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Just wanted to touch base with the forum today. Can’t tell you how much I miss and respect you all. Fished the upper White River with a technique that a few buddies told me they have success on in Wisky, Michigan and Minnesota. I will however add a caveat, every fish I caught was on LiveScope. I had 47 bass and 7 walleye. On a jig and minnow bouncing it slowly. 22’ to 30’ was the number. Kept one walleye all were keepers. Basically no traffic in Missouri, but above Beavertown in Ark. wall to wall boats. Went within site of the bridge. Saw a guy catch 3 small male whites. Visited a bit and he said the walleye are just getting there. I caught mine further downstream on 3 different humps. Have heard zero on the Kings it was frozen at the 86 bridge last week. Surface temp at the Eagle Rock ramp this am was 43 at 6:30. Pulled out at 4pm same location 49 degree. Those Eye’s are going to move FAST. Good Luck.

Dam area

So Pat decided she wanted to learn to do some tying. Borrowed a second vice from a friend so she and I could tie side by side. I thought this could be a good thing figuring we flyfish together and when we start loosing flys I'm the tyer and have to do double to restock the boxes. Last weekend we started with some olive mohair leeches and some black simi seal leeches. Pat got better with each one. I did a few of the easy crawdads a couple days ago, Pat got back to the vice again this morning and we did our favorite fresh water catch all woolly buggers. Pink/white/chartreuse. Got three each. To make them last longer we counter wrapped in a fine wire through the hackle. A couple of her Marabou tails got a bit long but she's getting better. Then added another element to the buggers. I like some dubbing under my hackle then fluffing it out for a thicker body but still translucent. Bass, bluegill, channel cat and crappie love this almost as much as the red/white/chartreuse. Mine on the left and Pat's on the right. Nice tiny heads on these. Husband and wife tying station.

Drove over to Indian Creek today to check the ramp. All is well, the ramp has been moved up, water is clear and did not see any wood floating around. Since I was going to the lake, might as well do a little bank fishing, so I brought a spinning rod and some small swimbaits. Pretty windy and the waves were crashing onto the bank. It creates a mudline in the water that in places goes out into the lake from the bank 5 -10 feet. I caught several smallmouth that were either at the edge of the mudline or right in the dirty water. None of them were of any size, but I did lose one that was a good fish that I only got a glimpse of. It was fun, I get a kick out of walking the bank and catching a bass or two. I planned on only making a few casts but wound up fishing for close to 3 hours.

I kayaked down the river last week. A storm was coming in so it good now days you can take your weather radar, phone, with you down the river. The last 45 min I had to just paddle to beat the weather. Saw a dog house with a message and a strange object in the river. I caught the walleyes on the same lure. Good day on the river even if it was a little rushed…. I took a few pictures and Released them all…..

Just wanted to take a moment and let the majority of you know how much you have meant to me. I hope in someway my information and banter has both provided you a giggle or two and helped you catch a fish or three. The reason I’ve stopped posting is really my information has no use and earlier this year came under excessive criticism. It went as far as calling me names on this forum. Go back and look at my post of a good friend catching an 8 plus pound fish using electronics. That was probably the icing on the cake ie the final straw. A bit of history and you all know it. I have never been. I mean never been a go down the bank casting guy. Grew up in the early 70’s on Lake O. With all our guides using Hummingbird flashers to find spoonbill, brush, or white bass using those little boxes. Progressed to the paper, 2D, HDS, then FFS. It’s all I have ever known about fishing as far as finding fish. Everyone knows when I get near the bank I get twitchy. I’m an open deep water fisherman. It’s all I’ve ever done and all I want to do. If I can’t see em I really just don’t fish for them. Never have never will. FFS is just a progression to me. I know a vast amount of you dislike it. I totally respect that. To me it’s just the life long progression I’ve been following since I watched that old HB flasher when I was a kid. Anything I post is solely related to electronics and it’s been made clear that’s not what the forum wants. My post have always been about electronics and deep fish I’m still fishing at an amazing rate and sent Champ lots of fish pics. There is a brand spanking new Phoenix sitting in the boat barn. It does have lots of underwater peek-a-poo glass on it. Sill amazed at how many fish think my offerings have spent the nite in kitty litter. Really puts you in your place to see all the refusals. Just got back a couple of weeks ago from Sturgeon Bay. 5 of us went. Everyone caught a jaw over 5 pounds. I had a 5.7 and a 5.9. Big fish for the group was 5.13. Didn’t catch a ton but I think most all were 3 plus pounds. Becky and I just love Pickleball. We have a fantastic new indoor facility here in SK. We both are in great shape I’m about 170 pounds and Becky is 135. That’s about as good as we old folks can be. We play 3-4 days a week for 2-3 hours at a time. Afternoons and Saturdays so it doesn’t interfere with fishing. I still peruse the forum to see how you are doing but just don’t feel the need to whip a dead horse with my posts as they will be 100% deep water fishing. Good luck to all of you no matter how you choose to try and catch them. You all have been family and it’s been one of the joys of my life communicating on this great medium. Continuing success on all your endeavors. Sincerely, Bill

Spent the weekend on the river with a couple of great friends. My first time actually floating the river and I do believe I fell in love with it. It could have used a little more water to cut out the dragging we did, which was very easy. It could have also been a little nicer weekend. Hasn't rained in like 17 years but you can gaurantee it will rain when I float. It was off and on all day Friday and Saturday. It was also very friendly to us when we camped. It even let us get everything loaded up Sunday morning before it rained. And that was the worst day for rain. But with only a couple miles to go to take out, it wasn't that bad. The fishing was good. We had a hard time figuring out what they wanted and struggled until we did. By evening of the first day everyone was soley using a Zara spook of some kind. We caught fish on other things but the spooks produced at least 95% of the fish with both of those guys landing a 16+ inch fish on one. I caught a bunch of fish but only got my heart broke by the river mosters. It was a beautiful place that I can't wait to get back to. Pics were a little limited since it was so wet most of the time but I managed to squeeze out a few between showers.

Marty asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. Told him I wanted to go back to Spring River white bass fishing. It was slower than last week but still good. Very windy. The ride back to the launch just about jarred our teeth!!!! Caught on pink/white clouser...Marty used chartreuse/orange and gray/yellow/white. Had one big crappie and some white bass , VID_20250317_141206.mp4 We gave our fish away to some bank fishermen that weren't doing very well. Then Marty took me to the casino for lunch....had a great burger and fries! Day two (Tuesday) we went to Roaring River and met a friend. Caught some trout. Fun time....good visit. Very windy 😞. Left and went to Monett...had Brahm's Cappuccino chocolate chunk ice cream. Good couple of days....just what I wanted!!! 😄

