasts a lifetime too. I've had numerous pleasant times with all forms of AUTHORITY, but the unpleasant times, albeit far fewer, REALLY STICK WITH YOU ! You might forget the girl that kissed your cheek, but you'll never forget the one that kicked you in the nuts. 🥴

Fished from 0730 to 1230. The pickings were slim. Could not find any big groups of fish. Found a few around chunk rock, and cove mouths. Caught the few on Ned rigs and 2.8 Keitechs fished in 20-35 FOW, fishing very slow, water temp was 39. Air temp was 73 when I got home, it has to be some kind of record for this date.

It goes against the grain, but I have some lead that is free to whoever comes to pick it up. It is the remains of a plumbing refit on our house and has been gathering dust in my garage. It appears to be mostly lead and is relatively soft. It is roughly 43 inches long and a little over four-inches in diameter. The inside seems to be fairly free of crud, and the outside is barely oxidized. At a guess, I'd say it weighs roughly 30 pounds. The kicker is, of course, that you have to come to Clinton to get it. It's possible I might be driving to Lincoln, Warsaw and possibly even Sedalia.

Watched 'The Greatest Night in Pop' the other night on Netflix. It's a documentary about the making of 'We Are the World'. I thought it was excellent. Even if you don't care for the song or that type of music I'd still recommend it. It was fascinating to see how they put that together and what was accomplished. Don't want to be a spoiler, but to give you a sense of what they did: They did this on a very, very tight schedule. How do you get that many stars in one place at the same time? Quincy Jones was absolutely masterful in managing both the production of the song and the big personalities. Very cool. (I had more details, but I removed them so as not to be a spoiler). And, of course, the song's been stuck in my head since Saturday. But hey, I've had worse

"I've sent stocker trout to the skillet..." I haven't killed a trout I've caught in may be 3 years. At least to eat. But may be over 41 years? I still doubt it. But that's ok

Ive had a few encounters on the water and, they were all nice, If your not doing anything wrong they have no reason to be jerks. Had one check us in a tournament on Pomme once. He asked if we were in a tourney and said he will make it quick just wanted to see the fish and check or license. I like when i see them out there checking on things.

Whoa, whoa there!! That’s my job. Let’s stick with job classification's around here. 😂. He’s gonna have to find something else to do. Trash?

Plated (bowled?) pic. We ate good. Homemade brownies from Erin are in the oven now.

@gotmuddy inspired me last weekend so I decided to take my own try at a crawfish etouffe. It is so good. Featuring the cast iron pot I got from @BilletHead. I sure love that thing! This is perfect for a dreary, rainy KC day.

Nah, 9/10 of them are just doing their jobs. It’s the one that needs to prove their authority that spoils it. Most of my encounters with them are a quick license check and on their way. I’ve ran into more privileged a holes trying to keep a 9.5 inch crappie, cause it’s “close enough

ive kept a few 12 inchers out of Bull and they taste great, i mixed them in with crappie and couldnt tell the difference

If you catch a state record in Kansas, do not make a mistake on the application form. ‘I did everything I was supposed to do’: Kansas wildlife officials remove angler’s trophy catch from state record list (yahoo.com)

Ruins a good fishing spot??😂

Since I'm in a get-rid-of-this mood, I'm hoping someone wants this motor. Pick up in Clinton, and the price is right--a half dozen chocolate chip cookies would be perfect, but if you can't bake, it's free. If no one is interested, I'll be turning this into a transom mount electric.

As a "guide" I would hope that your client was the one CATCHING them, not you.

I went to truman twice since everything around us was dry. Hunted right in the same area but lauched up in the river. Unfortunately we saw very few ducks but it looked like a great area. Interestingly the river had come up between my visits and the amount of tree debris that coame down the river was astounding. The bridge at the put in was copletely jammed, had to put in on sownstream side and the cut that led to where I hunted the first time had a 100yard log jam blocking it.

Don’t even get me started on multiple trips in one day .

Well don’t quote me on this but I believe that if me and you went fishing and we each caught a limit of fish that I could under the law give you my limit . Once they were off the water . In your freezer the possession limit is X2 your daily limit . Now if me and you were fishing and you suck and you catch 4 crappie and I catch 26 crappie and we keep them all . Then I would in-fact be over my daily possession limit . Although this is pretty much unprovable unless witnessed putting that many in the box. So my main point of contention is that the guides possesion limit is x2 his daily limit . But say 5 days last week he caught a limit for himself . That right there is over the posssion limit by 45 fish . Unless he eats 30 crappie fillets every other night . Hence the question , how many crappie can Rick Lapoint actually eat …. ?

For sure that’s the way it is . It’s just odd when the guide has one client and they continually keep 30 fish. So is Rick telling the client to set his rod down and I’ll get my 15 ? Doubtful.

The real conservation question is how many crappie can Rick Lapoint possibly eat .

Yeah It's pretty crazy. A couple of years ago we pushed 90 boats. We were worried it was getting out of hand but it's dropped in number. It may drop some more... we had some pretty load partiers that may not be invited back.

Hey, it's better than repacking trailer hubs and pounding out races........and pays the same 🤷‍♂️ Actually it WOULD BE better, if not for the occasional spider.

would a fish frozen for a month still weigh what it did when fresh? I'd think there'd be loss of water weight?

