MOPanfisher

With the warm weather common for deer season openers any more, I would be tempted to be at the pond that has the nice bluegills with a lightweight flyrod, and a rifle on the ATV, best way in the world to see a deer is to be doing something else, of course shooting a deer would certainly ruin a good fishing trip too.

Honestly to me a flathead doesn't taste any better than a small channel cat, except for the belly meat, may be the different texture of it but it is delicious. As for catfish in general I still like bullheads and small channels as well as any of them.

Just go see the county health department, they will steer you down the right path.

I've eaten them before, cajun mix is a good choice for them, not the worst not the best. They make great "fish fry stretchers" for folks who don't know the difference. Throw in some beer and they will rave about the taste of largemouth bass too.

Hmm over the years I have been "cut off" by bass fishermen, crappie fishermen, white bass fishermen, walleye fishermen, jet skis, pontoons, just plain old boats, canoes & kayaks on streams, even by a couple of very aggressive snakes, so what. Nothing you can do about it but lament the disappearance of common courtesy. However this spring while crappie I did have a boat ease up to us and ask if it was OK for them to move down the bank ahead of us bassfishing for the tournament they were in. Well hell yeah, get after it, we just held up for 10 minutes or so and watched them fish the bank, then eased down the bank catching nice crappie. We used to shoot carp with a bow, had some hogs that absolutely loved them. I have no problem with someone shooting all the carp/drum they can legally take, but don't like seeing them floating around and creating a stink. But then again I don't like seeing several large catfish/spoolbill etc. dumped at the ramp almost in the water, sure can create a "special" stink. I am too old school, I still pull off the small roads on the shoulder when I meet a combine or trailer load of hay etc., stop short of a 90 degree turn in the small towns when a tractor trailer are getting to the turn to give them room to swing wide. Common courtesy just ain't very common anymore.

No matter what lake you might visit this weekend, or where you may travel please be careful Whether its driving, swimming or boating take a few moments to think safety. PFD's, seat belts, keeping an eye on kids, and know your limits. Every holiday lots of people decend upon the lakes in Missouri, many who only visit a couple times a year so exercise caution, and expect the un-expected when around other boaters and lake users. Last year in the Kansas City District alone 4 people lost their lives over the July 4th Holiday period, lets see if we can reduce it this year.

Normally the license is run for owner information, and a letter is sent, a few ignore the letter and a second letter gets sent, few ignore both. The third letter has a citation included it. Most folks just go ahead and buy the annual pass, because its cheaper at $30 than the citation at $75, plus they get something useful for a year. Its easier for us than writing a bunch of citations, and its better for the customer. Some will fall through the cracks, due to mistakes in writing down the license # and the reading of it, sometimes comes back "not on file", sometimes comes back to someone who doesn't even know where the lake is. My intent is to enforce it as fairly and consistently as possible. Not everyone will be "caught" who doesn't pay, but when they are they have the two choices. have only had one here make it to Federal court, lasted about one minute. Judge said is this your license number, was it there, pay the fine. I can gurantee you that field folks at the lakes did not want and still don't like the day use fee program, however that was handed down from Congress in the Omnibus Budget Act of 1993 and we didn't have any choice. The monies collected do not go back to the lake, or even the COE, they go to the General Treasurary of the United States to be distributed back out in the next budget package.

Nope, it is licensed in the State of Missouri, and the licensing is recognized by other states as well.

The Annual Pass for Clay County is not valid anywhere else but those parks run by Clay County. If you had an annual pass for COE managed areas then you would be golden (sounds like you have one now). FYI there is no one at Jeff City who has any thing to do with the COE Annual Passes, only the Project Offices or the KC District Office.

Just came back from a float down Crooked Creed from Harmon to Pyatt. We did notice one pretty nice gravel bar that was about the right location for us to camp on, but noticed 2 "Posted No Trespassing" signs on trees up at the far side of the gravel bar. Honestly I couldn't tell if the landowner was trying to let folks know that above that spot was "keep out country" or the whole gravel bar, either way we moved on down a few holes and found a pretty good spot on the other bank, with no land access that we could see and had a great camp/float trip. Beautiful, fishing was decent with no huge ones, but several nice smallies, and gogglers, kept enough gogs and green sunfish to have a good fish fry at the take out point at the AGF ramp at Pyatt. Only folks we saw was 2 teenagers in kayaks until we got close to Pyatt and got into 4WD pickup range, then several, all past Orchard Creek (I think that was the name, big beautiful gravel bar, cold clear tributary into Crooked Creek a little ways before the start hitting the train tracks). Anyway good float, good times, great friends, no cell service what more can you ask for.