I'll start by saying that the staff at Lillys' Landing were all very courteous and helpful. The lodging is outstanding - clean rooms that are well maintained. The bass boat I rented performed flawlessly. The trolling motor with spotlock is a great aid in fishing the river. Got out early Friday with John Neporadny. John is an outdoor writer and has a lot of experience fishing the local area including Taney. That experience was very helpful as I had never been on the lake. We started the day throwing jerkbaits and hoping for a big brown, we didn't get much interest in the jerkers so we made the decision to go to jigs. The jig fishing started off slowly, but we discovered some freshly stocked rainbows in the Monkey Island area. They were schooled up around the island and near creek mouths. We caught around 50 of them, 11-13" fish. 1/16th oz marabou jigs worked for us. Milo joined us for some late afternoon jerkbait throwing. He took us up past Fall Creek into the trophy area. It didn't take long before I heard John say something like "big fish!" and I turned and saw a nice brown do some tail walking and head shaking. A neat but also scary sight as that airborne head shaking usually results in the lure being tossed one way and the fish going another way and disappearing into the water. However, the fish stayed pinned, and the battle was on! A word about Milo - He's great to fish with and is very knowledgeable about Taney. He can be intense at times, and this was one of those times. He started barking commands: "JEFF LET ME KNOW IF WE GET CLOSE TO THOSE TREES!" "JEFF - HAND ME THAT NET!" "JOHN GET OVER ON THIS SIDE!" JOHN DON"T LET THAT FISH GET INTO THE TROLLING MOTOR!" Afterwards it was funny, but it was all business at the time. Milo did a great job of keeping the boat away from obstructions and maneuvering the boat to keep John in a good position to fight the fish. I stayed out of the way and took a couple of pics. It was fun to watch. The fight: The fish: It was 24" and estimated 7 lbs., nice thick fish. A triploid to boot. We caught a few more on the jerkbaits, I had caught my 2 biggest fish for the trip, a brown and a rainbow that both were in the 15-16" range. Saturday, John, Milo and myself went right up to the trophy area to start the day. We threw the jerkbaits for a bit, but no interest from the fish except for a few follows. We switched to jigs and started picking up fish, mostly rainbows with a few small browns. Nicer fish in the trophy area for sure compared to what we caught downriver and we caught decent numbers of them. Milo had something like 5 on his first 5 casts. He was using 3 lb. braid (I didn't know anyone made braid that light, but you can get it at Lillys' Landing) with 2 lb. leader. John was also using a 2 lb. leader, and both he and Milo out fished me as I was using 10 lb. braid and an 8 lb. leader, however I was able to stay within shouting distance of them. John got big fish honors once again for the boat, this time a nice rainbow. The fight: The fish: We went back to the cabin for "2nd Breakfast", after eating, John, Ray, and myself went downriver to torment the hatchery fish. We found a bunch of them in a riffle down from a creek mouth and my guess is we caught 60 of them at least. We had triples several times and doubles most of the time. We looked upon it as providing some education to those trout as to the evils of some of the "food" that presents itself. Jigs again. It was a great two days of fishing, we boated between 150-200 trout, and got to see a really nice brown get caught. On a personal note, Marty and Pat gave me a really nice point Marty made which will go on my mantle. And I purchased this nice souvenir coffee cup for my collection.

So I'll be honest...I do a lot of fly fishing out here in Montana, but I STILL don't love fly fishing as much as I do fishing for stream bass with a good baitcasting rod and reel. When I'm in Missouri, I very seldom use a fly rod. I find the worship of fly fishing that is characteristic of so many fly fishermen slightly amusing. But when in Rome do as the Romans do. When in Montana, you have to fly fish. I'll also be the first to admit that I'm not as good with a fly rod as I am with a baitcast rod. I'm good enough to hold my own with most anglers, but I have friends out here who are considerably better than I am at casting, handling complex currents and getting good drifts, fine-tuning presentations. Maybe that's why I don't love it as much...I still have plenty of improvement to accomplish, and I'm just not into it enough to put in the effort to get a lot better than I am. So I'm happy to catch enough trout to feel like I'm doing it more or less right. All of this is leading up to the reason why, this afternoon, I gathered up one of the two baitcast outfits I keep out here, and found a couple Lucky Craft Pointer jerkbaits, and carried them down to the Yellowstone at the house along with a couple fly rods and my little Water Master raft. I'd been swearing to try this for years, but again being honest, I was afraid I'd feel a little embarrassed if some of the guides I know and their clients came by and saw me chucking hardware. It's about 3.5 miles from our house to the next access on the Yellowstone, and I got on the water about 2 PM. It was a gorgeous day, as almost all of September and October so far has been out here. Usually we get one good snow in September. This fall, so far, we've had NO precipitation, just mostly sunny, sometimes smoky, days with highs in the 70s and low 80s and lows in the 40s--we've only had two days where there was frost on the grass. When I put the little raft in, it was 83 degrees on the temperature sensor in the house, and--a little unusual--no wind. Not exactly weather conducive to catching trout, however. There were two boats with guides and their clients within sight as I pushed off, and I have to admit that I didn't immediately pick up the baitcaster. I stopped at the first decent "riffle corner", what we call the eddylines at the bottom of riffles, and started drifting my go-to nymph setup, a simple size 14 bead head hare's ear and a small soft hackle on the dropper. And immediately caught a 12 inch and then a 17 inch rainbow. The guides passed me, but I kept fishing the nymphs because they were working, though the next couple fish I caught were big whitefish. But once they were out of sight, and I had drifted down into slower, deeper water along some rip rap banks, I started casting the Pointer. Took quite a few casts, but then I hooked a good fish, a 19 inch brown. And then a 17 inch cutthroat. And a 16 inch rainbow. I was drifting along, just fishing deep banks like I would smallmouth fishing. There was a side channel swinging off to the right, with a long rip rap bank along it, barely enough water to float over the riffle entering it. A guy in a whitewater kayak towing a big dry bag behind it on a tether (a seriously weird setup) had just passed me and gone down that side channel, but I decided that since he wasn't fishing he wouldn't bother the fish much, and on a river that gets as much pounding as the Yellowstone, taking the "road" less traveled often pays off. So I took the channel. And that was exactly when the first gust of wind hit. The wind just came up all of a sudden, and it was instantly blowing 20 miles an hour. I was drifting down the rip rap, slow current, fishing just as I would for smallmouth, casting the jerkbait, reeling it a couple cranks, pausing it, reeling another couple cranks, casting at about a 45 degree angle in front of me, controlling the Water Master in the wind, which was quartering at my back, with my swim fins. And the fish took it just like a smallmouth. But I saw it turn its side, and it was considerably longer than any smallmouth. (And by the way, there have been a couple smallmouth caught in this section of the Yellowstone in recent years, and the fish and game people are scared to death of smallmouth in trout water and have put on a mandatory kill regulation on smallmouth here.) In fact, the fish looked so long that at first I thought, "geez, could it be a pike?" Pike have been caught in trout water in Montana now and then. Heck, if there were any bull trout in the Yellowstone I would have jumped to that conclusion. Nope, it was a HUGE rainbow! I battled that fish for a good five minutes, maybe more, working myself over to the gravelly bank on the other side, getting the net ready, pumping the rod to get the fish close enough, the trout rolling on the surface and then making runs back toward deeper water. And JUST as it was within reach of the net (which I'm not sure it would have fit into), it gave one more head shake, and the hooks pulled out. I think I've caught enough big trout to be able to make a decent guess as to size of that fish, and I certainly got some good looks at it. I also think the largest trout I've ever caught on the Yellowstone was 24 inches. This fish was easily 28 inches, and I'm pretty sure it would have made 30 inches. I've never seen a trout this big on the Yellowstone. It was definitely significantly bigger than any trout I'd ever hooked anywhere but up in Alaska. It had a big hooked jaw that was open as wide as my hand is long. It was just a fish that I simply never expected to hook, and especially not in that particular spot, small side channel, very sluggish current, right up against that rip rap. I fished the jerkbait a while longer, but Mary was scheduled to come pick me up at 5:30, and I still had two miles to go, and the wind was really aggravating. So I stopped in one more good riffle corner and caught several 10-14 inch rainbows and a couple more whitefish on the nymphs, and then rowed the rest of the way to the take-out. To heck with the looks I'll get...I'm gonna fish that baitcaster some more!

I wanted to fish spring river but every spot I went to had more than one person camping in their car or tent, times must be getting tough. Anyway put in on shoal creek went up river about 4 miles, beautiful day. Caught 4, 14+ and so many 10" 12" inches it was fun. Zman green pumpkin baby goat on a 1/16oz head was the ticket. I got the stink off my new Nico custom rod, I had a 5' med fast made just for the kayak. Me and this mink entertained each other for a while. https://fishingbooker.com/charters/view/36905

In the months of March and April I spent a lot of time on Crane Creek. On the upper, on the lower, on public water, on private water, I have been all over that creek. Most days I had someone fishing with me, and a few days it was just me and a bunch of cameras. I myself, in the 8 days I spent on the creek, only made a handful of casts. Most days I never carried a rod. This is not a regular fishing video. We aren't showing any techniques. We aren't proving nor disproving any legends about the McCloud Redband Rainbow. And while there is discussion on the legends, we don't shed any new light on those stories. And we sure as hell aren't selling anything. This is truly, the pursuit of a legend and some good times amongst friends.

