Blazerman

Be great to see some pics from the trip.

If you fish as much as you say and still have trouble sleeping the night before, you will fit right in here. I look forward to your reports. Thanks for joining.

Very cool pics. Looks like a great trip indeed. What color was the wiggle wart?

Wrench, your right i never realized there was a crawdad hatch. But it makes sense. I hear you too on the milfoil. Way back when i first started fishing the Lake, we always had a blast fishing behind and in front of the weed patches along the shore. We usually used a weightless worm to crawl across the top and then we would let it sink on the outside edge. Man the bass would explode out of those weeds. And the other thing we always use was the old snag proof frog. Think you could get those things for about $1.79 back then. They would always advertise them in the back of Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and Sports Afield and you would send your money to the address listed to get them. Now they get like $5-$6 bucks for the exact same thing.

Laker, i agree lots of good advice. Guess I was looking for that magic offering that consistently seems to catch the bigger rainbows and it probably doesn’t exist. The thing about big browns is they bite best when their running water. On bright sunny days it is mostly an early morning and late day bite. We have also found if they are running water and it is cloudy you can catch them all day. So we go after them. But on days where they are not running much water, or if it is a bright bluebird day, I many times switch to trying to catch bigger rainbows since they seem to bite all day long. So I was hoping someone might say if you are catching a lot of small rainbows switch to this or that to catch the bigger ones in the group. Or maybe use a 1/64th oz black jig under an indicator to catch bigger rainbows. Per Phil’s suggestion, I love fishing with zig jigs and have caught a ton of fish on them so I might stick with that and try to see if I can get a good one by playing the numbers game. Or maybe try and sight fish to the bigger ones if I can see them. This will be our 26th year there and I do believe the overall size of the rainbows is not what it used to be which is also coming into play.

Beautiful fish. I know that stretch well. How much water were they running if any? It looked like you were anchored in the beginning? Did he pull up the anchor when you hooked your big fish are were you drifted at that point.

We are very good at ripping jerkbaits and catching big Browns. And we have caught many Rainbows doing it. But I know we have seldom caught a Rainbow over 2lbs doing it. But I have also seen guys that had stringers filled with 2-3lb Rainbows and they were targeting bows. Not jerkbait fishing. When I asked the one guy how he caught all those big fish, he just smiled. So I was thinking someone here might know a way to target big Rainbows. This pic was taken before they raised the length limits on Browns and back then we would keep our biggest Browns in the live well and then bring them back to Gastons for the weigh in. These were all caught the same day and as you might of guess, they were running plenty of water and we caught the shad kill just right that year. The largest was over 13lbs and another was over 10. All were let go after the pic was taken.

Thanks Wrench, For the record we don't keep the bigger fish we catch. We have a little tournament with about 18-20 guys that each put in $10 bucks and we pay out for biggest Brown and biggest Rainbow. Once the fish are weighed in the boat, we take a picture of them and let them go. The biggest brown always seems to be luck of the draw. Since we all know how to catch them, it is just a matter of who can get there bait in front of the biggest one. But with the rainbows, no one in our group has one bait or technique that consistently catches the bigger fish. So if someone has one that targets bigger fish, I would love to hear about it.

In about 6 weeks I will be heading down to the White again for trout fishing. We have been doing this for a while now and have no problem catching them. Like a lot of people we can usually catch stocker rainbows all day long. And if they are running water we are pretty good at catching big browns as well. But one thing I have noticed is as a group we don’t catch many bigger rainbows. By bigger I am talking about 2lbs and over. So I am posted here looking for help. I know there are a lot of really good trout fisherman that post on here so I am wanting to know what you would do to target bigger rainbows. I guess specifically, bigger rainbow below Bull Shoals dam. I normally fish spinning gear but I have done some fly fishing and if it would help me catch bigger bows, I would do it again. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Just curious. What do the thiefs do? Steal traps? Steal what you trap?

I used to collect christmas trees every year and sink them. One thing we used to do is lay them on the bank for a few weeks to dry out and then burn them. After that all the needles would be gone and they would have bigger openings between branches. That way they wouldn't turn into a solid mass in the water like they will with the needles still attached.

