Gavin

Trout Slayer, & Cutthroat Ale...same folks who make Moose Drool...catchy names but plonk beer..Same can be said about wine. Catchy name from unknown provenance...Run away!

Thats alright by me! This aint going nowhere till page 5 or so.....

Think you left out a few of lifes fractured fairy tails FW...but I got a good laugh!

No worries...she's probably a grandmother by now.

Dats a biggun...record or not. Florida Strain?

The 22nd should be a good weekend..The Troutbust is on the weekend of the 27th so it wont be as crowded.

The ford at Linden is the uppermost float access listed in my float book. From the tone of the articles, the property owners dont want folks partying and swimming. Show up with a fishing rod & a stream team bag on your belt. Pick up some trash. I bet that they leave you alone. Maybe put in above and float down through if its big enough.

Scary stuff!

The Meramec is an interesting fishery...It has a fine gravel bottom that shifts around alot during high water events, plus there arent allot of hard bottomed riffle areas with chunk rock to support bigger food forms like craws, sculpin...Wood seems to rule because there arent many big rocks. Its mostly a minnow and small bug river IMO. There are some good fish, but they arent easy, or abundant.

Gotta love the NFoW @800cfs..What's the deal with that rainbow with the sucker sticking out of its mouth...did you catch it like that? .The sucker looks like it was gigged. Above Patrick or below?

Bucktail wont work for Ron's jigs. Bucktail isnt hollow, so it wont flair or spin worth a darn..You need deer body, or deer belly ...a large hair stacker, and some GSP or Kevlar Thread..stuff a fly tyer would use to spin deer hair bass bugs.

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there And that sign said - no tress passin' But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me! Woody Guthrie

No can do....If limited to 5 flies for Missouri.....They would all be nymphs.

Missouri...outside the parks. Mohair Leaches Eggs Madame X Pat's Rubber Legs Red Fox Squirrel Nymph with a bead & rubber legs Black Prince w bead & rubber Zonkers X-Caddis Emergent Sparkle Pupa Trico BWO

You can get those Arkie Standup Heads at Wal-Mart..$2.50 for 5 if I think. Powder paint will adhear to the stock black paint if you want to change the color. I make my own aspirin heads out of regular ball head jigs by compressing the heads a smooth jawed vice.

The expanded the Blue Ribbon on the North Fork of the White several years ago and closed the stretch between Blair & Patrick Bridge to gigging...Might be able to turn up some before and after data if they sample that stretch regularly.

Your right Drew...the Neosho is a runt...havent had time to slice and dice the 2009 MDC report on the 1>15" areas.....but the Elk looks like a small fish fishery under quality management. The 1>15" limit did produce a good increase in 12-15" bass on the Elk though...didnt do squat for 18" plus bass.....but those fish would be legal to harvest...Rare as hen's teeth, before or after. anywhere in 1>15" water. The 2009 survey....gives some soft data about the J. Fork & Gasconade but I cant find any hard data on those 1>18" stream sections...Kruse & DeiSanti 2002......I'd like to see some hard figures for that... PSD, RSD 12, RSD 15, and the RSD 18 for both...before, and after reg...-5 before reg, and last 5... Plus the sample sizes are small...pre reg...not much..after reg...more in most but spotty. Definite increase in size stucture everywhere applied!...Big River was the most thouroghly studied. Some of the others...allot of the data collecion boxes were not filled when the data was aggregated and presented..Seemed to be a few odd data points as well. no correction for sampling on big v. small water....CFS data..date sampled, lots of data...not much to qualify it by.

Pork trailers would fall into the bait category.....therefore a no, no on the Blue, and some of the Red Ribbon Trout Waters...Been tying lately...maybe someone needs to start a "Show off your jigs" thread....I'd like to see a Mitch F....better yet a couple dozen Mitch jig heads in my mail box...:>)! Will tie half too your specs and send back, I'll keep the rest to tie to mine.

Ron, I use the hair jigs in the trout areas were some good smallmouth reside and bait & plastic is a no, no....NFoW, Current Blue Ribbons, and Meramec most often. A good bass jig will produce a bonus trout occasionally;>)! dtrs5 you have some killer looking jigs there! Think Billy W. favored a black bear hair jig....1/8oz aspirin head from what I've been able to research.......Absolutely worthless IMO:>)!

Thanks for the tips Ron...Will have to tie a few w/o the dressing for use with plastic. FWIW, this is one of the jigs that I use to fish for smallmouth in the Meramec Red Ribbon TMA. No plastic allowed, so I fish hair jigs, spinners, and buzzers dressed with bucktail.

Like your style Ron. I use that jighead allot...Gotta sharpen it, but it seems to get the job done.

Same Q's as Bill...That is one I havent tried...sinker, suspender, or a floater? If it comes in different sizes, is one better than the other?

Very Nice! The water level looks perfect.

Slot limits on lakes? That's irrelevant..We dont need a slot limit on our rivers and MDC's biologists have flat out said so. Food is abundant in our rivers, and our smallmouth arent stunted like a bunch of skinny green bass in someone's neglected pond. They dont need to be "Thinned Out". Most fish are small on 6>12" water because its not legal to eat them...Give them time to grow, and they will grow.

Thanks for the kind thoughts Dave. We had great tailgate party last Saturday..Glad you had fun too! I havent fished the St. Francis much...but I've been to the Castor a few times...It's the only place that I've ever caught river smallmouth under lilley pads.