He used conventional gear but I didn't. John is the youngest of the Gentry kids and the only boy that was spoiled by my Mom and aunts who were much older. Anyway he visits twice a year if he is feeling good. Not a healthy guy. Has to use a stepladder to get into my truck out of it too. He can't lift foot high enough to get to the running board. I took a chair for him to set in. He then was on his own. I strung up the vintage rod and reel. 5wt double taper on the JW and Young and sons reel and a fewwick rod. All I used for an hour and a half was the simple craw I did the step by step on. Lost one fly but had a backup. I landed 22 crappie that averaged 11 inches, 6 stinkin green bass and Three bull bluegill. I stripped slow and did a pause then repeat. It wasn't a tic crappie bite it was a hard take. Typical bass bite and bluegill the same. With all the rain this pond has risen five plus feet and still has a couple feet to go before going out the overflow pipe. Uncle John caught three but spent time messing with his gear and getting frustrated. I said hey wanna try one of these under a float so its enough weight to cast. That didn't help his outlook any. Fun hour and a half until he said lets go back to your house and shoot air rifles. Pictures of the three species and Uncle John. Note I need to size the number 12 hook up some or use a wide gap hook like a gamagatsu or equivalent. I wasn't getting a good strip set and hook bite on the smaller gap hook.

I finally pulled the trigger on a new ride. Got it out Wednesday last week and it catches walleye as well as the zv18 did. Ended up with a nitro Zv 20 with a 300 pro xs. Really love the boat and ride. Maybe a little too much motor for this guy. Also just got back from lake Erie the first stop on the National Walleye Tour finished 10th out of 140 boats as a co angler. So pretty darn good week for me.

Been fishing Truman the last few weekends. It's honestly been pretty brutal with the wind. We have been catching them, though. The cold fronts have them moving constantly it seems. Most of the keeper fish are in the mouths of creeks in 15-20 FOW, about 10 ft down. As soon as you get into the creek arms, it is dink city. Color doesn't seem to matter much, but monkey milk, orange/chartreuse, and bone have been good. We have been using 1/4-oz and 3/16-oz jig heads to get down quickly with the wind. Some fish crush the jig if you get it anywhere near them, others you have to knock them on the head and slowly pull it away. Hopefully we get some rain and warmer weather to move the keepers back up into the creeks. Water temp was 54 yesterday, with shallower areas showing 57. Got this one yesterday--biggest crappie ever landed at 15-inches and 2.2-lbs. Let her go so she could spawn. That was fun!

Howdy Guys! It’s been a minute since I posted, and I don’t have a fishing report for TR or The Pond To The East where I usually fish. I hope to be down the second week of April and have some fish pics to show- But I have to post. Some of you may remember my post about this time last year about 27 high end combos disappearing from my house during the divorce. Welp- that divorce is STILL working its way through the courts, but after working a full time job, a second job every Sunday, and door dashing when I wasn’t working and didn’t have my son with me, I put together enough money to get back in the game gear wise. With the generous gift of someone from this forum of a Lews BB1, and prowling Facebook Marketplace and a pretty good Black Friday sale, my last two rods showed up today. I went with the NFC Edge rods by Gary Loomis, and I have to say I’m a very satisfied customer, even with the LONG wait times. I wanted a more modern version of my favorite G.Loomis IMX and GLX rods, but couldn’t spend the money on G.Loomis NRX. The Edge Silver Widow MBR’s feel every bit as light and sensitive as the NRX CRR-873’s I used to have, and the Black Widow, First Strike, and EFX rods all do exactly what I wanted, which is feel similar to the classic pre-Shimano G.Loomis rods, which in my hands felt better than most of the current versions of Loomis GLX and IMX pro, but incorporate the advances in materials from the last 20 or so years. I’ve not made it to the big lake yet, but from fishing these in the local conservation lakes, they are exactly what I was hoping for. I know, gear doesn’t catch the fish, and I didn’t have to have gear like this to fish, but today, I can look at this one small part of my life and feel like I’m back to normal. After my heart attack in July of 22, the wife asking for divorce and her bogus felony charge against me in February of last year (felony charge finally dropped in December), my Mom having a serious stroke and going from walking Elephant Rocks State park at 80 to being bedridden in a nursing home barely able to speak, having a rod box full of fantastic gear to fish with- well- it just means more than y’all can imagine. I’m still fighting to maximize my role in my Son’s life. For now that just looks like weekends and his Spring Break, and every other week again this summer, but this time last year I was in the middle of 61 days of not being able to see him at all. Fishing tackle, fishing, boats and all of it mean NOTHING compared to being a present Dad, but I can tell you when I back the boat into Bull Shoals in a couple weeks and have him sitting in the passenger seat ready to go catch smallmouth, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to cope with the feels. No matter how dark life gets, if you keep going, it gets better. So if you are considering checking out, like I was this time last year, stick around. Don’t fix temporary problems with permanent solutions.

Paul Crews and I put in at Twin Bridges yesterday about 9:30 am and headed up Spring River. Water temp 46 most places. Water was stained - good color. Some wind later in the day but moderate. We started close to the old bridge piers and looked for crappie on trees. Didn't make any difference where - mid river, sides. They were everywhere. Slight current. 17-20 foot of water. We (Paul) picked up 7-8 keepers before moving on up to look for whites. Headed up to the docks and started above them. Whites everywhere! Every cast for a while. They were liking white... small rubber baits. 14 foot of water. Lots of 2+ pound fish, up to 2 3/4 pounds. One hybrid about 3 and this one at 8.15 pounds. We headed down looking for crappie again but couldn't keep the whites off the hook. Finally went back down where we started and added more keeper crappie to the limit. We ended up with 20 crappie and kept a few whites for the grill back at Paul's house. It was amazing to see all the whites on the live scope. We did go as far up as the highway 10 bridge and they were up there too.

Got on the water around 10. WT 55. Slightly muddy to murky. Bummer. Ran about 6 miles and fished back to the ramp. Clouds, wind driven riffles and recent high water made it tough to see where to go since the river changes. I dinged around a bit heading up. Jig and crank did the damage. Couldn’t fish anything else with the wind. And I mean WIND!!!!! I left at 2 and had a really good day. A bunch up to 15”, couple 16’s and 17’s and an 18”. Lost a really big one because I didn’t get off spot lock. By the time I realized how big it was it was too late. 🤷‍♂️. The first heavy black line is 15” second one is 20”. Pics for @Johnsfolly😁

Alright - I used to be super active on this forum but got busy with life and things and, well, you guys know how it goes. I finally got to make a trip back over to the river for the first time in about 9 months and it rekindled my love for our river, to say the least. It was like the days of old - not many boats on the water (it was a Thursday and a Friday) - the fish were hungry - they were hitting hard - they were plentiful (boated over 150 from Thursday afternoon thru Friday about 1:30pm) - and they were quality! We were able to boat numerous 16-20" fish, a couple of 22", a 23", and 2 over 24". It was a spectacular day and a half.

