Haris122

https://mdc.mo.gov/newsroom/one-man-three-counties-19-wildlife-violations At least this guy got a little more punishment. Still nothing too spectacular but at least more painful to the wallet than the guy that shot the black bear.

No, didn't come across anything of the sort. Though I wouldn't mind seeing them do that. Monday was certainly the day for it, cause there was a lot of people at Busch. Almost guaranteed at least a few kept fish they weren't supposed to with those kinds of numbers. The only time I was almost checked, I was at 35 and the officer asked me how I did, I had caught a few decent bass, and she thought I kept them, she asked to see them, and when I told her I released them, she took my word for it. I did really release them of course, but I'm just surprised she didn't ask me to take a closer look just to be sure I wasn't lying. Lake 37 is definitely one of the prettier ones. I don't know which lake I like the most, but lake 37 is probably among the finalists.

Went to Busch Monday afternoon, and struck out on lake 36 in the middle of the day. Then we fished 37 from shore while waiting for the storm clouds to pass through, and afterwards hit it again from a boat. Bottom line, 37 was actually quite good up close to shore (didn't fish deeper parts really). I got 7 or 8 fish, 2 from shore, the remainder from the boat. I got mainly Black Crappie in the 6-8" range, but I did also get a 10" White Crappie, and 2 or 3 Largemouth, one maybe 8" or 9", the other about 12". The crappie bit a 1/64 oz jig with blue white tube or part of a trout worm on it under slip float, maybe 18" down, a roostertail, and a shallow diving bomber crankbait. The bass bit on the same crankbait, a yellow beetle spin, and the same 1/64 oz jig with part of a plastic trout worm on it. Nothing big, but they certainly kept it entertaining.

I get that too. I just think the 2 can coexist, as long as those dangerous critters don't get too common. But with a couple hundred bears in the whole state, and probably less pumas than that, I'm thinking there's still room for more of them without leading to serious problems . That's still very far from having a dangerous animal around every corner, when you consider the size of Missouri, or even just the Ozarks portion of it. Less than there is to justify people just blowing them up, each time they glimpse them, which is how it seems to end up 80% of the time I hear of a sighting here. So yeah, it's not like I'd be comfortable with being out and about in a Serengeti, or Siberian forest-like wilderness (honestly I think Crocodiles would be what would suck the most, for us fishermen), but just squirrels and deer also doesn't do it for me.

If the legislature would leave the MDC to determine the appropriate fine/punishment for something like this they still wouldn't need to be involved. That being said I thought the MDC could write you a citation. Don't they determine the fines for people that poach deer? And if so, how is this any different of a scenario?

I disagree with that thinking. I'd gladly see them, though preferably with enough advance notice and plenty of daylight left to navigate around them. Even without that option I'd rather have them here than have some nice sanitized overly neutered "wilderness" statewide, that's basically the same as what I'd see in Forest Park or some place like that. Feels better to me to go somewhere more wild and authentic, then someplace where the only wild animals I ever run across are squirrels and deer, no matter how far out from the built up areas I go. Same reason why I don't like fishing someplace like Suson Park as much as the red ribbon section of the Meramec. Seeing something unexpected once in a while is what keeps it fun. Hell I even get bored deer hunting when I don't see anything but the same old squirrels. I've gotten to the point where I rather see a coyote or bobcat in the wild, than a deer anymore. It makes you wonder is there anything more out there than just a dead forest and a bunch of squirrels and deer, or is it actually something more vibrant than that. I bet if you never caught anything big other than bass and crappie at LOZ, the desire to go fishing would fade for you too. It's the same for being out there in the wild. Once in a while you catch a nice size fish of a species you totally weren't expecting that revives your interest in going someplace. At least that's how it is for me. Same applies to seeing things out in the forests and other landscapes while hunting or fishing. Btw. don't they have some type of tarantula here anyways?

Wouldn't mind one bit. I have a feeling it wasn't cause he really needed it. From the sound of things he's done things along this line before and I doubt he needed to each time he did. Not to mention for every time he got caught, he probably did it 3-4 times more when he didn't.

Glad someone reported on it recently. Been meaning to go down there to give it a go, but things just haven't fell into place. Hopefully I'll get to go some day this upcoming week.

Fished the Meramec at Unger again Wednesday afternoon for a couple hours and got a 11-12" drum on roostertail. Gave me a fun fight, but that was all I caught.

I went to check out Huzzah conservation area yesterday. First I checked out huzzah past the courtois/huzzah confluence on cave road. Water looked pretty high and fast, so I decided to check out another spot. I went past the shooting range and drove down that road to the courtois creek where the water looked a little better. It was still kind of high and fast, but better than the huzzah further downstream. That's about as good as it got. I didn't get any bites, and didn't see any fish except for a few minnows, and some small one that kept leaping out of the water on occasion. However I was there with my gf, and she didn't want me to just disappear far up or downstream in search of fish, while leaving her there on the bank to herself, so I didn't really explore much of it. Hopefully sometime soon the water level will be just right, and I find the time to head down there and explore it in depth then.

