Haris122

I've felt much the same with trout. I've been at Meramec Springs a number of times where I barely caught 1 of them even though I'd be there 6 hours or so. Same thing at Taneycomo, where I caught one within a full 3 hours of wade fishing in the trophy area. I've often felt the desire to jump into the water and just punch them in their face, or choke them while angrily shaking them and asking why they don't take my lure/bait/whatever. I can't tell you exactly what the trick is as I still have a real hard time getting them to bite, but I will say lighter line is one of ingredients as I have had a bit more luck with 4 pound line on an ultralight compared to 6,8,or 10 on a medium. Aside from that I don't how to help you. But believe me, I've gotten skunked time after time after time, as many times and possibly more as you have. At one point I went several months without catching a single fish. You're not alone. All I can tell you is, it will get better as long as you keep trying, and don't let the feeling that you won't yet again catch anything, constantly hang over your thoughts while fishing. You have to have a clear mind about it dude. Observe and try to think of something that might work. Switch things up, but also give your current set-up time to be thoroughly tried before moving on to something else. Eventually things will work out.

How about Suckers? I've been wanting to catch some sort of sucker, see how they fight, but I don't know of anyplace close by St. Louis that has them. Does that stretch of the Bourbeuse?

To the defense of the paper, they did mention that there's many places where carp are actually invasive and ultimately a case by case approach would be best. It just seemed to mention that there are areas where they are native, and at the same time in decline (like afarensis showed, not superficially, but genetically as they mix or even get displaced by essentially a common-carp lookalike from further east). It wasn't meant to be just U.S. centric, and I've heard plenty harder things to believe than, that there are places where they're not that commonplace anymore. I can see trophy fishing having some effect mainly because other factors decrease the population pool to the point that they have enough of a refuge for that size population for those factors not to have an effect anymore, but then with the trophy fishing added to it, it still keeps shrinking the population slowly due to really successful individuals being removed before they can really fulfill most of their reproductive potential.

Wanted to gauge what kind of fish one can reasonable expect to find or hook into in the lower Bourbeuse, and in particular near Uehlmayer access. Especially if restricted to fishing from shore, or knee depth wading. Also what kind of luck have you guys had in general there? I stopped for like 30-40 minutes there today around sunset, and wasn't expecting much luck but did end up catching a tiny sunfish of some sort on a spoon. I think it was a longear sunfish. So just been wondering since it's so conveniently close to the highway, what kind of fishing there is to be had around there.

Looks fairly similar to a spot I frequent, but there are a few things not quite like it, unless a big fallen tree that would be behind that smallmouth has somehow got swept away. Sweet fish btw. I'd be especially jealous if it would be the same spot I'm thinking of as I've had limited luck for anything there, much less a quality fish like that.

Well it was quite surprising to read of the effect to the overall population of just 1 61cm long red snapper being harvested comparative to 212 41 cm long ones.Wonder if that's just an extreme case in how much an effect size makes, or if that's similar for a lot of the other species. I think in some cases I can see the benefits of closing the IGFA records to certain species, especially when like they mention, people harvest large fish that are likely short of the record anyhow, and in effect only remove large individuals from the population without accomplishing anything records-wise. In other cases maybe closing certain spawning grounds where they are found in high concentrations, or at certain seasons where they are more vulnerable, might be enough. Certainly worth considering it in some cases I think. As far as the common carp, it would be interesting to find out what exactly it is that got them on that list of theirs. They seemed to suggest there being regionally threatened populations or something of the sort, but I don't know how that puts them on the list of vulnerable overall, unless things in much of the rest of the world are going completely different for them than they are here.

You try enough things, something is bound to work. Where there's a will, there's a way.

I fished with 2 friends out of a boat this afternoon near George Winter. Not much was going on, but I managed to catch what I think is my biggest Crappie to date, at 13". Got it with a small crank near some brush/timber. Aside from that we got a couple of small drum, but that was it this time. Overall it was still pretty sweet to both get a Crappie that size, and break a multi-week skunking streak with it.

I did get basically the cheapest model I can find, a humminbird piranha max 143. Now I got to figure out how to set it up on the kayak. They say it can be mounted inside the hull but the water temperature reading then doesn't work.

Cool, I guess it's time for some trips to Cabelas, Bass Pro, and such, and look at some electronics, and possible mounting systems (mine is a sit-in).

I've been thinking of getting me something like that too now that I rigged my regular kayak with some rod holders and started fishing out of it. It would be nice to get all the perks out of it, but primarily I'd like to know what the structure/layout of the bottom and the depth beneath and immediately around me, is. What are some of the things to consider with this? I don't suppose there's any of these fish finders/sonars that run on something smaller than a regular boat battery, seeing how I sure don't see where I would fit an actual battery in the kayak.

By Hudson you mean Port Hudson?

