Ham

Grass carp, common carp, hybrid stripers, Buffalo, and suckers. LNG, Spotted, and Shortnose swim there too. snakehead also, but there numbers are too low to target. I have better spots to try for those.

Gravel Bar for the win

Thank God! I’ll be able to fish Batesvillie again soon

Thanks! I do ok, but The fish will be fine. I’m pretty tender hearted and carefully release most of the fish I catch. Besides, I only caught 523 the first month I was retired.

84) Wedgespot Shiner I have a couple other spots where I can confidently fish for Wedgespot Shiners. This spot is normally a place where I see Ozark Logperch. So, I set out “counting” on catching Steelcolor Shiners and Wedgespot Shiners relatively quickly , and then having time to look around for Ozark Logperch. well, while we have been dry lately, apparently that area has not been. They had a flood event recently and water levels looked springtime high not Indian Summer low. So, I did my thing. I caught numerous Bigeye Shiners, Longear Sunfish, Cardinal Shiners, and Steelcolor Shiners. I saw numerous Brook Silversides. I never saw a single Ozark Logperch. I nibbled the edges and finally found an area I could safely cross the river. A wading staff would have helped. I fished until I figured out where these guys were holding. I caught one where the Chevron was blurry and then I got a nice clean one. I spent my remaining time looking for Ozark Logperch, larger Neosho Bass, and a mystery micro that we’re pretty numerous last time I was there. the flood event really changed the place. It was slow going getting where I wanted to be and water levels were too high for my mystery micro spot. I missed one larger Neosho. I made my way back through the post flood debris and did the sketchy wade back to the car and didn’t get stuck getting back to the highway. I got what I needed, but I was left wanting a little more.

83) Steelcolor Shiner I made a roadtrip looking for a few micro species. I had two I was counting on catching and two that I was hoping for. I have a very reliable spot for Steelcolor Shiners. I was hoping that I could catch one in a few minutes, but it took close to an hour. 😳 oh well, at least it was a Big Pretty one (I caught several more smaller washed out ones at the next spot).

Caterpillar fly

Alledgedly

If they stocked any non triploid grass carp, that would be utter incompetence.

Major Sadface

Why does this happen so often? Are the Grassies not truly sterile? Why wouldn’t the lake manager put in like 1 fish per 10 acres. Wait a year. See if more are needed. let me guess, homeowners felt like there was “too much” grass. They put in too many carp and now there is no grass and the fishery is suffering.

If anyone has been playing this game already, I’d love to hear your experiences. You may have figured out wonderful solutions to some of the problems I am working on.

So far, so good. The board supports 500 lbs. me and all my stuff don’t crowd that. I found it to be stable and relatively comfortable.

I’ve been frustrated by trying to fly fish from my yak. I feel like I am too low to the water and I struggle to make a decent cast. I wanted a way to fly fish waters without boat ramps. Sometimes from shore is too limiting. I started looking a Stand Up Paddleboards. Of course, I always get attracted to the Belle of the Ball. In the case, BOTE. I really wanted a Bote Rackem Inflatable. I think it has the best features, but the $2200 price tag was holding me back. I stumbled across Glide boats. It had many of the same features and was 1/3 the price. Since my first experience on a hard board SUP didn’t go so well, I had more than a little concern about this idea. My reasoning was that it came with an inflatable chair and worse case scenario it becomes a hybrid “yak”. My boat came in last Friday. It came with everything you need, but I did buy a rechargeable air pump to take the work out of inflating it. Pump can be set to your desired pressure and turned on. 6 minutes later, you’re good to go. I need more than 6 minutes to get everything else ready to go. My plan was to use my Yeti cooler as a seat with a standard boat cushion on top. I would move the boat from that position and (carefully) stand up to cast if I saw a good target. I decided Monday was the day that I would take it out and I wanted to target an area that was very frustrating to try and fish on foot. after a slow rigging process (that will improve), I got on the board. Some wobbles, but I stayed dry. Fairly quickly, I was on the board on the board. First fish on the Glide. well, The wind got up and really pushed me around. I was getting blown so fast that I was spooking fish as soon as I would spot them. I did manage to hook one Black Buffalo on fly, but I was using an 8 foot 5 weight and the fish was behind me when everything came tight. I lost it too quickly. Frustrated in that spot, I fought the wind for 45 minutes to get back to my launch site. I loaded up and moved to a less windy spot. Things came Back together much more quickly this time. I foolishly failed to spray on deet. The mosquitos waited until I pushed off and then swarmed me. If they had bit me at the truck I would have sprayed up. I will coat myself no matter what next time. Between swatting mosquitos and watching time fly by, I did manage to get a good take from a Bowfin. Nice strip set and then a long sleigh ride. I wore that sucker down before I attempted to net that fish. Really nice fight. I had survived my first encounter with a strong fish. I stayed dry and everything. I felt a lot more stable at the end of the day than I had at first. I think I will continue to improve. I have to work out some more details, but It was much nicer for the fly fisherman. Less line tangles. Better casting etc. I think this is gonna work out.

