plexlove

Hey guys, i am coming up tonight to try to do some blue catfishing, I dont have a boat or anything but am looking for someone who maybe does or just wants to fish on shore, i dont know any good spots really and dont have much luck up there (mostly due to not being able to catch any shad) so im hoping to find someone who knows there way around! Anyways, i live in ozark mo so im about 2hrs away, im going to leave around 530 so should be there around 730, gonna go to shawnee bend i guess and try off the bank. So if anyone wants to fish let me know, i wont have enough service on my phone to check this there so if anyone wants to meet up and do some fishing (im game for an all nighter) text me at 417 619 9843, my names daniel. Thanks

Hi,me and my friend are looking to find someone with a boat who would want to go out at night and catfish. We live around the springfield area and have came up to truman and lake of the ozarks 6 times in the last 2 months and havnt caught anything really worth keeping and its getting frustrating. This month alone i have spent over 2 grand going up there and come home empty handed but everyone i see on boats has plenty of blues! I cant even net any shad from the shore lol. So if anyone wants some company, we are laid back guys just wanting to catch some fish. I am 31 my buddy is 24 and we would love to come out sometime, just give me a date! Also if no one wants to take us out I would at least like to find someone who has some decent size FRESH caught shad (5" to 10") for sale and we could fish the bank, just dont have any luck with that frozen stuff from the bait shop! lol Thanks guys!

Yeah that wont work, we need right on the lake....the women have to be on the water or they will freak out lol. But i checked out the state park one and i think that will work, it looks pretty nice and its right on the lake. Thanks

Hi, so me and my family are planning to come up there to camp (tent) but I cannot seem to find ANY campsites on the lake at all! I have never seen anything like this lol....i came up there about a year ago to blue cat fish and spent about 4 hrs just trying to find a spot to fish because it was all privately owned land. So anyways, what we are looking for is a nice, normal style campground and it has to be right on the lake. Would prefer something close to the dam but the only thing im finding is the dam bait shop campgrounds and that wont work. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Lol, ummm spoonbill snaggin is GREAT below the darn...on the right years though! Last year I snagged from day 1 to the end of season and didnt get a single one nor did i see anyone get one...But the year before, well lets just say i stopped counting after I caught 100 of them, got to the point where I absolutely hated spoonbill, they ruined all the fishing because there were so many of them and they were trapped up there all the way til next season. Opening day i saw i believe 15 pulled in within minutes then no one else got any! Anyways, the year they were all up there, they came in round mid to end april and the water was about 55, last year the water warmed fairly quick yet none came up. My average size was about 70lbs, I only caught maybe 3 out of (if i had to guess) close to 250 that weighed less than 30lbs. I caught a 119lber off the island out there while catfishing in august...so obviously couldnt keep it but took a pic of it and got ticketed lol. Im posting the pic below...hard to tell because his body is bent but im 6'2" and me and a buddy lifted him to weigh him he was a good 9" taller than me! Im also posting a few more of them i caught, all good sized ones!

Yeah as far as snagging them goes, that ended today the 15th....it was grouped in with all non game fish.... But I am telling you, the frayed nylon rope thing works better than any fly! You dont even need a hook...just fray out about 8 to 10 inches of nylon rope, make a loop at the end for a sort of head and tie your line on their...they are a very curious fish and especially when the weather warms, they will come to the top and hit that thing all day long...only bad thing is trying to untangle it from their teeth. I was out snaggin last night and brought in a nice longnose, 66" 41lbs on the dam side of lake springfield....but now snagging season is completely over, looks like I will just be using live shad on a wire leader to catch them until warmer weather hits.