Figured since the big day has come and gone, I would post my trip to Capps on Christmas Eve. I had the whole the day off (which rarely happens this time of year), so since it was a nasty rainy day with cloudy skies, I figured it might be a good day to fish down there. I must say, those are always the better days down there if you can make it. And this time I remembered my jig box! Actually, that was all I took down there this time around. Got down there around 9ish and changed into my waders and started walking. First hole didn't produce so I didn't hang around too long before I was headed somewhere else on the stream. Then the day got much better! Caught the first bow and things started looking up. Second fish of the day in the pic. Nice brown that went 19" to the tape. Made my day for sure and the year down there since those are hard to come by. I ended up catching 4 trout and 3 google eye in about 2 hours and then headed back home. It was a good start to Christmas and a nice present for me! 🙂 Was fishing my own tied jigs again in an olive and brown color.

Made my last big lifer trip for the year last week. This is going to be one long report instead of a couple of shorter ones. If it is too wordy feel free to just look at the pictures (that means you @snagged in outlet 3😆). I was down in Austin TX for a conference Sun to Tues. I had the rest of the week off and planned to fish a variety of locations chasing lifers in Texas. My first stop was to Onion Creek on Weds morning for a recon trip for possible guadalupe bass and a couple of new darters. The creek was really low and gin clear. I saw a few bass with a couple that were very green in coloration. I had one chase a trout magnet jig, but lost interest when the bait got into the weeds. I threw a few different microjigs that got little attention of the bass or spooked them out of the hole. I did end up with a single bluegill on a John Deere microjig in the alloted time prior to my departure for Houston (2.5 to 3 hour trip). I was using a Shakespeare 3 piece Ugly stick travel rod (5'6" L) with 2# Pline. I picked up a couple of pecans that were falling in the park and saw a bunch of these Turk's caps wildflowers. Prior to this trip I had been in communication with a gentleman from INAT about fish species and locations in his home town area of Houston. I relied heavily upon his recommendations and was successful mostly due to this information. The first location on Weds was the Ben's Branch of Lake Houston. The primary target was Texas (Rio Grande) cichlids. Secondary targets were possible Nile tilapia and plains longear sunfish. There was a large culvert outfall into the Ben's branch that was the spot to try. I saw lots of topminnows (very likely blackspotted) on the way out to this culvert. I had on a #16 hook with a splitshot for the cichlids but didn't try to catch those topminnows. I used small pieces of redworms for bait. I got to the spot and started fancasting the area. The first several fish were all bluegill. I made a closer cast just beyond some rocks and caught my first Texas cichlid (lifer #1)😁. That was the spot. I caught several cichlids and also my first Nile tilapia (lifer #2). I even caught a nice plains longear sunfish from that same spot. As dusk was falling a young buck popped out about 70 yards from me and was feeding towards me. It saw me when it was about 45 to 50 yards and spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what I was as I was still catching and releasing sunfish and cichlids on top of that culvert. Day one with two lifers and all three of the day's targets caught in Ben's Branch. My plans for Thurs was to fish the salty water down in Galveston. In Galveston, I had four primary targets but knew that time was going to be a factor. Those targets were, gulf toadfish, hardhead and/or gafftopsail catfish, Molly Miller blennies, and longnose killifish. I picked up a few shrimp at a local Krogers (I find that buying shrimp at a grocery store allows me to get just a few at a cheaper price than at a bait store). The first stop was a small bridge where the water from the marsh flows out into the West Bay. The rocks and oysters housed gulf toadfish. I had expected more rocks than I found. I had on a #10 bait hook with shrimp and a large split shot. I got a solid thump in the first gap in the rocks, but did't get a good hookset. By the thump and the weight, I was certain I just lost a gulf toadfish. I fished a couple of other smaller gaps. I got a few small bites and even pulled a silvery fish out of the rocks but not in hand. I then put my bait down into a hole under a concrete slab that was encruted with oysters. I got another solid thump and pulled a large toadfish out of the hole. The hook pulled just as I got its head past most of the oysters. I tried several other smaller gaps and ledges but never got another bite. I had alloted about 45 mins for the toadfish and then headed to the Galveston Pier for catfish. As I was paying for parking on Seawall Blvd, a couple of guys walked it along the pier and beached a 6 to 7 foot bull shark. So at least some folks were catching something at the pier. It was in between tides with little wave action. I got my gear ready. Before I left I cut up one of the shrimp and put the pieces in a ziploc and into my tackle bag. The rest of the shrimp were in a small collapsable cooler bag that I use for our bait. I went into the pier store, paid for the day pass and headed out to fish. As I got to my spot I found that I no longer had my cooler bag with me. I still had the cut up shrimp and decided against heading back to the car to look for that bag and started fishing. I had two rods with me, a Tsunami telescoping rod (6'6" M) with 12# Trilene line and a Shakespeare 4 piece Ugly stick travel rod (6'6" MH) with a Ceymar baitrunning reel with 30# braid and 20# fluorocarbon leader. I normally use a two hook high/low rig when fishing piers or jetties but only used a single hook with a 1 or 2 oz bank sinker on each rod. I caught a couple of Atlantic croaker and after confirming that TX did not have a length limit kept a smaller one for cutbait. That may have been the best decision of the day. The croaker got consistent hits all day. The smaller fish could peck off the shrimp, but the cut strips of croaker were harder to clean the hook. Even just the skin still caught fish. I still caught croaker with the cutbait. The surprise was catching and landing my first sand weakfish (lifer #3 - sand trout - @Devan S. I'm counting this as a TX trout catch for now😉). These weakfish really loved that croaker since I caught eleven in about four hours. I also caught several southern kingfish that I kept hoping were a lifer gulf kingfish, but no. This was the most colored up southern kingfish that I have caught so far in my life. I moved from the side of the pier to the end of the pier. I put out a larger cutbait on a circle hook and used my baitrunning reel in hopes of catching a larger predator possibly a redfish. I only ended up with three more sand weakfish. Since it was close to four pm I decided to pack up my gear. I was still soaking a small croaker piece as I packed the large rod and most of my tackle. The last fish of the day from the pier was my first hardhead catfish (lifer #4) 😁. I still had about 45 mins on my parking pass and decided to hit the jetties in search of the Molly Miller blenny. I was told that the blennies live in the cracks and gaps along the jetties. As I got back to the car I could not find my cooler bag. I packed all my gear in the car and went back into the store to see if someone found it. I ended up finding it on the newspaper rack next to the register. The bait was still cool and fresh (I used a package of frozen sliced carrots as an ice pack). I went back to a #20 hook and split shot for the blennies. I put on a small piece of shrimp and started fishing the cracks and gaps once could see that there was algal growth and deeper water. I lost two quick bites and then pulled out my first Molly Miller blenny (Lifer #5). Unlike the crested and feather blennies by us that have an elongated cirri above each eye, these blennies have crew cut looking cirri. Very easy to identify😉. After that fish I headed back to the hotel in Humble TX for the night. The next morning would be my last in the Houston area. I planned on going to fish a small pond that has both golden and western starhead topminnows then head back to Austin for my last day and a half before heading home. I was told that there was a weedy and swampy edge to the pond. Knowing that the fish may be further out beyond the weedy edges, I put my microfishing reel on the Tsunami rod. I put on a Tanago #26 hook with a tiny split shot and used a tiny bit of redworm. I saw schools of fish right away and thought that many of them were likely western mosquitofish. I fished a couple of pockets in the weeds and caught a small fish that I thought was a mosquitofish (had a wider mouth). I walked the bank and found a pile of a couple of tree branches right at the distance that I could reach with an extended arm. I lost a couple of fish then landed my first golden topminnow (lifer #6). This fish had a couple of major lesions and got quickly released after a photo or two. I could easily tell the adult starhead TM due to a dot and line of fluorescence from the head to dorsal fin. I also figured out the coloration of the golden TM. That helped me land a few starheads (Lifer #7) and another though lesion free golden TM. Looking back at that first caught fish was likely a juvenile starhead and not a mosquitofish. I headed back to Austin. I decided against a night trip Friday night once I got back in Austin. Saturday morning I ended up at Barton Creek at an access south west of Downtown Austin. This creek had INAT obs of guadalupe bass, Largemouth bass, TX logperch, greenthroat darters, etc. I started with #18 hook and caught some bluegill and plains longear sunfish in the pool area above the faster flowing creek section. I then spent a fair amount of time bouncing a tiny piece of worm on a #26 Tanago hook around those rocks searching for darters. Never found a one in about 45 to 60 mins of fishing. I did a catch a couple of western mosquitofish then headed further downstream and found a quick water pool with lots of silverey flashes. I dropped the bait and quickly caught six western blacktail shiners. I kept seeing larger fish near the bottom of the pool and decided to try for them on my trip back upstream. I got to the first big pool and swtiched to a trout magnet jig setup. I fished it with a black back/green belly plastic body. Spooked a bunch of small bass and sunfish. Caught only one bluegill with that set up. At the tail of that pool I put on a small worm piece and fished the bait under a float. With the bait near the bigger underwater rocks I got a hard pull and landed the first TX cichlid from this creek. I kept heading downstream and came to a much bigger pool below an impressive bluff similar to those I used to fish under in MO. In this bigger pool I would hook on a whole redworm in the middle of the worm and let the front and rear of the worm to dangle freely. With this setup using a float and not I caught a lot of fish. The first was this bass that I had hoped was a Guadalupe bass due to its coloration, but it was just a largemouth. Some other catches included redbreast sunfish, bluegill, cichlids, bass, etc. Nicest redbreast sunfish of the day. Largest TX cichlid so far. I lost another very green bass earlier, but landed another small largemouth. I went back upstream and put on a #18 hook to fish that fast water pool and caught another 4 W blacktail shiners for ten on the day. I ended up with 41 fish caught in Barton Crk. I probably could have pushed that number up to fifty if I went back to the pool by the road but I packed up and headed 35 mins to a spot on Onion creek to go all in for Guadalupe bass. The spot was slow moving water and more like a pond. I only caught redbreast sunfish. I did see some small possible largemouth bass, topminnows and maybe a darter or two. But I wanted to catch a Guadalupe. I spent 25 mins bushwhacking to get to the head waters of the pond/pool. I caught another redbreast and ran out of time. I never saw another bass. I ended the trip with seven lifers and had chances at others. This was a great trip and now I have to figure out how to get back (my license doesn't expire until Aug 31st😉).