Booooooo bowfishing. If it was hook and line only, I’d be more interested.

82) Telescope Shiner I made a drive to a wildlife area to get a Telescope Shiner for the annual species total. I tied some flys for the trip this morning and I got my Telescope Shiner on the first cast!!! Then I caught a lot of Bleeding Shiners. I did get a few more Telescopes though.

Sorry Pete. I don’t get to worked up about color variants. I’m a species guy.

Thats what I am trying to do. Catch a fish in every state. I don’t have to do it on fly or anything.

a trout trip to MIssissippi instead of the White River seems ill advised.

Man, That boat is gone, the net is gone, that Cabela's Rain Jacket is gone. 12 years takes a toll on gear.

81) Grass Carp such a fun fish on fly! In city ponds, they are such PIA, but in rivers where they are wild, they are greedy eaters. You still have to be careful not to spook them. They will react to a fly line going over their head. It seems like a fly landing heavy gives them a direction to go look for the food. I got three yesterday. All more than 30 inches. Pretty tough customers. It takes a while to wear them down.

80) Skipjack I had been champing at the bit for quite a while waiting on the water level at Batesville to get right or at least right to me. I jumped the gun and went when it was way too high. I won’t do that again. FINALLY, the water level was right for me. I took off that way this morning after walking the dogs. When I was about to take off from the ramp, a boat came in two “older” guys in a boat came up. I asked them if they caught them all. They said no. They had caught some early, but they shut down an hour ago. Bummer. I asked if they had caught skipjack. That’s what they were fishing for. I asked about White Bass and Grass Carp. No yo both of those. Undeterred, I headed up to the ramp. First cast, a skipjack flashed my fly’s repeatedly. “Shut down”? It only took a few minutes and I had my first skipjack in the boat. I was hoping for a 30 fish day so I stuck with it a little while. I went looking for other stuff once I got to 10 skipjack caught. Lots of them flashed in the flys repeatedly without ever taking them. I had a double on for a little bit, but only landed one of them.

I’ll try to make that happen. I’ll have to brush up on my trout fishing skills. you’re the Man Rick.

I abused the dopey Rainbows. It was oddly easy. I’m pretty sure that’s the most Rainbows in a day on fly rod for me. Dave absolutely knocked it put of the park for species and good size on top of that. The two carp were really impressive. He did a great job getting the eats and a perfect job fighting those fish. Well Done!

I sincerely Hope that I am never bored nor depressed. I’m (so far) staying pretty busy and I have so much more fishing that I want to do than I have time for. already, I can feel myself relaxing and taking more time with a project because I have MORE time to get things done. as it cools off a little and becomes more comfortable to be in the boat barn, I really want to go through and organize my fishing gear. I know I have too much. Like waaaaaay too much. Maybe by realizing how silly I was to buy so much stuff before, I will buy less going forward. I will give some stuff away. Sell some stuff. And hopefully use some stuff up. One idea I have is to have some grab and go bags. Trying to have stuff ready to go without the mad scramble the day before a trip. For example: My Ned stuff would be gathered and enough in a bag to run to the creek. A bag for 4 inch ochos and squirrel heads ready to go to the lake. A bag of zoom super flukes and the hooks that I like for them. a bowfin bag. A catfish/ sucker bag. then there is the fly fishing stuff to work through. Every time I tie. I get organized a little bet so that less time is spend looking and setting up. I don’t have a full time designated area to tie and probably won’t ever. I want to have a tote of all the fly related stuff. When I tie something that I know I like, I will often tie up more than I plan to take with me on any given trip. I’d like a tote to put ziplocks of completed flys in so I can restock quickly. Heck, I could put smaller ziplocks into gallon bags. A trout bag, panfish bag, bowfin bag, etc. I have a bunch of 3600’s and 3700’s. I can spend some winter days sorting through those. A keep pile and a go away pile. Then organize the sorted boxes in a yet to be fully thought out way that lets me find what I am looking for more quickly. I am trying to fish about three days a week. It might be a little more at times and maybe a little less at times. Fishing 175 days a year seems about right. A part time fisherman as it were. I am catching up on home projects and getting more into meal prep and cooking. I have books to read, playlist to make, and podcasts to listen to. It’s been really Fun so far.