Yeah I access it through Unger. I don't know how it compares to your walk, but there is a trail near the lake parking lot (though parts of it are covered by a foot or two of sand from that record flooding) that leads up to and past the big southward bend in the river. Access to the actual river is somewhat limited, due to the extensive vegetation and dead trees, steep drop-offs to the riverbank, and the mud. There's still some spots relatively easy to get to, but thing is there's also a lot of trees and assorted "snag magnets" in the water that limit where you can cast from those access points. Ever since the big flood this winter, access to the river bank has become definitely more difficult and sparse than it used to be. Seems like many of the easy drop-offs to the riverbank have become much steeper from erosion than they were.

I made it out this evening for a few hours on the Meramec at Unger. Got a 8-9" drum on a little roostertail, and a nice chunky 14" white or hybrid white/striped bass on a shallow diving bomber crankbait. The drum did good for it's size, but really couldn't fight for that much. The hybrid or white, must have first bit at it once and kind of missed since I felt a bite, but then it hit it again, and this time stayed on. I could tell I had a nice fish on on my light action rod. Nothing more than that, but that fish made it quite fun nonetheless. Got both from the same relatively small area.

Cool, thanks guys. I'll be skipping the wading for now then. Got to think of a plan B.

Was wondering if anyone knew what water level is still wadeable at Huzzah/Courtois creeks, specifically around Huzzah Conservation Area. I see the gauge for the Huzzah at Steelville/Hwy8, but that's the closest to the conservation area I can find, and like said, it's restricted to just the Huzzah. That being said, the level for that gauge shows it's at 5 feet and most likely slowly dropping, while discharge is at 700 cfs and most likely dropping as well. At the same time I don't know how accurate that is since it doesn't seem to suggest it rained at all around there, the past few days, judging by the graph showing the levels of precipitation being 0 ever since May 12, and yet I'm pretty sure the recent storms passed over them to some degree. If I take those readings at face value, would it be wadeable, and if not, what water levels and discharge rates would be wadeable?

Good catches man. I went out for like half an hour after work with stinkbait on 1 rod, and a little crankbait on the other, but it was really muddy, and I soon got my crankbait stuck on a tree while casting, so I was stuck with just the stinkbait, and nothing hit that.

Anyone notice if any of the naturally stocked park lakes seem to be better fishing since the flooding in winter? I've had some better luck at Butler than normal. I hoped Unger followed that trend but this evening at least it was its usual self. I figured it can't be that it didn't get some new influx of fish, if even only sunfish, so I don't know why it didn't at least produce some bites.

How long were you able to stay out? I went Wednesday and Thursday, and wished I stayed Friday too, cause Friday seemed real calm in comparison, and I finally figured out a way to catch a few by then. Of course most of the ones I came across were in deeper water still.

Well the first day suffice to say, the paddles were enough to use as sails. Problem was when going against the wind the paddles were like sails going against you. It felt much like the equivalent of kayaking on a treadmill for much of the day. Now as to the actual fishing trip, I came, I saw, I got my butt handed to me. I got to Pigeon Roost boat ramp around noon Wednesday, started fishing that cove, heard from a guy that they were pretty slow, and that he got his in 10 ft of water, 4 ft deep. I got a couple bites, but mainly really light ones, close to the boat ramp even. I mainly fished a 1/32 oz jig with tube under a slip bobber, retrieving, letting sink, retrieving, etc., and got my first one within an hour there. It was an 8" white crappie, I got from 5-6 ft, in what I think was 15ft water, right by a tree, and pretty much in the middle of the cove. I got another few bites closer to the bluffs in slightly shallower water, but again they were just so light I could never get them hooked. Pretty soon wind started picking up and by the time I got out of that cove into the main arm the going was pretty slow. I tossed out shallow diving shad crankbaits while paddling between spots, trolling it behind me, hoping some white bass bite but they must not have got the memo. Fished most of the coves and edge of main arm on the east side but the bites became more and more scarce as the middle of the day kicked in high gear. I got one 8" largemouth on the tube at one point but that was it. Most of the coves on that side didn't seem to protect that much from the NNW wind even. The anchor rarely kept me in place, and worst of all the wind kept taking me out of position for a good cast and retrieve around structure. Once I got close to the main lake I went over to the western side of the arm and hit it the same way on that side going back. A nice stretch of calmer wind hit, before picking back up but the bites were still nowhere. I went a little south of the initial cove then went back over on that side and into it to finish the day there. Bite picked up a little more again in the evening but still the same problem of never hooking them. Finally I got a green sunfish near some bluffs I hit earlier, and that would be it. I tossed out some shrimp and waited to see if any catfish would hit at night but nothing came of that either. Thursday I decided to try my luck on the Lick Creek arm and put in at Duane Wheelan rec. area around 9, and headed north towards the dam. Considering most of the bites were in deeper water the day before, I was a bit disappointed that there was a lot more shallow areas there than in the parts of Pigeon Roost I fished. I tried both shallow and deeper structure, fishing the same way as the day before. Again the White bass didn't get the memo with the trolling, and neither did the crappie with the jigheads. I finally got into some real light bites on the east bank near deep water, in a bunch of woody debris floating near, and lining the bank, and by chance at that. The spot looked good, but what got me the fish was the kayak getting blown out of position, and the tube slowly following it, along the debris. A 7" black crappie hit it, and I got my first fish. I followed that up jigging there in a spot where I kept getting more of those light bites, and hooked a similar sized white crappie. Then it died down there too, and I kept fruitlessly hitting up spots further northwards on both banks and inbetween. Finally I got to a cove with some deeper water, at the mouth of which I got a 3rd fish, a little sunfish, as I was about to get back into the main arm to head back towards the ramp. On the way I decided to fish a spot in the middle of the arm where I got more light bites but couldn't connect earlier, and that's where I finally made some real progress. The key seemed to be, as mjk told me recently, to keep slowly reeling the tube (or curlytail), past the spot where the bites where so it never really stopped but still stayed deep enough. That wound up landing me 6 more crappie, all 7" or less. Finally even that shut down, and it was getting pretty dark, so I headed back to the ramp, hoping I'd get there before it got real dark. I kind of failed on that, but I found the ramp anyways, and set the catfish rod out with some shrimp and dead shad I found floating, while packing things up. I gave that about an hour or so, and then headed home with no catfish bite to speak of again. So in short, water was stained brown, the crappie didn't seem to be spawning yet, were still in deeper water, but might be soon though. Both catfish and white bass were nowhere to be seen, and largemouth were about the same.I got nothing big and in general from what I heard from just a few others it wasn't the greatest of days. Got 12 fish total in both days, all dinks, all released, 9 crappie, 1 largemouth, 1 green sunfish, 1 bluegill/or similar sunfish. The parts of Pigeon roost I fished looked to be better for deeper fishing, while Lick creek seemed to have more shallow (more spawning?) type areas.Wind sucked first day, and was not too bad second day. Anchor ticked me off from time to time, and I did a whole lot of paddling, about 3 miles worth both days. Sorry for the short story that is my fishing report but I figured more detail was better than less. The end.