On a trip to Norway, and one of our stops was Tromso Norway. It's in the Arctic latitude, and got to do some fishing so thought a report would be justified. Here's our location. Before getting to the fishing report, wanted to post some pics of the Northern lights we saw. First time for me. We drove up into the mountains to eliminate light pollution from the city. Very close to the finish border. It was worth the drive. Now to the fishing. Tromso is a fishing port, I believe Sig Hanson from the Deadliest Catch TV show fished for crab in the area. Interestingly I could not find many guides or fishing charters available. Norway is in general a very fishy place, Salmon, Sea run brown trout, mountains with trout. So when I got to Tromso I found one fishing specific store, Had some fly tying material, reels and some spey rods. Talked with a young man running the place who was an avid fly fisherman. He told me about some epic fly fishing in the mountains, miles upon miles, actually he said Kilometers, of fishable streams and rivers. I asked about guiding opportunities, not a lot of guiding in Norway, locals like to DYI it and not pay the money. Guessing tourism does not bring enough demand. However, I found a fishing Charter in Tromso. Pretty unique, it does not require any skill per se, but you get a boat ride on the Hermes II which is a 1907 trawler made out of wood. They take you into the fjords and find schools of shad coalfish , Cod, haddock, and sometimes halibut. They charter year round and in the fall/winter giant Cod make there way into there waters. Also, they cook up the fish you catch for dinner on the cruise back to the docks. Here are some pics. Here's the Hermes II So, fishing gear and technique was part snagging part catching. Big heavy rod, giant spoon with treble hook and looked like a plastic worm/swim bait, looked like a 1/0 or 2/0 hook. Captain would just find schools on the bottom with radar, then we would drift over them. They instructed us to get to bottom, 4 cranks up then start jigging. Many where just snagged, but some where caught fair, not much of a fight with the gear, would love to have some full sinking link with a big clouser and just drifted over them, they where 20 to 30 meters deep at times. Like I said, type of fishing for anyone. The picture below is a fair caught Cod with my wife. They had their own beer made, and it was tasty, and my wife joined me, she is a good sport. The crew cleaned the fish, and to get a shock value, resuscitated a fish heart by rubbing it On the way back, the crew cooked up the fish, and served with crackers, lots of bones, but tasty. The people of Norway like Americans, everyone is very nice, most menus and signage has an english version. Most citizens are bilingual. On a side note if you are into true WW2 movies. There is a movie called "the 12th man", very good, and it takes place in Tromso, during WW2. I'll reply to this post with a couple more pics. IMG_5162 3.HEIC

Like @basska it was time to hit the local favorite pond. Last Monday secured permission for another year on a pond. Windy and some stain in the water from the last run off. Fly rods in hand we started walking the bank. Pat scored first with a two pound thirteen ounce bass. VID_20250310_114602867.mp4 Then a couple little ones more for her. I caught a couple smaller ones myself. I went a little farther to a wind blown bank. Tough punching a fly into the wind with a 6 wt. Casts didn't go far but the bass were right next to the bank in the crashing waves. My Big fish for that trip was a three pound fifteen ounce fatty. Some nice bluegill too for both of us. What was next? Fried fish of course. Nothing wrong with bass out of cold waters.

Watching the river gauges for height and cfs plus a report from @curtisce and his dog Foster from yesterday it was time to head to Oklahoma for a try. Launching was a breeze we were on the water heading upstream. From the current water flow and maybe Grand lake maybe a tad high the lower shoal was deeper than normal. Up a bit further found some flow but with the water being still on the cool side it was shallow, too shallow for right now. Backed down a bit from there and tried. A boat of three had a spot and caught several spin fishing with white twister tails. I strung up the long rod and tied on a pink over white Clouser. Worked that long mud and log cut bank without a bite. Sink tip line I was really feeling the gravel bottom. Pulled the trolling motor up and moved down around a curve to work slower water below a long steep bluff bank that goes from 0 to 8 foot depth fairly quick. I finally picked up a white at about 4 foot. This fired up Pat and she built her rod. I tossed her a reel with a sink tip and she tossed it back at me, I'm going to throw my floating line my Clouser will go deep enough then she tied on a chartreuse over white. Pat proceeds to catch a couple nice shows back to back. I cut my pink over white Clouser off and put on a chartreuse over white and never looked back but I changed to a not so heavy sink tip. We then worked that bank keeping 16 fish. Pat's biggest was over two pounds mine two on the nose. Lots of nice ones. Had to weed through many smaller ones during the trip. PB and J sammiches and sunshine nourishing our bodies it felt good. About one ish took fish out of the live well put on a stringer and cut to bleed them and into the ice filled cooler for the trip home. Back at the ramp I dropped Pat off to back in the trailer. I waited and waited for her to back down the ramp. Nothing so I beached the boat and walked up to her blocked in by three trucks and trailers with previous loaded boats. Her with the truck running with lights on. I asked the guys to move up or back a bit, why they asked? I said you see that lady in that truck with the lights on? She needs out to back down the ramp to pick me up. Oh we didn't see her. I said I can see her and hear that truck. We will move and they did. We loaded and got out of the way to batten things down for the ride home. Pat said watch your steps huh? Look here. Something you hate to see at a boat ramp at least it was capped, Back home the fish were filleted, VID_20250313_160520983.mp4 For those that don't like white bass for heavens sake trim off every bit of red. Fish fry tomorrow 😁.

