Flyguide7

That looks like a turtle trap but it might be someone’s dock side fish box.

Nice chunk!

Here a couple of gills I painted up this morning.

Yep.

Once I add the split rings and the Gamagtsu trebles the bait suspends. It should be good for clear water.

Lately I have been having issues keeping me off the river; back problems, motor problems flooding business travel So I bought some lure blanks on line, and air brush and a bunch of paints and started painting my own lures in an effort to match the hatch. The Meramec is full of Ozark Shiners so I decided to attempt painting some baits to look like them. It keeps me from pouting when I can’t get a smallmouth fix.

Thanks Aaron. My boat isn’t fast by any stretch but I will be careful buddy.

I will be hitting the river hard this weekend. Hopefully get an opportunity to wrestle with some ole green bass.

Yes they are! Do you still live up there?

Here’s a picture of a good one I caught in Michigan on Labor Day in 2008. It was the only fish I caught that day, but when I was fighting it in the clear water it had another one chasing it just as big. I had no scale or tape on board at the time but my buddy said it was around the seven pound mark. I will never know but it was awesome. Since then there has been a 9 and a 9.98 caught in the area. The latter was caught on a danged night crawler of the fellas dock!

I love Stockton, it is a great fishery! Sadly my lake is so low due to lack of rainfall my Ranger is stranded on my boat lift and may be there for a long time or until I hire a crane to lift it off (which I cannot afford to do). The year before last in the fall I fished it about every other weekend and I had some 35-50 fish days fishing by myself. I have caught a lot of small mouths but nothing over two pounds. Lots of 3 lb spots and 3-4 largemouth and some really nice walleyes. Looking forward to fishing it again once the rains come.

I have fallen through the ice on a couple of occasions during my lifetime. Once while working for an oil exploration company toting seismic cables across a frozen beaver pond in northern Michigan. The 70 lbs coil of cable kept me from going over my head since it caught the edge of the hole. During high school I skipped a class to smoke a cigarette, there was a nearby lake which someone had created an ice shack from a cardboard refrigerator box laying on its side. I was cold so I looked inside and the was a rug inside so I ducked in and to my surprise the rug was covering a 2’ x3’ hole which I feel through head first. I managed to catch the edge of the hole about mid chest and pulled myself out. Terrifying.

Yes I called Basspro today. They are sold out of ice gear. Lowe’s sells a 69” pry bar with a chisel end. That will do the trick. I will rig up an ice rod, I have ice jigs so I will need some wax worms and then I should be good to go. I am also going to rig up some sort of stringer to clean my ice hole. I can properly fish with a dirty ice hole.

I live on a private lake which now has about 4-6 inches of clear ice. Does anyone around here know of anyone selling ice fishing gear? It is time to put some monster gills on the ice.