Oddly enough I've had several vehicles come in with misfires, hard starting, in general running like crap. Pull the plugs and you could just about pass a pencil through the gap, originals with 100k+ miles on them. They last so long people don't really think about them anymore, but they do wear out. It also doesn't help that manufacturers seem to be playing a never-ending game of "where can I hide this where nobody would find it," so changing them is labor intensive. I also had a run-in one time with some fake Denso iridiums from Amazon. The electrodes completely eroded within about 3 months time, those plugs should've lasted 50k miles or more. Don't buy parts from Amazon. I had a commercial pressure washer come in once with a 13hp Honda, would run for about a minute and shut down like clockwork. Went through the fuel system, had good spark when it quit, was just about to pull my hair out when I decided to try a different plug. Fixed, ran like a champ.

Looks like crappie fishing up here is done for a few weeks as I'm sure everything is froze up. Fishing has been the same as it always is. Lots of dinks, with the occasional big one out of lake 33. All the lakes are low, but 33 is about 1/3 empty. I have never seen so many snagged bobbers on all the brush lol. I have a love/hate relationship with lake 33, but I did catch my personal best there just before Christmas, it was 16" inches at least. I caught it on a 1/32oz jig with about 1.5 inches of keitech tail. The other lakes have been a bit of a crap shoot, but when you find them they are generally eater sized fish. Jigs under a cork 1-5 feet deep. Generally muddier lakes have shallower fish, clearer lakes they will be a bit deeper. I haven't done any bass fishing, or any other species. I did have a successful managed crossbow hunt to add to my grocery haul. Real bow hunting takes too much skill for me, and I cant believe Missouri lets you use a crossbow during archery season, but they do, so I'm gonna use one. I shot that one at 60 yards through a scope 🤣. That is kind of how I feel about FFS, of course it is cheating, but since they are legal, as soon as they make one cheap enough for a bum like me, I'm gonna get one. Since I don't currently have one though, I do reserve the right to complain about how everyone currently using one is cheating.

That's a big crappie, Congratulations.

@BilletHead I hunted waterfowl all through the 90’s. Didn’t start getting smallmouth serious until about 1999. My all time most memorable waterfowl hunt story was at Truman lake. We hunted up the grand river arm in an area called “The slot” it was basically near a railroad bridge. We had to get up at 3:30 am and launch our boat/blind at the Hwy 13 bridge and snake our way through the flooded timber to stay in the river channel to find our way back to the slot in the dark. It was first come first serve to waterfowl hunt there. We made our way to the spot and put our decoys out and waited for daylight. About a half hour after daylight a group of about 10-15 mallards ( perfect size group) came in and we whacked em good. My brother wing shot one and it sailed about 200-300 yards away and we saw it splash. My brother decided he was going to get up and go get it, so we just sat in the blind after we picked up our ducks and waited for him to come back. The three of us were watching him come back with the duck in his hand. We were watching him closely and all the sudden he just stops. And gets down on one knee in about one foot deep water. We were puzzled by his behavior and my buddy said “why is he kneeling?” All the sudden from behind us was a group of about 300-400 mallards locked up and headed for our decoys. Some of these mallards were locked up not 20 feet over our heads. Needless to say it sounded like the battle of the bulge. We cleaned up and limited out. But we educated about 350 ducks at the same time! 😂 My brothers comment was “I saw them coming and didn’t know what else to do!”

We always keep all the legal spots to eat. We turn back all the smallies. If lowering length limit will help the other fish I'm all for it.

I don’t believe the lake is stunted . There is so much bait in this lake the spots are not the problem. In fact I think this lake is as healthy as I’ve seen it in the past 20 years. I know you all won’t believe me but I’ll put it out here . The last four outings have produced over 150 keepers . One day I had 20 fish over three pounds. And I bet if I totaled all the spots I have caught in that bunch only about 6 were non keepers. Big spotted bass for the four days was a 3lb 13 oz spot . I’ve had a smallmouth right at 5 lbs and a large mouth just shy of six lbs . Best five fish total for a single day was 22 1/2 lbs . I would guess the average spot is weighing about 2.5 lbs for a 15 inch fish . The fish are here, they are healthy and fat . I don’t really have a problem with the 15 inch limit , or the 12 inch limit . It won’t have in impact on it either way imo .

Whatever it takes to make the smallmouth bigger.

30 years ago Tablerock had "football Kentucky's" and lots of them 16" weigh 2-3 lbs I was opposed to lower the length. But seems they have got more like me short, but still chunky. Sounds like a good plan to me, maybe the eaters will utilize those rather than LM and SM?

I've got an empty seat if you want to come along

Well aren’t you l lucky. We’ll give you the discount too

So few on the smaller circuits make any real money. Most in fact donate substantial (to me anyway) amounts of money to say they are a tourney angler. Must be an ego thing unless one has throw away cash.

I’ve seen them in there several times over the years. Just exploring is what they told me.

I haven't ever caught a walleye out there but I have caught a few pickerel and love catching them. Mainly I love fishing the river because its so remote.

Thus the name Flysmallie not Flytrout

Hi FW. The spring was a privately owned stream when I was a kid. It was named "Trout Glenn". It had a nice resturant and some lodging facilities. It was pretty much for the rich and famous back then. Our local bankers, back then, were pictured in the local paper with some very nice rainbows on numerous occasions. The owner died and the property was inherited by the daughter. I think the state purchased it from her several years later. In the early 80's we caught brown trout in the spring branch, plus where it dumped into loz. Mike Parker caught a 6 lb brown during that time period. It was the largest brown I know of. In the early 60's, several 2 digit rainbows were caught. I do not know if any trout still exist in the spring branch.