MOPanfisher

We used to catch them in creeks in March on wirms, especially if a little rain came to muddy it up a little. Fresh fried suckers from cold clean water, a skillet of taters and onions, couple pieces of buttered white bread and some chunky salsa poured amongst it would really hit the spot right now.

Ned, floating rapala, spinnerbait, and if weedy a weightless Texas rigged plastic worm.

Before I knew it had a name I always tried to stick with a light 1/16th in river or creek whenever possible, but sometimes it just wasn't possible. Then began using an1/8th and pretty much stuck with it, mostly because it would still work in slower water and I could drop it into faster current when needed. Still haven't tried it in a lake yet.

Welcome, and thank you sir for your service. From where you are there lots of places you can fish, if you don't mind driving a little. The eastern side is out of my AO, but Niangua, James, Osag e fork of the Gasconade river plus many lakes even up to around Kirksville can be an easy trip for crappie, smallmouthor whatever. Some of the pics the guys have been posting of early smallies and whopper spots are enough to make me twitchy. Don't be afraid to leave the boat and strap on some tennis shoes to wade some smaller streams in summer, you might surprised what you can catch if you aren't too snake shy and are willing to walk a ways from a bridge crossing or ask permission from landowners.

Very nice chunk of a smallie sir.

Doggone that looks good.

Just for funzies I will add a lost lure story. Brand New Rapala Minnow Rap when they first came out, Hot Tiger color. Was walleye fishing on Pomme. Wanted to try the new lure, tied it on and made an absolutely perfect cast, water was up in the bushes a little and it landed right between a couple bushes, I turned to my buddy and said something to the effect, of "Did you see that cast, I deserve a fish just for the quality of the cast", right about them there was a massive jerk on the line, I set the hook on slack. WTH, giant swirl when the had landed and I had NOTHING. A big muskie had decided he liked it better than I did, never even got to fish with it. Such is life.

Be sure to post a pic, right now a picture is probably the only thing I can stomach and keep for more than a few minutes.

Waterpossum, we call that "Jack Weather". Sometimes rain gear and insulated underwear.

The half a night crawler or even better a red worm looped on is one of my go to presentations for early river walleye. I have some small other plastic that are 2 to inches long but skinnier. Am on Grampa duty today so am about a mile from Bass Pro, may make a little visit and see what is available. Color preferences for something like a 4 inch ring worm. Normally go with a brighter color for walleye but have lots of natural color stuff in my creek bag.

I salt the ground to kill grass instead of using herbicide. Asparagus doesn't mind the salt. And the grass comes back but it keeps it gone through the harvest season. Why do I do it, well because dad always did it that way.

I absolutely love asparagus that way. Fertilized my asparagus patch earlier in the week, gonna salt it soon, and will order some more roots I think this spring to build it up some. Even heard a peeper last night, he was a ltitle slow and lonly but gotta start somewhere. Come ON spring I can't wait for some fresh out of the garden produce to be eating. Asparagus, lettuce, radishes and spinach will be the first on the menu.

OK I am sold. Will give the Ned a shot at wally. Even later when we are throwing shad raps and flicker shad and have a hit and miss, will keep it handy to fire Ol Ned right back into the spot.

Awesome advice gentlemen, thank you.

Excellent! I have numbers for the agents in 3 counties, partly because we work with them some, and from Hunter Ed. Classes. It makes a difference from reporting it through Game Thief or calling Tim who knows you and hearing your version what was happening, and knowing from the description of the vehicle who it was, and be waiting at their house when they pull in.

Been think a lot about hitting some of my favorite spots closer to home for wallys, usually either a Shad Rap, rogue, or jig depending on where. Contemplating using a modified Ned Rig, more so the approach than the actual rig, as I have some Spot Remover jig heads with bigger hooks to use. Was thinking the smaller Ned Style hooks might not be big enough for wallys. Thinking more of the slow, let it set a lot and crawl it back with a half a sticko or whatever for the body. Anybody ever have any luck, I have always used a curly tail type jig and kept it moving so it would "swim". Guess the worst I can do is catch nothing, been there before many times.

I have had the Game Thief number as long as I have had a phone as well. I know quite a few giggers and will agree to disagree with you Wrench that you have the percentages reversed, it is a small percentage of them that will intentionally violate the rules, not the majority. To me it is a little analogous to poaching big deer from the road, is it going to cause major damage to the population of white-tailed deer in MO, no, but it does remove a fair number of mature bucks that hunters would like to harvest. Does the accidental gigging of bass or the intentional gigging by a few cause major damage to the smallmouth (or catfish or whatever other game fish they happen to stick), probably not, does it remove a sizeable number of those larger bass that everyone including you, Chief, and Myself want to catch, yes. The enforcement is difficult simply because of how its done, doesn't mean it should be simply ignored totally, but there are usually at most 2 agents per county, and a lot of creeks/rivers to cover. Gigging mostly happens during the winter, (but I believe it opens on sept 15), mostly when all the other hunting seasons are happening, that are going to get the most attention. I would also bet that most of the Agents if questioned would be able to tell you who the different groups that gig in their county are, and which ones would be more likely to stick a gamefish on purpose.

