river angler man

Nope, not in Lake Springfield, aparently spotted bass are present in some quantity but I've never caught one. Fellows lake keeps a population of whites in it, but I'm not sure about the quality of fishing they provide or best angling methods.

you know it use to say under the conservation page that while the HP limit is 6, you could have larger ones if you used them at "trolling no-wake speeds" is how they put it. But it looks like now they got rid of that and just say 6hp limit.

you can night fish at the public access points (Clay Henshaw and Southwood are the 2 on lake), in the park areas it's daylight hours only. I wouldn't mind night fishing if I wasn't alone, but since I go alone I choose not to. Also remember that even though it is allowed at the access points, the SPD may not feel the same way. They may ask you to leave, maybe even go through your stuff so don't bring anything with you you wouldn't want them to see.

I should start out by saying I just picked up fishing last year, it was a child hood hobby of mine, and last year in I believe about 53 outings of fishing for Channel Catfish I caught a total of 6 throughout the year, so that's where I'm starting from. I was planning on going today since yesterday but unfortunately I woke up at 2am. I don't like to night fish so I just sat around until around 4:30a. By the time the time came around I really didn't feel like fishing anymore, but I went anyway. I got there around 5am, it was pretty much completely dark still, and there was only one person there and he was fishing at the covered dock. I notice as I leave the parking lot to walk down to my favorite spot at the end of the walkway that he is leaving his spot. I didn't think much of it probably he was just night fishing and made an internal fisherman's pack with himself that he would leave once the morning anglers start to arrive. when I'm halfway down the walkway I turn around and this dude is following me, and I've got nowhere to go to if he does have bad intentions, I'm trapped. I get to my spot and quickly take out my knife(didn't show it to him of course) but I was ready for anything. Fortunately he just walked by, and said good morning, and went to the very end to fish, okay a little creepy he chose to leave his spot only when I got there and am alone, and he followed me all the way to the end, but all's all good. At this point I just figured it was going to be a very bad day fishing, too much is going haywire. I fish with chicken liver which I'd been having some success with, also night crawlers and dough bait. The fish were so passively hitting the bait they kept just stealing it and I couldn't get them. Then I decide to go ahead and use this very expired shrimp I had that had been frozen and unfrozen many times and was very soggy, just wanting to finally get rid of it. Withing a few minutes a catfish very aggressively takes the bait and the hook gets set firmly. I didn't think it was very big because it didn't fight very hard,but when I saw it I quickly realized it was definitely the largest catfish I'd ever caught. I caught another one a few minutes later on shrimp that was about 10 inches long, I put it back. Then after about 30 minutes later another large catfish took the bait, and this one wasn't going to go easily. This guy fought like hell, it was the first time I've ever had to adjust the drag on my reel, I always could handily get them in without the need. He fought for several minutes but eventually I got him in. He was about the same size as the other one, and again they are definitely the largest catfish, or any fish, I've ever caught-and on the same day I caught 2!(about 20 inches long each).

I keep them even though I think it's a bad idea because of how smelly and nasty the lake is, I'm not sure how that may affect the fish so I just pretend it's all good. I do cook the crap out of anything I catch though

I was there today and talked with some a guy who worked there. He said people are regularly pulling out decent size bass and bluegill, however the channel catfish were not being pulled out very frequently. He didn't know whether it was because people know how to fish for them or the catfish aren't very abundant in the areas where the lake is most accessible.

I went out again today 4/4 and caught another channel cat, about 16 inches long. I was using worms and getting nothing then I switched to some dough bait and caught this guy fairly quickly

I hit the James at Crighton today from 9:30a to about 12:30 to go catfishing. I caught 2 10-12in range channel cats using earthworms on the bottom. I got them both by 10:30a and didn't get anything after that, I tried walking up a bit but it was the same. Still a good day and my first day fishing in the year it's nice to catch them.

sound like fun I haven't tried there in a while. Did your kid catch any?

I went fishing today on the James at Crighton access near Springfield. I fished for catfish, but after a couple of hours of nothing I tried going for bluegill with worms with one of my poles. I caught no Bluegill but did catch a bass,surprisingly. I walked up about a 1/2 mile from the access and there was about 30 yards of solid rock with no water meaning there was no positive flow of water before that point? Possibly was being siphoned off by the water intake station? Anyway it was fun.

I went out this week on lake Springfield three days fishing for channel catfish. I was using 3 poles at one time with varied baits including shrimp, chicken liver, and fresh cut bluegill. I tried several spots including the park area fishing, next to the power plant, and up where the river becomes the lake. On Monday I went out from 7:30a to 12:30p, Tuesday from 4:30a to 12N, and Wednesday from 6a to 11a, for a total of about 17.5 hrs. I caught a total of 1 bullhead and 2 turtles.

Well for the longest time this year I was using chicken livers and found myself always missing with setting the hook. A conservation official said the missed connections were probably "squaker" catfish or crayfish. So recently I switched to dip bait. He recommended "sonny's" but I couldn't find it so I just got a couple of others. He also said not to buy the dip worms, instead to "tear off a small piece of cheap sponge, the kind they have at Dollar General or Wal-Mart" Which I've done a few times but haven't gotten anywhere. It seems like it only stays on a few minutes or so because every time I reel it in it's completely gone. Thank you for your offer of help!

The only legal methods for fishing in the lake is poles with attached lines(a maximum of 3), you may also use a casting net for bait fish. For additional information see http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/applications/MoRegs/moarearegexceptions.aspx?txtAreaID=9410&txtAreaNm=&txtCounty=&txtRegion=&txtUserID=&txtDivision=&txtDoveMap=notfound . I'm pretty sure on the river you can use the Jug lines, you just have to be careful to make sure the portion you're on is the river.

Hello All!!!! I've never actually belonged to a website like this and certainly have never written in any forums ever but hey why not start here? Can't live a sheltered internet life forever right???!! Anyway my name is Shawn and I'm very happy to be apart of this community,usually these kinds of groups are often filled with pubescent teens looking to stir up some trouble but from what I've seen there are a lot of people here actually being helpful members of a community-What!!Crazy!! I'm 24 and before this year I hadn't fished since I was a kid but starting in mid May of this year I've been going Catfishing twice a week or so regularly. I've only caught 6 channels all year in going so often so you know I'm horrible at it, I usually don't catch any on the vast majority of days, I'm pretty sure I'm making very basic errors about things like rigging my pole and properly baiting my hook, but what the heck I'm pretty much brand new to this and hopefully I'll get better. I usually fish in Lake Springfield, sometimes on the James River. If anyone who knows what you're doing, or even if you don't I'm really not serious about it it's just only for fun to me, wants to get together for some bank fishing I'm totally game!! Again just happy to belong to a group that has a similar interest as me(even if I'm really bad at it!!!)