Blazerman, I'll probably just put in from the boat ramp at the end of BB since that would cut down even more on the driving and paddling. Man, I'm getting excited. Got less than a full day left before I'm there. Can't wait. Though I still have a good bit of preparations to finish.

You know the pulling on to shore is one thing I haven't put much thought into. I'm pretty sure I'll need to think about it too since I'll have to get out and find someplace to take a leak at some point. Last time I remember the shore around the coves near Ray Behren's being a bit too steep to make it easy to get out of my kayak to stretch out a bit. I think you're talking about the Duane Wheelan recreation area Jerry. I was thinking of checking that spot out too. Honestly the most attractive reason to try Pigeon Roost first, was cause it looked to me (emphasis on looked) like it might protect from the NW wind forecast, the best, being in a relatively narrow and "deep" north-south arm with plenty of trees on either side of the arm. You don't think it's going to be much help once I get into the main arm of pigeon roost? Looks like now the forecast wind direction will be more from the NNW too. Bummer, think it would be better if were from the NW like initially mentioned, at least for pigeon roost.

The hail didn't pelt them to death? Not sure if it hailed up there, but I was driving back from work in it, and I thought my windshield was going to shatter from that stuff. I was just mentioning to my fishing buddies how it was a good thing I worked yesterday, otherwise I would've found myself fishing somewhere way too far from the car as the hail started coming down.

Yeah, 20 mph winds definitely don't sound fun at all. If the forecast holds true I will be contending with ~17 mph winds the first day, and ~12 mph winds the 2nd day. If you don't mind me asking what about Sandy Creek makes it good kayak water compared to some other spots? Better protection from wind, less distance between promising spots, less boating traffic, etc? I'm kind of hoping that Pigeon Roost Creek area that I'm considering hitting up as the first spot, doesn't get much boat traffic and provides good protection from the wind. Those two qualities are probably my top considerations.

So I'm getting ready to go up to Mark Twain next Wednesday and Thursday, and for what it's worth, so far the forecast seems to suggest that it won't rain, but will be windy coming from the Northwest. I will probably be limited to using a kayak so I won't be able to cover a whole lot of area and the wind will be a pain in the rear, yet at the same time I wanted to see what "new" spots I can try to fish there since I've never really strayed much from the ramp at Ray Behrens. In short I wanted to see if others have any suggestions on good accesses to try out, that are close to Ray Behrens, since I'll be staying nearby there. I'll probably mainly fish for crappie, but I wouldn't mind catching catfish, white bass, you name it, too. Personally I wanted to try out a spot off of route BB, across the Robert E Allen Recreation Area. There seems to be a more primitive ramp and parking lot there judging by google maps, that leads into what's referred to as Pigeon Roast Creek Arm. I feel like that might work out good, cause there's still some land across that might block the wind a bit, and there's still some brush in that arm that I can try out for crappie. Any ideas guys?

Wow, never knew that cobra's weren't the only snakes that can do that whole head spread thing. That's pretty cool.

I got about 9 days left before I'm supposed to head up there. Hopefully the 2 days I'm supposed to go, there won't be much rain, and especially wind. I might try for some other types of fish too if things work out. But I'll probably be limited to a kayak so I won't be able to check out much of the lake.