Devan S.

Drove down to Cane brake first thing this morning. Showed up at 6:20am. Got suited up....left waders in truck and they were frozen. Bailed across the river and headed downstream. Schedule said zero generation today so I figured I was relatively safe. 3 cast later and the horn went off. I was probably 300 yards away from the crossing. Fat boy can run in waders on the gravel. Got across just as I began to notice current. If I would have been 5 minutes later I would have been stuck. Went up directly below the dam where there is a big eddy under generation. Plopped down just downstream of the bait chucker's and proceeded to catch about 20 fish. A handful of over slot rainbows but mostly small stocker sized fish. Caught several browns that were probably dumped recently as they weren't very big. Caught almost all my fish here on a olive jig. After about 2 hours, they cut off the water and I went back down to Cane brake and began working my way upstream along the bank. Caught a couple slot rainbows and one walleye that was about 1/8" shy of being a keeper. All caught on a rainbow jerk bait. Tonight I went back down to parkers and went downstream to my functional wading limit(just about halfway down through the campground). There were 19 cars in the parking lot when I got there. People lined all along the gravel bar downstream and lots and lots of crawlers and bait being soaked. Seen several people manning multiple rods which is illegal(not much catching going on that I saw). Nevertheless waded back up and got to the truck about 6:30 and headed home with only one small rainbow caught. There was a lot of fish rising but nothing taking jerk baits.

I think 2021 is going to be simplified: Catch a single Arkansas Master Angler fish.

What is with the 2 trolling motors?

Arrived about 3pm had one fish on my mind from the other day. Knew I only had an hour so made the most of my time and went straight to where I saw him last. Had several hookups on smaller rainbows with the small jerkbait but they come right off with barbless hooks without ever landing them. Started moving up above the access and caught a nice 17" and a small 8-10" fish. Also caught a decent little rainbow. Hooked up on another 3 or 4 fish that pulled off. I know staying until after dark would probably be a good idea but had things to do.

They had a road closed sign at the start of the park but when I got to the gates after the shack they were shut and locked. No signs of continued work just appears to be closed at this point. Maybe time to let the pavement settle? I saw one swirl on the long runout directly between Indian creek and the dam site campground. I was sitting in about 40ft of water fishing toward the bank and the splash happened on the backside of the boat about 30 yards. I grabbed the a-rig and tossed it but I am sure I was late.

Drove all the way down to Indian Creek only to find the gates locked. Hustled over to Dam site and dropped in. Took off looking for Bass. Fished from 10am until 3:30 without even so much as a sniff. Fished around the island, fished around dam site, fished way back into Indian creek. Fished bluffs, timber, gravel, chunk rock, long runouts, offshore humps, deep trees. Threw A rig, Ned, jerkbait, and 2.8 keitechs. Water temp was 49-51 everywhere I fished. Wind was howling later in the day and it was a long, rough, wet ride from the back of Indian all the way across the open lake to Dam site. Wind was blowing straight down Indian Creek. Guess the striper ate all the bass.

I do and have considered. Have access to some mink boxes too. Biggest problem is that the river has quiet a bit of access to trout fishermen although this spot is private land the river is not. I don't worry so much about the fishermen but I do worry about the ATV traffic. The specific spot is also very close to national forest and have tons and tons of ATV traffic as they come down off national forest into what they still think is a public play ground. between my check yesterday mid-afternoon and this morning early a clan of ATV's have cut tons of donuts about 30 ft from my traps(on the other side of the river on the gravel bar). I'm just afraid anything obviously above water may disappear in this spot.

Kicked off another trip to Parker this morning....took the Yak to try and access Cane brake and Crane bluff areas. Water was scheduled to be shut off at 11 and not be back on until late in the afternoon. I could have simply crossed at Cane Brake but I have this serious fear of getting caught with rising water and not being able to get back across so I setup so I could always float back to my truck. I arrived at Parker to a noticeable current although I could tell it had begun dropping. I was about 45 minutes too early but thought what the heck and put in the yak and headed up stream. Note to Self: Paddling in waders is uncomfortable especially against current. I cleared the shallower area above parker and pulled over and began tossing the jerker almost immediately I had a good follow. Then I had a decent rainbow on that came off. Then it went dead. I know the fish were biting cause the guys fishing around with fly rods were catching but throwing bigger jerk baits I was getting nothing. Water was low and clear and almost no current. I decided to get in the yak and drift down on the deep side when I went over the kind of brown I have been looking for. I pulled over and beat the water to a froth where I saw him to no avail. Even pulled out the jig rod and lost a jig on the first cast so gave up and headed home. Got my butt kicked this time.....still better than work.

Checked this morning and blank on both my traps. This is day 2. Both are pocket sets with a hole into the bank. Both use lure(shellfish oil and mink gland lure). One hole was natural and too deep so I had to build it up to get my trap closer to the water surface. I'm in a really good area. We camp along the river often and see mink almost every time. If I don't have something tomorrow I may have to switch things up. Thinking I may throw some more steel in the ground Wednesday if it doesn't rain a bunch.