Had the opportunity of a lifetime to go on a 10day trip to the Rio Negro back in Oct. figured Id share a couple. Biggest fish was 16lbs not bad for first time. Had to learn bait casting and chucking giant wood choppers. Cant wait to go back Eric

The White was mean to me yesterday so I continued my walleye quest on the Kings. Dumped the tub in at the SK bridge at 7:30 to a surface temp of 42 degree. Blasted up the river and checked every bend and runout flat, NADA. Surface temps remained in the low to mid 40’s range till I got to Hickory Hollow. Saw very few boats till I got there. Then from HH up to the 86 bridge there was quite a bit of participation. Dozen to 15 boats. I think I visited with all of them. Two guys were trolling, both said that they had 10 small male whites. One guy said when I said small I meant small, about 1/2 pound each. Also spoke to 2 dudes in a jet. They said they had gone up to just below the Romp Hole. and had not seen any walleye. Said some of the deeper locations were not clear enough to see the bottom but last year at this time they were hammering them and you could see them. Surface temps at H. Hollow was 50 degree and at the 86 bridge 52 degree. Crazy cause it had a skim of ice on it last week. Most everyone I spoke with couldn’t believe it. but everyone’s electronic were saying 50 plus No one had a walleye but there were a couple of guys throwing A-rigs and said the bass were eating it really good. Nothing big but lots of bites. With my failed walleye experiment over I picked up the jerker and caught 11 bass. I had 12 yesterday with 2 squeaker keeps. Today I had 5 keeps Just broke out the new Spro’s deep diver McStick. 1/2 the price of a megabass and I really like it. Bass seamed to also. Good Luck.

If you didn't know, when I am not chasing lifers I tend to be fond of chasing trout in many different locations. There aren't many stream-bred brown trout or wild brook trout streams closer than a couple of hours from me. It's the weekend and they were forecasting some bad weather moving in. I decided to go for some stocker rainbows and I did a trip North to the Patapsco River near Elderburg MD, which they stocked on the 4th. With the bad weather I figured I could get in a couple of hours of fishing. I didn't expect that It would be snowing as soon as I got there. The road ran along the river and I could spot likely holes to target for holdover trout. I met a man and his young son along the road that were not having much luck. I decided to go well below them before fishing. Upstream from where I parked, there was a small creek confluence with the river. I checked but the hole at the confluence was only big enough to hold a single trout and I didn't see or spook any. I will have to remember to check out that spot for micros later in the spring/summer😉. The snow was getting heavy. I headed downstream and found a nice hole to fish. After my initial attempts at getting a strike were spurned, I had to make a shift in plans. The snow had now turned to feezing rain and my fishing window was closing. I just knew that this hole was the best spot for a holdover stocker in the limited time provided by the weather. (purists cover your ears/eyes 😉😂) Since I was planning on keeping a fish or two, I tied on a #20 treble hook with a split shot about 6 inches from the hook. I put on a couple of bubblegum colored Gulp eggs and cast out into the current seam on the edge of the deep water. I have used this setup to harvest stockers for years from stocked ponds like the Urban trout program in MO. It didn't take long and I hooked and landed a decent 13" stocker rainbow. I would love to say that I caught a few more, but no more bites even from casts to spots that should have had fish. The weather was getting worse and I had a bit of drive home and decided to leave after 20 or so mins after catching that trout. I can't complain since I did end up catching a trout in a new location. I plan on coming back to this area and hope to find some decent fallfish or maybe some interesting micros. I plan on making this trout with a hot chili/sesame oil with lemongrass. Maybe that will end up on the What's cooking thread.

Always a struggle for me to decide where to fish. I want to catch everything and I want to catch Lots of them, but I can’t stand the thought of being a One Trick Pony and fishing the same way or the same place over and over. I’m also trying not to trailer a boat >100 miles each way more than once a week. This time of year I focus on cold water species or places where the water isn’t cold. I’ve had some good trips to Arkansas Nuke One recently, but I just didn’t feel like fishing it again. I’ve been catching trout well in the White River which is Super Close for me, but I wasn’t feeling it. USCOE Little Rock app wasn’t functioning so I didn’t want to run to 11 Pt with Waldo in tow to find the water too low. I had an awesome trip to the Spring River near Hardy, AR but I didn’t want to fish it again so soon. I decided to go to this little spring fed lake and play with my fly rods and get a Chain Pickerel on fly. I’d give McCormack a couple of hours and fish somewhere else on the way home to add numbers. I had a new 8 weight fly rod that needed to be used and to catch a few fish on it, but I also carried a 6 weight, a 7 weight, and a spinning rod with 10 lb braid. I parked in the day use area and dragged the boat down to the water. I made a separate trip down with rods. Got into my Christmas waders (my wife got me some nice new ones that are super Comfy and I actually stay dry wearing) and finally got started. I started with this one the 8 wtand this on the 7 wt I took less than 5 minutes to get my first Chain Pickerel on fly for the year. I caught my second one the next cast and missed a third on the cast after that. I put the 7 weight down and started with the 8 weight. It didn’t take long, but that fly didn’t get enough looks quick enough for me. I switched to an inexpensive conehead bunny something and the chain pickerel snacked on it early and often. I made my way around the lake getting bite after bite. Missed some, lost some, and caught more than a few. I was gonna leave to pound numbers elsewhere, but I was catching them there and having fun so I decided to stay. well, on a backcast with the 8 weight I tangled with the 7 weight and it knocked the fly loose from the 7 weight and the fly settled in the water. The wind was pushing me slowly along and I looked down and saw a fish trailing my 7 weight fly. I grabbed the rod and gave it a twitch and the fish ate the fly!!!I didn’t even know the lake had Black Crappie. The water is super clear and a lot of my eats were very visual. including this surprise Largemouth. I knew there were a few bass in the lake, but I suspected they would too chilly to play. I took a little lunch break. I put the 8 weight away. Got my 6 weight rigged up and grabbed the spinning rod. I wanted to see if I could get more crappie. I could and did. Even some of those bites were visible. I tried slowing the fly down in deeper water and Chain Pickerel still ate it about as often as crappie. I used the spinning rod to see if the fly rod was being inefficient, but I didn’t really catch them a lot faster on spinning, but it was easier to deal with. I even got a chain pickerel on the spinning in deep water. I did pretty well checking my leader for nicks from the toothy demons, but my luck ran out and I lost flys on back to back bites. Bummer. I had a Great Day. I had hoped for A Chain Pickerel and 20 fish total. I ended up catching 22 Chain Pickerel, 8 crappie, and 2 Largemouth Bass. Not bad at all for 4 hours of fishing.

Pat and I did a field hunt this morning for geese, duck too if they happened to fly by. We have been watching a field that geese have been using with a few ducks mixed in. This is a wheat field and hard to hide in with some fescue waterways going through it. there is a roost pond the birds have kept open the birds are flying to and from. We set up in layout blinds in one of these waterways. 32 full body canada decoys put out. There is only one problem with this set up. There are so many birds using this spot and they are coming in in huge flights if they want in another part of the field you are screwed. Best part of the morning was another sunrise afield with my favorite hunting partner. Birds started coming off the roost and heading towards us. Those first birds were whitefronts. Pat calls them special bellies. For those of you that are not familiar you will soon know why. Behind these first birds were waves of other whitefronts and canadas and ducks mixed in. I called with the call and my speck call is junk plus I suck at this call, but the specks came in to take a look meanwhile the bulk of the birds were honed into another spot in the field. The first few specks were close, and Pat was excited. I told her take the shot and she did. Her first speck hit the frozen field. She was pretty pumped. She has shot at one before and missed, this turned into crying . The rest of the birds coming off the roost went with the others. We continued to hunt with a small group of canadas coming close, but none would commit but just go to the others. As long as that group was there nothing will come to the 32 decoys we had out as opposed to the three to four hundred in the field a quarter mile away. Pat decided to walk over and get those birds up. She did and the birds went back to the roost. Finally, the birds started trickling out but flew North away from us and the field. Later on a few remaining geese lifted off and checked us out. They were still more interested in where the big wad was making pass after passing around us just looking. This is when I decided non committing birds if they were close enough would be targets for pass shooting. This became a game will they get closer or not. We took two canadas and I got a speck. Beautiful birds, tasty birds. One set of speck breasts are in the sous vide ready to take out and sear. Gotta take care of that as Pat fixes sides.

