Blazerman

I have some friends that were fishing this past weekend and they said they tore them up. Caught a bunch of bass including some really good ones. But the wild thing was they caught them all on beetle spins and rooster tails. And the key was using light line. They were only getting the fish on their crappie rods with 4 and 6 lb line. So right now I have decided to use crappie rods with light line for the big bash bass and I would suggest everyone else fishing it do the same.

I was talking to a guy Wednesday who puts on Bass tournaments at Mark Twain. He said there are plenty of bass being caught and plenty of good ones. He said it normally takes between 15 and 20 lbs to win a tournament there. So I did some checking. Based on these results I would say there are some guys who know they are there and know how to catch them. Mark Twain Lake Hwy 107 Boat Ramp Sept 10, 2017 58 Fishermen 29 Boats 1st place winners Dennis and Scott McFetridge, from St Louis and St Charles, MO, weighed in 5 fish for 18-61 Lbs winning $1,620.00, including $250.00 in Ranger Cup Bonus Money, $270.00 for Dennis's big bass with a 5-45 Lb Mark Twain Lake Hwy 107 Boat Ramp August 13, 2017 64 Fishermen 32 Boats 1st place winners Don and Gary McFetridge, from St Charles, MO, weighed in the winning limit of 5 fish for 19-24 Lbs winning $1,680.00, including Don's $250.00 in Ranger Cup Bonus Money, $150.00 for his second place big bass with a 4-51 Lbs Mark Twain Lake Hwy 107 Boat Ramp July 16, 2017 66 Fishermen 33 Boats 1st place winners David and Dustin Kampschroeder, from Washington, MO, weighed in a nice limit of 5 fish for 20-80 Lbs, winning $1,180.00, including $120.00 in bonus sidepot money, Mark Twain Lake Hwy 107 Boat Ramp June 10, 2017 80 Fishermen 40 Boats 1st place winners Steve Weber and David Zeis, from Barnhart and Festus, MO, weighed in the winning limit of 5 fish for 18-03 Lbs winning $1,750.00, including Steve's $380.00 for big bass with a 5-46 Lb bass and David's $190.00 for second big bass with his 5-10 Lb bass. http://www.bassworldsports.com/d3.htm

Cool looking pics of fish we see all the time but never that up close. Spring looks real nice too. Wish I was there right now instead of sitting here at work. Thanks for posting.

What about the skirts. Any preferences? And i actually tried the "naked" style on the river and caught some fish on it. Naked meaning no skirt. Instead i used a culprit jerkbait and i have seen them with all kinds of different soft plastic trailers.

Greetings, though I don’t fish Table rock much I thought I would post a report from my visit over the past few days. I just returned from spending 4 days at the Long branch area by the 86 bridge. My wife’s cousin just bought a really nice place there and they were nice enough to let us use it for a few days. This was my fourth trip to Table rock and the second time I have brought my boat. The first two times I did not have my boat and didn’t really fish. In July I was there for a family reunion when the water temps were close to 90 and had my boat but did not really do much serious fishing. I mostly took some of the younger kids out and we fished with worms and they had fun catching bluegill. I went out a couple mornings with my daughter and caught some fish on the deep points including some decent spots and a very good smallmouth on a HD craw. (Biggest smallmouth in the pics). But did not really spend a lot of time fishing. This time with the water temps in a decent range, (74 to 78) I thought I might find some shallow fish so the plan was to fish each morning and each evening shallow and then go deep in the middle of the day. We got a late start on Thursday morning so I went to an island near the place we were staying and started throwing the HD craw again in about 20 -30 foot and once again caught a couple decent smallmouth. (Thanks Arron for the craws). Tried a couple other spots and got nothing. When we came back to the dock for lunch everyone was saying how slow it was and how the lake was turning over and the only way to get them was deep, drop shotting night crawlers. So after lunch we bought some night crawlers and headed to some deep points. We caught some small spotted bass and some big bluegill (which we kept) but it was pretty slow. Thursday evening I shifted to working the bank and caught some small spots on a spinnerbait and small smallmouth on a crankbait. I caught the spots mostly close to shore and the smallmouth when I cast out towards schools of baitfish. I noticed there were schools of baitfish everywhere and kept watching for big fish to go after them but did not really see it happen. Friday morning we headed out and fished some of the coves. Once again baitfish were everywhere and again I caught some bass working the spinnerbait and my wife picked up some smaller fish on a Ned rig. But it was not fast and furious by any stretch. Wife was getting bored with it so we took a long ride over to Indian point and had breakfast at the floating cafe there. In July we stayed at Rock Lane resort so we went over there to fish their cove and saw baitfish breaking everywhere all over in the Rock lane cove and this time there were bigger fish busting them here and there. They were spread out all over so I said to the wife let’s try trolling. I tied us up some shallow running jerk baits and started slowly trolling and did not get much and I was getting really frustrated and then a fish busted the surface right ahead of my line and when my bait got to the spot I connected with the fish. And was amazed to catch a 12” smallmouth. I say amazed because we were trolling in depths up to 100 foot and these fish were hitting top water and I did not expect a smallmouth. And that was the only one we got there. Friday afternoon I decided the heck with drowning night crawlers and headed back to the bank with the spinnerbait. And I finally got into some good fish including the one big bass in the pic. Caught about 12 over all included 3 more chunky keeper spotted bass. All the bass were released. Saturday and Sunday morning worked the same way except the wife was using the drop shot with the crawlers and picked up some catfish which we cleaned. For me all the decent bass came on the spinnerbait close to laydowns. Also caught a few on top water right at sunrise. We ended up with a nice bag of filets thanks to the catfish and perch. Table rock is truly one beautiful place to fish. Can’t wait to go again. View full article