I visited that conservation area a few days ago on the way back from visiting Lake of the Ozarks. With the area description mentioning lots of small bass I thought for sure I'd be catching some fish, but this time out I didn't even get a bite. Not from bass, not from catfish. It's a nice area but there is a lot of vegetation in the lake still, just like you guys remember. That made it tough to fish from the bank. Next time I'm planning on taking my kayak down there and fishing from it instead. It is a nice conservation area though.

jimithyasford, I echo your experiences. It took me at least a month if not two of pretty much constantly going fishing every other evening in summer for a couple hours, to even get my first ever fish. But once that one got caught, it only fed the addiction. I'm definitely getting better at it, but it still tends to take me hours to catch something, and that's on the days that I do catch something, which are still only maybe 1 out of 2 to 2 out of 3 trips. I actually seem to be slowly cutting my time per fish caught down from 3 hours, to 2, and hopefully onwards. I will say this though, my luck varies considerably between species. Bass (especially smaller ones it seems), I definitely have an easier time getting than most panfish that just mildly nibble and spit out your bait or lure before you can set the hook, and the trout, well those almost always make me just want to jump in the water and punch them in the face for making me feel like the biggest fool on earth. It also varies a lot between where you fish. I've gone to private ponds a few times, and though you still put some work in, fish do tend to get caught easier there, than on a local river or small lake heavily fished by all. I haven't figured out any solid ways to frequently catch big fish, but my frequent go-to lures so far are roostertails, smallish crankbaits, troutworms, and those pre-made stinkbait nuggets (for catfish). Though in general, nightcrawlers put all of that to shame as far as frequent bites are concerned. That being said, knowing where to throw them is the more important part. And one I'm still learning through trial and error. But like bfishn said, it starts taking away from the enjoyment of it, if you start feeling like you have to be constantly doing better than last time, or at least staying steady, in regards to how many, what kind, or how big ones you catch.I keep being guilty of that too, and I need to cut it out. Some ambition is a good thing, but not to that point.

Congratulations.

This last regular firearm deer season was quite tailor-made for some nice warm hotel room experience. I planned on camping out at the place in my tent, but when temps are in the 20's even during daytime, yeah, that wasn't about to happen. Wound up driving back home to St. Louis every single day I went, cause the gas still wound up being cheaper than the hotel room.

Congratulations siusaluki!

I was down in Branson Saturday afternoon into most of Sunday, and actually got 3 hours to fish on Sunday afternoon on one of the accesses near the hatchery, and I caught one Rainbow that was barely slot length. Saw some good fish though. I'm hoping next time I get the chance to visit I wind up doing more fishing at more locations on the Lake, but nonetheless it was a fun trip.

Unger Lake finally came through for me once again. I didn't fish at the lake for a few months, having kind of lost hope in it, but today I tried it again and hooked a grass carp. While I was trying to figure out what set-up to use, I kept spooking good size fish real close to shore, while walking the bank, so I figured those were probably common carp so I set up several rods with the corn carp bait I caught my first common carp on. 2 rods didn't produce anything, but one I didn't have a bell for, I put in just the right spot and waited with it. I felt something take the bait and drop it, like a half hour into the fishing, so I figured I wait it out. Anyways, like half an hour later while I'm messing with my phone for a minute, I sense another one picking up and dropping the bait, and then I get a good prolonged bend in the rod as the fish takes off with it. I set the hook, and the drag kicks in. It was pretty fun. Those grass carp sure fight to stay off off the bank. I fought the fish like a foot to the bank maybe 4 times, and every time it would make another last effort run back out with the drag screaming. Eventually I figured for it's own good I better just horse it to shore the next time I get it close enough. So after another try or two I got it on the bank. Took me a bit to get the treble out of it's mouth but eventually I set it loose again and let it slowly swim off. Wasn't a huge specimen, but it sure gave my medium rod and spincast reel a workout. Can't really see it's eye in the pic cause the mud kind of covered it up while it flopped around, but put it back in the water and that got the mud right off.

Same here. Hot humid St. Louis summers is what I want, especially after a winter that lasted all of winter and spring.

I went back there yesterday and tried it out again in nicer weather. Turned into a fun trip. Kept catching several sunfish of different varities, mixed in with the occasional small Bass and near the end even got a small catfish. Nothing bigger than 10" but it was fun nonetheless, and it is a nice lake. Maybe by next time I will have finally set up that kayak to fish from, and will get out and check out more of it. Probably the single most common species I caught were Green Sunfish, which was kind of cool seeing how I rarely ever catch any of those around my usual St. Louis spots.

I have a hard time believing that most of those fish don't die from that stocking.

Went this Independence day weekend to Carlyle Lake one day, and got me an Illinois fishing license while there. Mainly just swam around and stuff, but I did manage to put in some fishing, and caught a small channel cat. The lake at the section where we swam didn't seem to have much fish holding structure there(may be intentionally to make swimming easier) but that got me wondering since I already forked over the money to fish in Illinois now too, does Carlyle Lake actually have mapped out fish attractors that people can find over their phones like the MDC has for the major lakes in Missouri?

Sweet

Yeah, in all honesty I thought searching for the rod 10 or so feet from shore was going to be a lost cause. The way that thing took off, reminded me of something from Wicked Tuna. That will teach me about setting the drag too tight, when I don't know what might wind up on the other end of the line. Anyways let me see about getting the pictures I promised.