I took down a big old antenna that was on a pole at my place on the river and replaced it with one of the new digital ones for more channels. Now I have this big aluminum antenna that I am thinking would be great to sink in a boatwell at the condos I frequent at LOZ. My plan is to tie a cinder block to the bottom and then hang it from one of the steel cross members on the inside of the boatwell down about 20 foot or so. Should be out of the way there and I would think it would attract fish.

Funny that deer eat soybeans like crazy when the stalks are young and green. I have also seen them eating the seed pods that were left after the combines have gone through. Doesn't seem to be bothering them.

WayneB that is a great story. I am not sure i could of stayed still like that with a buck 12" from my nose.

I am throwing mine on spinning rods- a Falcon lowrider and also a TFO Gary's signature series. On both rods I have Pflueger President spinning reels. I have learned to love thses reels. I am normally using 6lb line in the winter. This plce still has the TFO signature series rods at buy one get one free. So you end up getting two for about $100. http://www.reedssports.com/Category/main.taf?cat=4410

that looks more like a lobster? you got that out of the current river?

This is what i usually call a deer hair jig and there was a #11 black pork trailer attached to it although you can't see it because it is in it's mouth. the second pick was caught on the same jig.

I did a search for Eagle claw Nitro trailer worm and found another article on using this tactic along with others for wintertime crappie at LOZ. http://www.finsntales.com/all/hot-tips-for-cold-water-crappie/ I am always ready to try new things as well and I usually have different baits on my crappie rods to see which ones will work best for the day. Old Plug, it would be interesting to have a couple different people fishing for crappie using their usual tactics and have one use this shaky head set up and see if that person catches more than the others. Also when you say crappie candy are you talking about Berkley crappie nibblers or is that something different?

Not long after we got out place on the Meramec, my son and I waded across the river right in front of our property to a gravel beach. Once there a walked through a weed patch to get to a small back up eddy. Once i looked it over, I walked back through the weed patch, and as I did I spotted some bones. When I looked closer I could see it was a snake skeleton but not just any snake skeleton. It was the biggest one I had ever seen. The skeleton of the head was about 4” across and the bones to the body were probably over 4’-5' all curled up. No telling how long it would have been straightened out. I called my son over and said look at this thing. I took a stick and was poking it and I said if this thing was alive it would probably be the biggest wild snake I have ever seen. He said what kind do you think it was. So with my stick I got the head exposed where I could see his jaw and inside I could see large fangs about 2.5” long and I could also see little bumps like eyebrows which I am guessing is where the pits would be like a pit viper So we knew it was a poisonous one and my guess was a rattler. But I didn’t see any rattle on the tail. The sad thing was I didn’t think to pick it up and left it there. Looking back I wish I would of went and got a plastic bag and some gloves and picked it up. Be cool to have it now.

I apologize if Phil or someone else posted this- I did not see it. Really cool that he let it go right away. http://www.news-leader.com/article/20131128/LIFE06/311280027/1282/life0605/Oklahoma-angler-catches-releases-likely-record-rainbow-at-Taneycomo

I am guessing alot of big 12 teams would like to see Mizzou win. Because then they can say "see, the SEC isn't as big and bad as they think they are because Missouri walked right in and won the championship in 2 years".

Phil you say trout like to eat in the snow and i know that is true from some of the big Browns we have caught in the snow on the White. i have also seen it said LOZ crappie and bass bite great during snow snow storms. But I still have to wonder why that would be - fish eating during snow fall. Seems like it would drop the water temps real quick with all the snow hitting the water.

Next year there will be another blog here about how the top four teams got ranked to be in the playoffs and why this team or that team should of been in the top four instead of this other team based on strength of schedule, conference, etc etc. The top four will still be decided by the rankings and will always be prone to everybody’s interpretation of how they should be ranked. The only difference will be one of those four will end up as a true national champion after the two game playoff. There will still be other bowl games that people worry about with which teams go where and the end of the year ranking for the spots 5-25 that will probably get people going too. I think it is actually what makes college football so much fun. On Saturdays I end up flipping around the channels trying to see how all the different top teams are doing regardless of where they are located or what conference they play so I can try and stay up with where teams are ranked and how they got there.

Here is my prediction. Mizzou beats Auburn 28-17. Then we all go crazy watching OSU lose to Michigan State while Florida State blows away Duke. Missouri then ends up taking on Florida State in the NC.