Ok, so I have spoken with a lawyer and my best friends dad who is a judge (in another state), this is what I have been told. 1. The agent hiding in the woods is not legal evidence in the court room, that agent was doing what is called "entrapment" You can not hide out unknowingly and wait for people to mess up. I was told, they usually get away with this because they will lie and say they were just walking through the woods when they "noticed" illegal activity. Also, being that that agent did not come down and state anything on record, then according to the law, no other officer can ticket me, only the witnessing officer...that goes for Conservation and Police 2. Take/attempt to take, means "take home" not "catch" and being that i did not attempt or have them on a stringer, or bring them anywhere near a vehicle, the ticket is for the wrong thing! (just because of the wrong wording on the ticket my charges will be dropped) 3. It doesnt matter what I catch, how many of them I catch, if I move or not, or what the agent "thinks" i am doing, I cannot be ticketed as long as I "claim" I am snagging for gar in season. The Judge told me I could have pulled 100 of those things out right in front of the agent and not caught one gar and he would still throw that ticket out...He said, from his experience dealing with conservation agents, is that they are just Country boy cops with a power trip and they like to harass people! So,my ticket will be thrown out fast, and I also spoke with them about the other guy who got ticketed. My lawyer is gonna find out who he is and we are going to contact him and get his taken care of, and in his case he can turn around and sue the conservation dept. Giving him a ticket was 190% illegal according to EVERYONE i have spoke with. He did NOT snag the fish, he did NOT touch the fish, so he has NO liability in this....I told the agent that but he said too late, his partner already ticketed him! And people wonder why people dont have respect for cops and other authority figures....it is situations like this, where they use their power to hurt others for no reason! And you can claim all day long that he was doing this in the "spirit of the law" but we all know that is bs. They just wanted to ticket some poeple so it looked like they were doing their jobs.... Just like last night when they came and harassed the mexicans fishing, had their hand behind their heads and all, they did nothing wrong! Also, someone wrote, if I were really innocent then why wouldnt I fight it? Well because this country doesnt run on innocent and guilty anymore. I have witnessed 100 crimes go unpunished in my life and 100 innocent people be punished for not doing anything. Just because you are innocent does not mean you will be set free! I know a girl about 3 years ago who was downtown and the car parked next to hers left their keys on the roof of the car, so she grabbed them and opened the door and put them in the glove box, she then got back in her car to write a note to tell the people when a cop came up and told her to exit the car, she asked why and he pulled his gun....needless to say he was a real winner...She got charged with tampering, and attempted auto theft. She even got a lawyer and could not get out of it, her first offense ever, she did 3 months in jail and 2 years probation and a $1000 fine. Doesnt really seem fair huh? Cop lied and said there were no keys on the car, that he watched her jimmy the lock to get in then watched her search for the keys when she spotted him she got back in her car...even the people who owned the car said they left the keys there. Didnt matter, judge didnt believe her! So, that is why I dont always fight something just because i am innocent....plus, i dont start a fight i know i wont win!

Well you might wanna go back and actually read my other posts before running off at the mouth about my ethics! Idk why people keep saying I should have moved...Has anyone ever been down there? Not much room to move! have about a 40ft span of ground and a darn to the right and tree to the left, plus the 10 to 15 people i have to share it with....SO, like i said before, I did change my casts, I caught my first two under the darn, then started casting in the shallows going downstream, caught them there too...so YES I did change where I fished as much as possible! And you seem pretty educated on paddlefish but obviously know nothing about seasons...THERE IS A GAR SEASON, it is labeled as "non game fish" and you are allowed to snag them until the 15th of May, which is today, so no i will no longer be out snagging....even though i did go last night, got 6 more spoonbill, 1 turtle, and a GAR! And yes, anything that got in my way i am obviously going to pull in...what am i supposed to do? See its a paddlefish and cut my line? And I dont want to here ethics come into play with fishing again... Fishing is one of the most unethical sports imaginable if you think about it. We go out and slam hooks throw fish then tug them all the way in brutally to rip a hook outta them and either stick a rope through them so we can eat them later or toss em back in. What at all seems ethical about torturing an animal repeatedly for our own bragging rights? Fact is, fishing is fun, its food, and humans do it and will continue to do it, but you can not bring ethics into this unless it was an extreme situation...like someone catching them and then tossin them on bank to die! If they were so worried about the survival of this species of fish then they would have a stricter limit on them in season! how about 2fish per person PERIOD, not per day! Thats just ridiculous, who in the world is going to eat3 or 400 pounds of fish!

lol, Glad to see our tax payer dollars goin to good use, paying for them to get a sun tan!

Yes i agree, it obviously did violate his "idea" of immediately...but thats the thing, the law is not based upon officers "ideas" of what is right or wrong, it is based upon written law! If we want to get technical when i realized i had snagged a spoonbill i should have not even wasted time unhooking the thing and just threw my whole rod in the water...that is immediately!! Point is, i had it out of the water unhooking it, held it up and a girl snapped a photo and i tossed it straight back in the water...the extra 30 seconds tops that it took to take a photo could not be considered a breach of the "immediately" rule. They need to set a specific time limit on immediately or have specifications on it, like "no photos" "only so far from the water" "cant pick it up" etc... but even then there will be curcumstances in which those do not apply! If the ability for an officer to ticket was based upon what he "thought" was going on, then he could ticket anyone for any reason, that is why laws are written! My ticket reads that i was trying to take these fish, which was not the case.... Also someone made a real good point, why did they set and watch me for so long before saying something? They just wanted the money, not to help the fish! That would be like a police officer watching a guy rob a bank and waiting until he left to catch him! Thats just stupid, if they witness a crime or suspect one is going to happen, they are bound by law to stop it or at least go and talk to the "suspect" and make sure him/her knows the law.

