fishinwrench

Try fishing a worm like a crankbait, seems to be triggering bites pretty good up by me.

Whatcha prefer to fish for? Cats are biting prolly better than anything now, start by fishing the closest steep banks to the backend flats. Cut shad or Sonny's Super sticky dip. Drifters that know what they are doing are cathing big channels and blues from 12-18' around points and bluffy banks....but so far I have struck out with the bigguns. Bass: They'll eat 7" worms mid-day and 10" worms early and late, fish them kinda fast and don't be afraid to throw into a brushpile and let it set about 10 seconds then swim it straight back to the boat with the reel while keeping the rod tip low, sweep to the side when you feel extra weight. Don't pass up any brush from 4-22ft. until you notice a depth preference....it changes depending on the time of day, water color, boat traffic, ect, ect. Or sling a DD22 (or equiv.) and try to bump brushpiles in 12-18ft, keep it moving kinda quick and steady/no fancy business. Crappie: No clue, Prolly around 15-22ft. brush....but I wouldn't even bother, they're all dinks. White bass: I'll tell ya if you come by the shop, or see me on the lake or the boat ramp.

Still throwing my old ones thus far but I'd venture a guess that it's all in the head. It wouldn't be like Rapala to take a proven bait and f*@% it up.

I'm calling BS on this one. Cut&paste the email.

I've tried all sorts of pegging methods and always go back to soggy round toothpicks. To "unpeg" just tie an overhand knot in the line above the weight, and pop it out. Flouro or copoly lines aren't hurtat all by being pinched between wood and lead. Steel or tungsten weights might be a different story and if I used them I would prolly want to use the rubber band or O-ring method.

Gotta pay your dues. Casting practice still beats wandering through an amusement park IMO

The "well people" (insured people) provide the ins.co.'s with lots of money to invest in many many lucrative things. They can't live and prosper on the premiums they collect alone. I'm sure that most of the money collected on premiums is invested wisely to assure an excellent return. No worrys about insurance companies going broke......other than on paper.

The all time clincher was the Trout Unlimited calendar pics several years ago. How could THEY not get it right? One month had a guy fishing with a rod rigged with the line missing two guides. Another showed a guy standing midstream with one foot up on a rock......nice waders but no boots. You'da thought that someone from TU would've caught that during the calendar layout.

My memory might be a little off, but I wanna say that I already had beaver fever by the time I was a mere tenderfoot.

Nice ! Very well put together.

You'll never make it to the gulf though, the Asian carp will see to that. Personally I wanna be fed to the blowflys and buzzards. I'd rather my kids benefit from the $7000.00 instead of the dude who owns the crematory.

Same age as every other river in the midwest. No? I remember in the original InFisherman RIVERS book they catagorized rivers by age and types. How does one "age" a river?

An eight-plus pounder? Good grief, she gave birth to a toddler. Feed him right and he'll be paddling Paw-paw down the river in a year or two.

If quitting altogether is an option for you then maybe fishing isn't your thing..... after all, it's not for everyone. I could quit smoking, sex, and food easier myself. I have been frustrated before, similar to what I think you are. But the enthusiasm returns quickly.

My hopes are that eventually they will begin managing the fishery BELOW the park more seriously, and I know that'll never happen until they have the Spring branch fishery at or near peak. I wanna see the Niangua managed similar to the way the Current river is before I croak. It definately has tbe potential, and the area could benefit alot from more river-friendly "friends".

No really.....It WAS bette before they got so "smart and high tech". The cynicism in this case is entirely appropriate.

I ain't griping, just hadn't been there in awhile and was curious as to why all the high-dollar "upgrades" still haven't improved anything around there yet. "Back in the day" the hatchery was 1/4 that size, had twnenty-some less staff members, almost everyone who fished kept 5 fish a day (at least), and the quality of the fishery was consistently GOOD year round, and the fish were really pretty. Now the hatchery is bigger, staffed by a whole covey of highly trained fish raising badasses with the best equipment money can buy, hardly anyone keeps fish anymore...... And the best you can expect to find on a random trip to Bennett is a bunch of 10-12" colorless cookie cutters with an occasional battle scarred and half-blind biggun roaming about like he/she just came down off a bad acid trip. Seems to me that the whole place was alot more desirable when it was run and maintained by a handful of tobacco chewin' bib overall wearing hellians with an 8th grade education, and driving in rusty 1/2 ton trucks with faded triangles on the doors. I guess I'm just too dang ignert to recognize the benefits of extra funding, a highly educated and well tooled staff, and all this improved technology on display. I'll give'em credit for one thing though, those lawns at the nature center and the RV area is nice...that there is some pretty grass ! But I'm gonna take equal credit away for the condition of the old wooden (Dip) bridge, that puppy is about to collapse. LOL

What about collected rainwater, would you be afraid to swallow it before treating ?

Even if you don't find a single White bass you'll be better off than suffering through a day at SDC

As for a comparison to the Lil'Niangua, the stretch between competition and Falcon is similar in size and remoteness to the Lil'Ni with way better fishing and scenery to boot. The deep hole at Mayfield spring and several other bluff holes up that way even have a decent population of eating sized channel cat if that turns ya on.

When you hit'em with the juice they jump clear of the electrical current, so I'm not too sure that shocking them would allow capture of that many of them. Most will just keep jumping until they are far enough away from the probes.

Hadn't been inside the park in quite awhile but was in the area from Wed.-Sat. Hatchery raceways all torn up, machinery sitting there amonst piles of busted concrete and dirt....but nobody doing any work ! Not even a wet spot under the stocking truck Friday night or Sat. morning. Are they not producing fish now, or not stocking fish daily during the weekends anymore? What's the scoop? My daughter caught some dinks fishing drys over weedbeds but neither myself or anyone else in sight of us were doing much good at all. I couldn't find a single fish over 12", although I admit we only fished a short stretch of Z2.

How about; How much did you earn this month, and what did you do?

Epic Post !

Nice! Surely he wasn't in there all by himself..... see if you can do it again and get a accurate ID on those bad boys.