Outflow reduced to 250 CFS, will hold until next week unless we get some rains that provide inflow. River should be a quiet easy float for any that want to float it. Days Date Elev Stor In Release %/FC 1 6/30/2014 839.61 242170 75 500 1.2 2 7/1/2014 839.49 241223 45 250 1.0 3 7/2/2014 839.43 240750 25 250 0.8 4 7/3/2014 839.36 240197 17 250 0.7 5 7/4/2014 839.29 239645 16 250 0.6 6 7/5/2014 839.22 239092 16 250 0.4 7 7/6/2014 839.15 238540 15 250 0.3 8 7/7/2014 839.08 237987 14 250 0.2 9 7/8/2014 839.01 237435 13 50 0.0 10 7/9/2014 838.99 237279 13 50 0.0

Rains have changed the outflow forecast. I got lazy this time and just cut/pasted. Short version 500 CFS through weekend into early next week. Days Date Elev Stor In Release %/FC 1 6/25/2014 840.14 246395 100 500 2.2 2 6/26/2014 840.03 245494 60 500 2.0 3 6/27/2014 839.90 244459 33 500 1.7 4 6/28/2014 839.77 243433 23 500 1.5 5 6/29/2014 839.63 242328 22 500 1.2 6 6/30/2014 839.49 241223 21 500 1.0 7 7/1/2014 839.35 240118 20 500 0.7 8 7/2/2014 839.21 239013 19 50 0.4 9 7/3/2014 839.19 238855 18 50 0.4 10 7/4/2014 839.17 238698 17 50 0.3

The destruction of tables, benches, signs etc. has been around as long as there have been benches, signs, tables, courtesy docks etc. While it irritates the bejeebers out of me, I am almost immune to it anymore, I will happily spend your money to repair it. What still does irritate the dickens out of me is destruction to private property as well. Especially it seems during firearms deer season, gates, fences, trash, etc. Try to get permission from a landowner to hunt his property after a bad experience of poachers shooting a deer from the road and cutting the fence to get it, or accidentally shooting one of his cows, seems to anger them and make all hunters look like idiots. Same for fishing small streams that are accessible best by crossing private property, used to be easy to get permission but anymore a few who fail to stop and ask permission, park in front of his gate blocking it, and leave trash, dead fish, etc. all over the creek bank and it gets a lot harder, especially if the landowner doesn't know you. It used to be you pulled into someones driveway out in the boonies and they were sort of interested to talk to you, heck it was a break from doing whatever was going on, but now they look at you like you plan to steal something or want to sell them vinyl siding for their barn. An I am as guilty as anyone, someone pulls into my driveway that I don't recognize and instantly I go on full alert. Signs of the times I guess.

Rather than being a problem, I think the watercar panther is the solution. Many complaints about the MSHP not being on the water, no problemo buy a few of these things, pt some decals, lights and sirens on them and they can patrol on land and if they see a problem, "whoosh" right into the lake, zoom out and to write some tickets.

Pomme Muskie, that is AWESOME, I am glad to hear that the whites are bouncing back that quickly. The ones I was caatching this spring were maybe 6-8 inches long. Be good to have a good population of them again.

Current Plan: Today we are reducing outflow to 500 CFS. Will run at 500 CFS probably through at least 1200 hrs on Thursday the 26th. Reason: We still have some water to get rid of to reach target of 839.0, and MDC is doing some sampling in river channel downstream and need the consistent 500 CFS flow to achieve a consistent data set. They should finish next thrusday (26th) around 1200 or so barring any mechanical problems etc. etc. etc. After that we should be right at the target level and will reduce to match inflows or to a minimum of 50 CFS whichever works out.

The white bass population of Pomme is still in the re-building mode after a couple of die-offs. However there are several smaller whites around. IF it was me and Iwas going fishing for whites, I would go to Truman, seems they always have good jumbers of whites and hybrids mixed in with them. Have occasionally had a school come up while crappie fishing early in morning and had a blast for a while catching them. Honestly I like eating them too, grill them with lots of cajun seasoning and flake the meat apart and make fish tacos.