I snag for gar and fish for them....you snag for them the same way as spoonbill, they usually will roll and get tangled in your line so you have to use heavy duty braid. You can fish for them using shad or othere bait, live or dead, but make sure you have at lease a 24" wire leader, they will cut right through your line! Some people also use an unravled nylon rope hooked to a leader and fish topwater with it, the gar will bite it and get it tangled in its teeth. I dont eat gar, the only reason i fish for them is because they put up a better fight than any other fish i have encountered, even the small ones fight their asses off! Good luck Oh, and i think snaggin season on gar ends the 15th of may...be careful right now cuz paddlefish are thick and you will snag a lot of them on accident and get ticketed for it like i did!

You must have misread it, go back and read my very first post i said i was on the "dam side of springfield lake" meaning the "river side" I believe its called tailwaters or something, at least that is what it says on my ticket. And it was a great spot to catch gar, or at least when the waters were up! I hooked a 6+ footer and after letting him go i found that the record was only like 6.5ft and about5 50lbs, so i was upset i didnt weigh him...so i have been back down there dang near everyday since trying to get him again. I also brought in a 5'9" 34lbs one while catfishing. He ran with my bait, i fought him for prolly 20 min and right at bank he cut through my 65lb braid but i threw a towel over his nose and dragged him up. There are some nice ones, and i love catchin them, they fight like hell! Way better than a spoonbill!

And also, when i said 3 minutes i was just throwin a low number out there, now that i think about it, from the time i pulled the fish from the water, pulled the hook, took a pic, it may have been a minute and a half tops for the longest one, prolly 45 sec for the average, but one had been wrapped in the string and it took a tad longer. I think i need to remind some people though, these thing are NOT trout, they will not die from being out of the water for a few minutes, these are like catfish, you can take them out of the water for and hour and toss em back in and they will be good to go! Where as trout on the other hand, you take them out longer than 10 minutes they are done for! Paddlefish are a tough darn fish, they live a long time and can go without a lot of oxygen or even none at all for long periods of time. That is why they are called a prehistoric fish, they have been around forever...you dont live forever if your a pussy! lol

Look, in all honesty, anyone down there snaggin for gar, knows darn good and well they are gonna hook more spoonbill than gar, im not an idiot, the conservation dept is for making gar season 15 days longer than spoonbill. So yes, i knew i would get some but that is not illegal, i was fishing for GAR, had a wire leader and all. And there were numerous people down there snagging, just no one got any like me so they didnt get in trouble.

No sir, the charge is NOT snagging paddlefish out of season, the charge is TAKE/ATTEMPT TO TAKE paddlefish out of season, 2 very different charges! I did not take nor attempt to take anything from those waters! They couldnt technically have a law called snagging paddlfish out of season and charge me with it unless i openly admitted to going down there for the sole purpose of snagging paddlefish! And since season has ended, i have snagged a lot more than 4 of them! Prolly close to 35 or 40 and only caught 4 gar! But that is besides the point, they are in there and they get hookes, quite often! 6 of them i caught while catfishing and the got tangled in my line! People keep saying i should have changed spots but it doesnt matter, there is one area to fish i casted all different ways, no matter where i threw it i would get one! Just like i said earlier, if you are out catfishing and catch 100 bass and no catfish...what are you doing? Does it mean you are bass fishing because that is all you caught? No! They are just what happened to bite! Just like in spoonbill season i snagged all day and all night for them yet all i got was carp and gar, yet i was spoonbill snagging! not gar or carp! And yes, I did have a BLAST realing in every single spoonbill, what human being wouldnt, they are an amazing fish to fight! Cant get in trouble for having fun....or at least i dont think you can...

Because the game wargens are dicks! Sorry but its true, the lady one took that guy in her truck then the guy took me in his and explained they had an agent watching us for hours and saw us catch spoonbill. I said yeah i did and he asked about the other guy, i told him he didnt catch anything, he had jsut never reeled in anything that big so i told him the next thing i snagge i would let him reel it in, so i did. The guy never even touched the fish. Well the guy gave me the minimum ticket for it because i gave him a sob story, then he informed me i was lucky because his partner gave the other guy the full ticket which was like 300 or something! That right there is what made me blow up! That guy did nothing wrong, just downt there fishing with his wife and kid and now he is out $300 for no reason, for ignorance to a stupid law that does not have clear regulations!

