Gavin

Took a family trip down to Mississippi to get on some big crappie.  Something I’ve been wanting to do for years.  Why have I waited so long?  It was incredible!  We arrived Friday late afternoon for check in and got settled in our cabin.  Went down to the outdoor pavilion called “The Slab Shack” for dinner.  1 inch thick strip steaks, sea salt crusted baked potatoes, coleslaw, grilled asparagus, garlic bread, key lime pie, and home maid pineapple ice cream.
Woke up early next morning for sausage biscuit sandwiches and headed for the water.  Spider rigged till about noon for some monster slabs picking up 28 keepers over 13 inches.  Had sandwiches on the boat and pizza waiting for us back at the slab shack.  Put all the fish on ice for pictures the next day.  Dinner the second night was hand cut pork chops, salad, baked beans, coleslaw, corn and onions, blackberry cobbler and homemade blackberry ice cream.  
Up early again for breakfast down at the Slab Shack of fried ham steaks and biscuits, then on the water by the crack of daylight.  Caught my largest crappie ever of 16 3/4 inches and 31 more in the 14-16 inch range.  Back to the Slab Shack by new to grill burgers and chips for lunch.  Big photo shoot of both boats of family and fish for two days of fishing.  We ended up boating 122 keepers.  After pictures, the guides went to cleaning fish.  They got that dialed in.
Final dinner was smoke ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, bread, pasta salad, cobbler and ice cream.
I will be going again!










 

Had a good morning today with minimum flow until 1 pm. Sulphurs really started popping once the fog burned off around 10. Lots of rainbows, 2 decent browns and real pretty cutthroat. All on dries.
Here's a link to a short video of the bug action...
Also a couple of pics...

 
 

Headed up to Decorah, IA last weekend for a couple days prior to driving down to the Quad Cities to see Kathy's mom. Stayed at a local B&B, and when the owner asked what we had planned we said a little fishing among other things. Turns out his dad owns a farm right on a small stream that bisects the IA/MN border north of Decorah, so he gave us info on how to get there. Kathy grew up fishing but fly fishing is pretty new to her. I was determined to get her into a position to catch a wild trout.
We headed up to MN Sunday morning and picked up our licenses and headed back to the stream. I tied on a small white dry to try for some splashy risers near where we parked. It was calm, glassy water and I couldn't get a taker. Kathy did get a nice photo at least:

After that I tied a pheasant tail nymph to each of our tippets and we headed downstream a few hundred yards. It wasn't too long before we had a couple little brown trout, including Kathy's first wild trout and first brown trout. 



And...both of our first Minnesota fish.
There were a couple bald eagles gliding around much of the time we were fishing. We were both watching one carrying something when he/she landed in its nest not far from where we had been fishing. It was up in an evergreen tree and we hadn't noticed it. Kinda cool.
We both really enjoyed the few hours we fished, and promised the next time we're up there we'll allow more time for it. 
 
 
 

Made a trip to Ackerman Access this morning. Water was scheduled to be at minimum flow until early afternoon. There were lots of midges and what looked like small tan colored mayflies coming up. I caught a few nice rainbows on a size 22 Griffith's gnat and then saw a few (very few) caddis come up. They didn't last long as the trout pounced on them. I put a size 18 elk hair on and caught some more rainbows and then got this nice brown. Hatch pretty much died out around 10 am but caught a few more on midges, eggs and a couple on a soft hackle. Beautiful day out there and very few fisherman out.

Hit the Meramec today. The last 3 weekends have been blown out, but before that, back in March, we were really putting a hurt on 'em, numbers-wise. Which usually isn't that case that early in the Spring, at least for me and the people I fish with. With the weather decent, the river level and flow back to near normal, my buddy and were chomping at the bit to see if they were still in their haunts and active. 
Well, they weren't. We only caught 6 fish the entire day, but one of them was the freak below.
I've been Ozark Smallie fishing for about 10 years and have never caught anything close to this, nor have I personally ever seen a another fish this size. 5.51 lbs on the Rapala digital scale. Didn't have a way to measure her length, so I am not going to take a guess. Beautiful, healthy, fat fish. She didn't have a mark on her, except on the top of her tail. Not sure what that could have been from.
I could probably fish these rivers for the next 50 years and never catch another fish this big, so it was a very special moment.