Crappie seem to be a fairly delicate fish compared to most, but I have caught a lot of crappie in my life, have pulled them up from deep enough so that when you release them they will just lie on the surface and die, but tap them with a rod tip and back down they go. Spending a lot of time on the lakes during the crappie spawn you will see dead crappie, some shorts, and a fair amount of keepers that die from spawn stress, it happens. Knowing on those days when I was catching fish well, including a lot of short fish and knowing everyone else was too, the lake should have been carpeted with dead crappie, but wasn't. I have set over brush piles and caught crappie releasing many, occasionally seeing a deep hooked one not survive but very few. Sometimes fish don't survive being caught and released, that's a fact, but from my experience its a very very low percentage, of course it changes depending on the circumstances, fish with live bait and you are going to deep hook more of them, warm water with add stress and increase losses. I personally have never seen anything that leads me to believe C&R mortality amounts to more than a footnote. Heck we all catch fish that have big chunks out of them from turtles, muskie, boat props whatever, bass with gig marks on them in the rivers maybe, and survive, I just can't believe that C&R fishing is hurting the population. One final anecdote, years ago our office had a large aquarium in it, with 6 or so crappie, and a couple little bass, we bought minnows locally and fed them. Working nights it was somewhat of an entertainment to keep a short piece of broken rod, with a little mono and a crappie jig tied on it. I wouldn't even guess how many times over the course of the summer I caught every fish in that tank, some twice in a row, they didn't die or even lose their appetites.

Brian this thread has certainly not been the worst, longest, most hateful, or contentious thread. If I wasn't quite so lazy I would go back through all 27 pages and make a list of all the topics it touched.

It must be true, PETA would never use inaccurate information for their benefit.

When you are home alone with instructions to eat healthy. You search the freezer and fridge and find some scrappy bacon, mix it with red cabbage (it's healthy), make some more bacon and over easy eggs. Tada healthy-ish.

At some point I have eaten or tried to eat one of about every fish of legal eatable size that I have caught. Shad being the exception, Bass, drum, carp, suckers, trout, bullheads, buffalo. I haven't landed a legal muskie yet but would likely try one just to see if it is as bad as I think it would be. Gar, haven't caught a gar in many years, but a buddy in school used to make a chowder like stuff in a crock pot that was delicious. I can't brink myself to keep a smallmouth any more, but gogglers especially if on a float trip, they are gonna get crispy, funny how they never make it home. A lot of what I would or wouldn't eat depends on how fish hungry I am and what is left in the freezer. As for hurting the fish or their feelings, ehh, not worried. I do try to "euthanize" (which I think is latin for whack them on the head) them prior to filleting them, but mostly that is a self preservation move. I can tell you a story about butchering domestic animals that convinced me they knew what was going on. We had 5 200# or so hogs in a trailer, one at a time we would let one into the back part, pop it in the head, and commence to bleeding, gutting, skinning, and hanging up to cool etc. Usually stop for a cup of coffee then go get another one. The last hog, absolutely refused to come to the back of the trailer and actually rooted up a rubber mat, crawled under it and simply stayed there squealing like he was being electrocuted, no doubt he had seen the end coming. Guess I am not much of a touchy feely type, cause we butchered him too. Growing up I knew every animal we raised, and many had names, and I knew which ones were destined to come back from a trip to town in white paper packages. Maybe growing up like that has tainted my mind. Beef, hogs, chickens, and channel catfish at one time, etc. they were all raised for consumption or sale, never lost any sleep over it, still don't.

In regards to the water it is very stained to even muddy looking. Have not seen anyone fishing the lower end, not sure how far up the stain goes, was up around bolivar landing last week and it was still stained but much less so. The cold water just isn't settling out very fast, maybe when we shut down outflow this Friday to 500, and on down to minimums next week it will settle out quicker, just don't know.

No argument, much prefer flavor of charcoal. But the convenience of a gas grill at home won out.

The tough part of enforcement of gigged game fish (talking accidental) is having proof to show the judge, very very few times will a gigged gamefish which is promptly raked off the side of the boat going to happen in view of an Agent. The ones who stand a chance of getting caught are those who keep a gigged game fish. Gigging by the simple fact of how it done makes enforcement tough.