Well see that is the whole issue...It is not illegal to "snag" a paddlefish out of season, just as it is not ilegal to catch bass out of season, it is just illegal to keep them! And i cannot claim to be gar snaggin and keep catching paddlefish all the time because gar snagging seaon ends the 15th. One would think, that if the conservation dept was really worried about paddlefish then they might wanna change the snagging dates. Doesnt make much sense to be able to snag gar 15 days after paddlfish season ends and expect people not to snag more paddlefish than gar! During season i caught gar after gar after gar, not one spoonbill...now that spoonbill season ends i hardly catch any gar! That is not my fault the spoonbill came up river late! And my snagging technique is the same for both fish and i tried numerous spots but mostly stuck to the areas where i would not lose my hooks due to snags. They should not be able to ticket me even if i caught 300 paddlefish with the same techinique in the same spot and took pics of all of them and didnt get one gar! I can not help what fish swims in front of my hook! The point is,i released them immediately and even warned others not to take them if they caught any!

I understand that point completely but lets be honest, i am not those guys, i got the fish on bank and back in the water as fast as possible minus a picture which took no time at all! I couldnt unhook the fish in the water....idk if you have ever tried to pull a treble hook out of a 70+lb spoonbill in the water, but its not easy! they flop around too much and would injur themselves even worse than on land!

Also, in order to have a "legal" gray area, there must be some facts supporting that info. They cant just make stuff up as they go! I read the exact law out of the consevation law book and no where in it does it state you cannot take a picture of the fish. It does say release imediately but i have to take time to get my hook out and pick him up to throw him back in, an extra 30 seconds for a pictue will not hurt it. I believe 99% of fisherman ould agree, i was doing no harm and released it. I just wanted a picture, they are huge!

I understand how it looked....I have been snagging for gar for a few weeks now, i didnt even know there were paddlefish in ths area until i snagged one on accident. I use the same technique for gar as i do paddlefish, the onl technique i know! Im not a pro fisherman and know little about it until i researched it. All i know is it doesn matter "what" i claim to be snagging for or "what" it looks lke i was snagging for, i did not tae any or attempt to take any so i did not break the law! And no i did not get any gar today but then again I wasnt down there that long. But that would be like going catfishing and catching a bass out of season, if you take a picture and throw itback it is no against the law! I think i am gonna plead not guilty and take this one to court....i wish i had the other guy who got atickets name i would get him to do the same. He never even touched the fish yet got a bigger ticket then me!

Sorry about the missing letters and words running together, my keyboard is messed up and isnt working properly! lol

I was down at the darn side of Springfied lake today snaggng for gar (which is legal untilthe 15th), I hooked 4 pasddlefih though nd when i got them to bank I took a picture and released them, they were out of the water no longer than 3 minutes. Well the game wardens showedup and ticketed me for "take/attempt o take paddlefish out of season"....when i told him i caught them on accident and released them right away he told me they had an agent hidingwho saw us take pictures of them and since we did that thy can ticke me. Whats reallymessed upi another guyfishing downthere had never caught anything big so i let him reel one in, he never even touched the fish yet he got the same ticket as me! Does anyone know if this s even legal to do? I would think being that what the ticket states it wuld not hold up in court being that i did NOT take or attmpt to take a paddlefish! If anyone has any advce on this please let me know. Thanks!!

Well I went down there yesterday from 6am to round 7pm.... I figured with the rivers and temp up, maybe the paddlefish would be up...wrong! I caught all sorts of fish, but not one paddle fish... At the end of the day I had caught 9 longnose gar, the biggest was as long as me and i am 6'2"...(which makes me wonder if it wasnt a record, being that the world record was only 6ft 50.3lbs...this things tail was hitting the ground and its nose was above my head and i could barely hold it with two hands) the next biggest was about 5ft in length. I caught about 15 carp, the smallest one was no less than ten lbs, so they were all decent size. I had fun but 13 hours of straight snagging will do a number on the body, i can barely move today and my wrist is swollen. Just wish I could have got a paddlefish and then it would be worth it!

I have been at the darn snagging for the last 3 days and the only thing I got was a small bass, 2 tiny catfish, and a carp. There were a lot of people out snagging when the sun came out but no one got a spoonbill. I did see a kid snag and pull in about a 6ft gar. So how hard is it to walk down the river a bit? I dont have a boat or anything and I am wanting to snag one before the 30th!