Gonna be a hard winter for him.....probably better off being offed.

If your kid is a youth, and you have the cash ($550). The lifetime license at that point in time is a pretty good value. Especially if you think they have any interest in the outdoors.

Nope the reason is that I never really water trapped at all. Everything we ever did was in the woods or pasture. Rumor has it that mink/rats are fairly easy. We will see. I've seen a lot of mink where I'm set so I know I'm where they are. Just pocket sets along the bank...only time will tell. The one time I did set a water trap a buddy said he seen a Beaver go in a hole so we tossed a 330 over it and caught one right away.

There definitely caught from time to time(Missouri Trappers group on Facebook shows them fairly often). Considering most of my trapping is within 5 miles of the Arkansas border I doubt very seriously it happens. Most likely is mid to northern Mo.

Did you have the nose pushed to the end of the bump board? You just trying to turn yourself into the river legend? I kid...I kid. Nice fish and sounds like a heck of a day.

Nice! I put some steel down yesterday. Been awhile since I've been able to really put in some time. Have all week off but wanting to fish everyday and still needing to run traps runs me short on time real fast. Goals for this year were to catch mink and a rat. Wanting an otter but outside boat dock checking I don't have a good spot without burning some gas. Got several furs on the wall but never have caught a red fox, mink, rat, or otter. One of these days I'll stumble into one of each. Also want a badger but at this point wont ever happen.

Yeah I'm sure there's some good ones left there just need to find them. Don't want to spend a ton of time running below houseman if it doesn't do me any good. Need to explore more above spider creek. I figure the shocking has to take place between Bertrand boat ramp and the ramp at the dam most likely. Saw some facebook images for some big ones that were shocked up this year so I have hope.

I am happy with the one walleye. Just when it happens so fast your always hopeful for a better day. BTW @rps roughly how far downstream can one stumble into a decent chance at brown trout? I'm looking for big browns and walleye so don't want to keep pushing downstream much past houseman if I'd be better off constantly going upstream. I haven't run into many trout down from houseman but I'm not really fishing for them. Just throwing jerkbaits and trying to cover both fish types.

Rolled out of bed and saw the water was off although generation scheduled for 9am. Got to the access about 6 am and while night wading at Taney is an interesting experience, parker bottoms takes the cake.....its dark, really dark...isolated and lots of animals rustling in the brush. Decided to fish downstream. Had lots of follows and saw quiet a few walleye in the deeper pools. Only managed one but it was a tank and tried to rip the rod from my hand. I didn't measure him but would guess 20-21" based on the size in my net.

Launched at 930 and headed upstream intent on starting my adventure around the hole at the 62 bridge. Got to the shoal just upstream from houseman and noticed the water was shallower than I remember and I could easily see bottom water was about 4 ft. deep. Concerning since they have been running 2500cfs non-stop for 3-4 days. Got there and on my 2nd cast with a minnow tipped jig I caught a nice 19" walleye. Shortly after than something changed. Water that was fairly clear started to have a bit of trash.....drifted on back down to houseman without a bite. Took off from there and went working my way down to cow patty flats and the next bend in the river. Nothing....nada...zilch. Water was 49-50 degrees. Pulled the boat out and headed down to parker bottoms. I wanted to see how the flow looked that they had been running lately to see if I could find some marginal wading this weekend. Got there and it looked like quite a bit of water. Pulled up the corp chart and it looked like between 8-10am they cut flows from 2500cfs to nothing and then bumped it up to 3800 cfs for the rest of the day. Only thing I can think is the on/off/on really screwed them up. Also several spots I wanted to fish I struggled with boat control. The area around cow patty flats had the wind blowing hard the exact opposite way of the current and it made it incredible difficult to stay in one spot and get good drifts with minnows or work a jerker. Spent most of the day drifting either 1/16 or 1/8 oz jig with minnow(out of the wind). Threw a jerkbait below houseman. Even gave the Arig a workout for a bit on the steeper chunk rock stuff where the wind gave me trouble.

How do you know she is educated.....because she knows what's in the box without looking?

He measured but he didn't take pictures for proof. We're right back to the same situation. Nobody believes him without photographic evidence but he doesn't want to be that guy that takes a picture of every fish he catches like he complains about on here. Heckuva situation.

I read this.....and then questioned who slipped alcohol in my drink.

I thought keeper meant it goes home and you saw the sides off.....

I think it would interesting to hear from the individuals on how they went about it. Did they shoot the first legal bull they saw? How did they break down the hunt area? Lots of walking or lots of sitting? I would assume the landowner has a better idea about the elk movements and locations and maybe is waiting for a better opportunity? I doubt some of the random drawing guys had really much information on where to go up until they started hunting.

I thought they couldn't hunt the peck ranch area specifically? I'm not totally familiar with the area so could be wrong. Just seems random to have a photo alongside a dirt road anywhere let alone publicized by MDC.