I just went down and watched some of the guys jump in and do the swimming across the current. darn I was worn out just watching them swim and fight the current. Out of curiousity I went down to the ramp on the river and checked the temp, just a shade over 56 degrees!

Brad, sorry for the late reply. Yes the changes started yesterday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. By 5:00 p.m. we were at 1000 CFS and at 7:00 a.m. today we went up to 1800 CFS which is the amount the MSHP decided they needed for this training. We will run the 1800 CFS until at least Thursday afternoon then evaluate the lake level and inflows versus the target level of 839 and adjust accordingly. The daily lake info that is posted on our website is only what was recorded at 8:00 a.m. that morning, and doesn't get updated until the next morning. I do have a link to a USGS site that has the inflow from Lindley Creek, Pomme River, current lake level for Pomme de Terre Lake, river level below the dam, and the lake level for Truman lake all "live" if that is of any use I can drop the link into here and see if it works. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/uv?multiple_site_no=06921070%2C06921200%2C06921325%2C06921350%2C06922440%2C&index_pmcode_00062=1&index_pmcode_00060=1&index_pmcode_00045=1&sort_key=site_no&group_key=NONE&sitefile_output_format=html_table&column_name=agency_cd&column_name=site_no&column_name=station_nm&range_selection=days&period=7&begin_date=&end_date=&format=gif_stats&date_format=YYYY-MM-DD&rdb_compression=file&survey_email_address=&list_of_search_criteria=multiple_site_no%2Crealtime_parameter_selection

I would target the windy banks and windy points with some shallow water that drops off to deeper near by, many troll the flats and the same point areas, I like to cast for them, that way when a musky takes my crank bait away from me sometimes I at least get to see him. Pomme doesn't get the regular stockings we however are at the top of the list for "left overs" meaning that when they hatcheries have more fish than is needed we get first shot at them, the MDC guys have done a great job of getting Pomme a good viable population of walleye. Personally I like the mid to upper lake areas from Wheatland to Bolivar but I usually hit them from mid april to mid june before the water warms up too much. Didn't get to do much of it this year though. I keep hearing reports of them being caught though.

Its been that sort of a spring. No big creek rises, no floods, and probably not as much deep moisture. The rains have kept the grass growing well. Heck when a spring comes and goes and Truman doesn't get up to 720 or so whats the world coming to. It should have been a fantastic year for spawning though, the clear water at a stable to slow rise should have been perfect. Of course we always have the chance for a big flood, remember 1993? Pomme was in good shape until September of that year when it all went to heck, while I was antelope hunting in Wyoming.

Not low, current elevation is 841.68 a little above the spring target of 841.0.

Currently we increased the outflow from 50 CFS to 100 CFS and will likely hold there unless heavy rains come until next week. Next week the Missouri Highway Patrol will conduct their Swift Water Rescue training class, we will be releasing 2000 CFS possibly up to 2500 CFS (they like it fast), since we are at the end of our spring rise/hold of 841.0 we are scheduled to begin lowering the lake back to the target level of 839.0 anyway, and this way those who may be called upon to make rescues during flood events will get some specialized training.

BradVan: Look up a place called Kelly's Landing. It is in the back end of Rainey Creek, has a dock and launch ramp.

Truth be told fellas I am unlikely to ever try to eat one of them things and I fully understand those who fish for them that wish them to be returned to fight again. My personal thing in that regard is large smallmouth from streams/rivers, I hate to see someone take them out, however I understand that as long as what they are doing is legal it is their right to do so. Should I ever actually catch a legal muskie I am more likely to back-track on my plan to eat one and decide to rescue my crankbait and release it just to get it away from me. I love to harass some of the local muskie guys about them, and they like to harass my right back that anything else is just bait. We laugh at each other and go on. I've handled several of them when helping out the MDC running the nets etc. have seem them in the cages with plenty of crappie and shad and all surviving quite contentedly. Just wish they didn't have such a hatred for #7 Hot Steel Shad Raps. Trust me, I'll be back to the same place many more times and others where I'll get a smashing strike, ripping of some line, then if I'm lucky it will release my shadrap back to me. In fact I will make a pledge, if they stop eating my Rapalas I'll stop threatening to eat them, thats fair isn't it. Everyone PLEASE have a safe and fun filled Holiday weekend with your family/friends. I'll probably stay home and pick strawberries.