The weather finally warmed up a bit, so I was able to get out and do some fishing. SWPA schedule showed 1 unit all day. Fishing was good with lots of rainbows on a size 16 Y2K under an indicator. I also had good luck on bigger fish using a 1/32 oz olive and brown jig. Got this pretty brown on the jig.

Walked a long way for 1 brown on a streamer but Im happy considering how low it was, and he went to swim another day

we got a group of 8 of us for a hunting trip in south dakota for ducks and pheasants. Figured if I was making the trip might as well go fishing with my brother who lives up there. He had just upgraded his boat to a raner reata with 150 Yammy on it so I wouldn't have to dag mine up there.Made it to his house nd spent the night. In the morning we headed out. First lake we visited held big smallmouth but since the state record was caught there some years back they seem tougher to find. we were surprised when we got there that there were 2 other boats on the lake. Doesn't anyone work these days? Of course one was on the favorite rocky point. Lots of weeds this fall compared to spring which mkes it tough. Fished around several places without much luck. Just outside the weeds i hook the first fish, a nice 19" smallie. few minutes lter my brother has a fish on. It pulled out line and went into the weeds. after about 20 minutes of clearing the weeds from the line we see it and it's a nice pike. Finally net it. Beautiful thick 40" pike my brother's best. Couple pics and back into the lake. One more smaller pike there and then nothing. Fished near Eden SD next day again a lake known for SM. Couldn't get them to bite but caught several walleye most over 20" and a few pike. The next days were tough because the wind was blowing 25 and gusting. Had to hide out anywhere we could find some shelter. few pike and smallies but nothing to write about. Headed west that night and joined my friends who drove 14 hours that days. First day was just waterfowl. at first light had some ducks around. One lager group decoyed in and with 8 guns blasting only managed 5 ducks. First shots of the season. after that it was all canada geese. Hunted till about 10:00 and finished with 18 geese. From our base to the spot was about an hour but we headed home relaxed for a few hours then another hour back. Had ducks in the area but they were liking a spot about a mile east. Broke a few off so we did get some shooting. With about 40 minutes lefft and no joy from the big ducks we started getting buzzed by goupps of teal. The would come from nowhere blast through the spread go out abit and come in for a second try. We were ready for them the second time. Ended with about 15 teal and a few big ducks. With the warm weather and the corn harvest far from complete our fear was we wouldn't be seeing numbers. far from it. big wads of ducks and the pheasnt hunting yielded 8 limits each day in less than 4 hours hunting. we hunted Pheasants in the morning starting after 10 and then ducks staring around 4. next day we reversed it. Our Our day duck hunting we got set up around 4. A near by lake had ducks and geese on it so we waited for them. Specks were the first to arrive but as the guide had warned us they rarely commit. we watched them circle then the ducks arrived. Thousands of pintail filled the sky but only one per hunter so we just watched the show. The sun was dropping but the mallrds did show up and we got plent of shooting and our aims were improving. Overall a great trip. Your'e always going to fight the weather in South dakota. Between me and my brother were managed a pocession limit for me to bring back, we threw back alot of 20+ fish. Only one over 20" allowed. ened with around 90 ducks and geese for our group and we all got our 2 day limit of pheasants

Took the family up to Colorado for some mountain time. It was such an awesome trip. Colorado is so beautiful and is a fisherman’s paradise…..We started out in Salida, and we love that town. I fished the Arkansas River at several access points and caught some pretty ones on marabou jigs. On one day we went up in the mountains to go see the St Elmo ghost town. The boys and the wifey fed the chipmunks, and we had a great time. Its super beautiful up there. There’s a little mountain stream called Chalk Creek that goes along the road up to St Elmo that holds trout. I caught this baby brown on a fly there, which was super cool. After Salida, we went to go visit my Aunt in Evergreen. My cousin took me down to Deckers on the South Platte river. This was my favorite place to fish in Colorado. I caught this super pretty brown on a marabou jig. Using my cousin’s fly rod, i caught this rainbow on leach pattern. Beautiful, beautiful place. And then one day, we all went to Silverthorne. While the everyone hit the outlet mall, i fished the Blue river and caught some pretty rainbows on marabou jigs there. Here are a few of them. The biggest rainbow i’ve ever seen followed one of my fish in. Never could get him to bite though.

Camped at Truman State Park. Got there Wednesday just before the floods. Caught crappie from the bank. Most were shorts 8-9 inches but did get a few keepers. Caught my first ever hybrid striped bass. Ended up catching 5 hybrids including a 5 lb and 6 lb. Family had a great time despite the rain.

SWPA schedule was for minimum flow all day today, so I headed to Ackerman access. The limited parking lot was half full when I got there at 7am, so lots of fishers. I decided to wade downstream and avoid the crowd. As usual it started out slow and then when the fog burned off at 9 the fish started to get active. Best fly rig was a sulphur colored tandem wet fly setup swung in the surface film. Ended the morning with around 30ish including mostly rainbows. 3 browns and a cutthroat. No monsters but here's some of the better ones.

I went to the dam C&R area this morning as the schedule showed minimum flow until 3. I caught a few early on a tandem wet fly rig and then around 9 some sulphurs started coming up. I switched to a size 16 sulphur dry fly and had fun watching them take it. Caught a dozen or so on the dry fly and missed quite a few others. I got some nice size rainbows and this personal best tiger trout.

The walleye bite on Stockton has gotten pretty good. Move around on points until u find the right pod of fish. Some fish u land on won't bite but keep moving. Yesterday 8 to 12 ft was best for us. Not sure if it was the good wind we had or cloud cover in the afternoon. Could have just been lucky to find them when the were ready to eat. Over the past 2 or 3 week 10 to 15ft has been much better than 16 to 25 ft. Combinations of gold amd green has been our best Colors with fire tiger close second. Jigging rap bite is ok a lot of chasing the bait but not aggressive enough to hit it. Tight lines Ed

Fished this morning and found fish shallow (8-12ft) and deep (25-50ft). The shallow fish where around spawning banks and the deep fish were in 25-50ft around trees in spawning areas. Shad can be seen anywhere in the water column and I mainly focus on bait hanging around 1-15ft below the surface regardless of overall depth. I fished 3 locations and would start my search out deep then move shallow. I did not catch a Kentucky up shallow but did catch LM and SM in the 8-12ft range. Had 12 keepers and 8 where LM. Used a 2.8 Keitech on 5/16 and 3/8oz heads. When deep fish are high in the water they seem skittish when the boat gets within 60ft. So the heavy jig heads allow for long cast even in windy conditions. WT 48-49

Spring is springing on the way home today I saw some Forsythia blooming and a few daffodils popping up. Some of the hayfields are getting green. Looks like tomorrow the wind will beat everything back into submission. The ol' March rollercoaster. The fish were a little more alive today, I caught 17 bass with 4 being keepers. The early bite was good, but once the sun got up I had to really work for them. The long rock runout held some in the 10-14 foot range early. And got a few more around cove mouths and steep banks as the day went on. Caught my first five on a little 2.5 inch tube on a 1/4 oz jighead. After I broke that off on a snag, I went back to the old reliable Ned. WT ranged from 51 to 54.

The first day (Thursday) we went launch, but Rick @Terrierman realized there was a problem with his tiller. The throttle handle was missing. He and I didn't go out. Cody @gotmuddy, and Ray went out for a couple hours, DJ met up they caught a few trout, and a couple smallies near the confluence of the Buffalo. Food, well, amazing as usual. Cody brought trout dip, candied jalapeño dip that he covered a block of cream cheese and we had fried bologna sandwiches, until the red beans and rice was served along with smoked chicken thighs. Miles, the owner of Rileys Outfitter helped Rick out and got the motor fixed well enough to use. We got out today (Friday to fish. David ( @dpitt ) came out to play. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of him or his cool boat. Rick and I almost doubled on each of our first fish, unfortunately while I was raising mine into the boat it came off. I didn't touch it, so it didn't count (Rick's boat, and his rules :-) ) we caught quite a few fish, I was throwing Lilley's Jigs, tri olive with a red wrap seemed to shine for me. Rick was using multiple colors of jigs as well as a Doty Signature Series Sculpin jerk bait. Fish of the day was a 20" brown i caught. My personal best. It fought hard, stayed deep for quite a while. Rick was very helpful in my landing of the big brown, I would have probably lost it had he not coached me and netted it for me. The bonus of the day was a sucker caught in the mouth on a jig, caught by Rick.

Good pic of our local red fox on the patio this afternoon. He does a good job getting rid of the rodents.

I took a hike and did some fishing. I caught one of the prettiest long ear sunfish I've seen. It was on my homeade tenkara rod and a fly I tied. I regret not taking my micro fly rod. I seen many fish just out of reach. I was also using red wigglers from Walmart. They are coffee scented. I think many fish were turned off by that. I watched them approach, and quickly turn away.

The usual group of us decided to celebrate a couple of the guys birthdays. @gotmuddy and @Ryan Miloshewski birthday's were this week. So, it seemed like a good excuse to have a "Fest". Cody had recently fished with a guide who used liver to catch trout up by the dam. Sonwe jokingly decided that would be the name of this one. We arrived Thursday night, a few got to fish, but didn't catch a ton. Yesterday (Friday) we split into groups and I went with Cody and Ray on Cody's newly redesigned, no longer a surfboard boat. We used jigs and had a great time. The sun was brutal, not like December. The bugs are abundant in the evening. The fishing was good for all of us, once Ray decided to start catching. Cody caught the first fish, I kept a decently consistent bite Ray just couldn't buy a bite for the first few hours. The riffle type shallow rocky water seemed to be the ticket. You could see the fish in the calm deep water, but they didn't want to bite. Ray spotted a long handled net someone else lost, he tried to snag it off the bottom and broke off his jig. We are low on jigs so he had to get out and retrieve his jig and the net. And of course we are eating very well. Wouldn't be a Fest without food.

All year my daughter and I have been fighting weather, water conditions and life in general to keep putting new species, i.e., lifers, on the list. Livie is rapidly (albeit likely due to her obsessive father) getting within striking distance of achieving a milestone number of species on her life list. I often do a fair amount of research on water bodies and techniques to put us in the postion to catch some new species. I have heard about locations and decided that we needed to do a night trip up to Pennsylvania to try for the Chesapeake Logperch. The creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna river and is just across the MD/PA border (some would call that the Mason-Dixon line😉). We drove to the location that I thought gave us the best chance of finding a suitable parking spot and access to a productive stretch of the creek. I couldn't find a suitable place to park and ended up well upstream from the intended fishing location. What we didn't know as we were getting gear ready and donning our waders that this was going to turn out to be a happy accident. We ended up in a location that had a large number of the target species. We were fishing Tanago style microhooks (#26) and tiny pieces of redworm. Getting to the water at night can often be a difficult or challenging time. We eventually got to the water level. We saw a few non-interested sunfish, lots of crayfish and even a few darters. When we really got fishing we easily caught tessellated darters off the bat. This was before we could discern the tessellated darters from the target species. Livie caught the first C logperch of the night. Once we had that fish in the bag it was easy to id the logperch from the tessellated darters. I will say that the T darters were much more aggressive and easier to catch. The logperch would either ignore the bait, eat then spit the bait once or twice before ignoring the bait or would bite but not get hooked. After her logperch catch Livie tried for other fish as I muddled thru one logperch after another trying to finally land one. Fortunately they were very locally abundant and I did get an adult logperch in the photo bag. We didn't notice before we started taking photos that mine has some sort of eye disease. Maybe that helped me catch it 😉. Livie did catch her first ever white sucker as well as these lifer logperch. After a couple of hours we made it back to the car and the long ride home, albeit a happy ride.

Caught some nice walleye last weekend on Table Rock. Jig head/night crawler 15-25 ft of water off points where deep water was present. Nothing on the flats from what we could find. Biggest fish was 21.5 inches, others were between 18-20.

We floated yesterday from Bennett Springs Access to Prosperine. This is the first time in my 50 years of floating the river that I floated this stretch. I have only fished from Prosperine to Tunnel Dam, usually took out at Bird Island. Last year floated two times from Lead Mine to Berry Bluff. My Dad and I left my place in Truxton at 3:00 AM and met my friend Mike at Eldridge at 5:45 AM. We dropped Mike’s truck at Prosperine and headed to Bennett Springs. We had hoped to be on the water early, but did not know about Hwy 64 being shut down west of Lebanon. After detouring on Hwy 32 and through the park we finally launched at 8:30 AM. Due to the recent rains the river was still high. Due to the stained color and falling river we knew the fishing was going to be tough. I caught a 12 inch largemouth on about my tenth cast and we were hopeful fishing was going to be better than we thought. Unfortunately, that was the only fish we caught for the next four hours. We ended up catching only 12 fish total, 8 trout (three browns and 5 rainbows), two largemouth and two small mouth. Biggest trout was a 15 inch rainbow and two largemouth were barely 12 inches, the two smallmouth were even smaller. Due to the fast water we were restricted to using mostly crankbaits and completed the float in about 8 hours. Despite the lack of fish, it was great to be on the river with my friend of 55 years. I am also thankful to my Dad for shuttling my truck and trailer and waiting for us all day at Prosperine. We are looking forward to doing it again soon.

Dang, May 28 already, June is closing in. Dutch and I launched the boat at 0530 and motored down to a spot that a reliable source had told me was holding fish. He was right, we started catching fish right away, at first on top on walking baits, then on the 3.3 swimbait on 1/4 oz heads. Fish were relatively shallow, from right on the bank out to 20 feet or so. Lots of shad chasing going on. Had a school of white bass that moved in that covered the area we were fishing with blow ups. We caught a half dozen whites before they moved, Dutch getting a couple of good ones, the biggest of which may have gone 3 lbs. Once we wore that spot out, we moved to another spot, deep water close to a point, and we caught them there too. These fish were over 30-50 FOW, we caught quite a few right off the bottom, and several right at the boat. 3.3's once again. We made one last move, hit a couple of more at the last spot, but the dark clouds with lightning were moving in, so we reluctantly called it a day at 0930. We tallied 55 bass, mostly spots, and the aforementioned white bass. In all the excitement, I buried a hook past the barb in the side of my middle finger. DR Dutch did the line trick and it popped right out. Sure did want to bleed, got blood all over my pants. Broke out the first aid kit, slapped a couple of band aids on it, bleeding stopped, and it was back to fishing! WT 78

Made a quick run to Theodosia yesterday with my son before I took him back to his Mom’s house. Got the lay of the land on getting the ol’ champion back on the water, and of course made a few casts from the bank- I wish I could say he caught it, but the smile on his face says it all even though it was the only fish we caught-

Launched at 7 AM done at 8. Had to get back to the condo, pack and drive home. Made my run then caught this one after about 20 minutes of fishing. I cleared the scale of the weight of the net so that’s the legit weight. I need to explain that these fish are only out of the water a total of 30-40 seconds. Once to weigh them in the net over the water. Let rest a few minutes in the net while I check them out and get a good look at them. Then once more for a quick photo on the board. The new board 25” and with tail unfurled this one was right at 25”s.