I have said this before on this site. I believe in areas that have large groups of people gathering they usually bring food. Sandwiches, chips, fried chicken bones and everything else gets scattered around these spots. Which brings in the bait fish and you know what follows. I have had some phenomenal fishing in the evenings in the areas with public access as people start to clear out. Including catching some really good fish.

Nice meeting you too and very nice boat. If you don't want to spend the big bucks on a RiverPro, a Blazer is the next best thing. Anytime you want to follow me through some of the runs heading up from my dock let me know. Following Aaron might be tough unless he slows down.

I did see it was Nick when I saw the report and your right about Jason. He is the same officer that gave me a ride to my old blazer that I turned into a submarine. I also agree be thankful for insurance!!

i feel the same way. i really get tired of all the big shoal runners, and other big loud v8s that blast up and down and wish we could limit them. But i guess it is their right to enjoy the river any way they want since nothing they are doing is illegal.

I have had my place on the river now long enough to see where guys had cut trees and logs that were making it hard to run. In most cases the trees were in the water and blocking a channel or were hanging just above the channel causing issues. And earlier this spring my neighbor and I jumped in my boat and ran up and cut a large log that was blocking a chute and had to be jumped if you wanted to get upstream. But the one thing I never knew was if it was legal to cut them. I had heard some people say it was and others who said it wasn’t. This weekend, as we were running around, we came across another tree that had fallen in the same spot as the one we cut out earlier this spring and was blocking the same chute as before. Once again I decided to cut it out. So we headed up there, got the boat positioned, and starting cutting. Right in the middle of doing it we hear a siren and turn around and there is the water patrol sitting just downstream with his lights flashing and he is hitting his siren off and on. And waving at us frantically. My first thought was where in the heck did he come from and my second thought was well I guess it is not legal to cut on trees. Because it was tight in there it took me a minute or two to get back downstream and out of his way. As he headed towards us I am thinking guess he is gonna give me a ticket or something. Well he pulls close and says got a boat crash upstream with an injury and need to get by and takes off. So now I am thinking guess he just needed to get by and I was also thinking I still don’t know if it legal to cut trees. Later, after the eclipse, (which was very cool to see) we all headed back to the river to cool off. While hanging out by the dock here comes the water patrol again pulling up at my dock. He looks at my boat and says was that you cutting that tree upstream this morning. So once again I think well guess I am getting a ticket after all. I hesitated when answering and finally I said “well it was in the way and blocking the shoot there”. He then said “well I came back by to thank you and tell you you are not in any kind of trouble. I just wanted to say we appreciate you cutting the trees like that when they become a hazard”. I thought that was pretty cool for him to come back by like that and now I am thinking it must be ok to cut trees and logs when they create a hazard on the river.

In our river valley by the K bridge on the Meramec there is now acres of sand covering everything where there used to be green growth like grass or brush. This happened in 08 and Dec 2015 as well so there is no doubt to me about the sand washing out of the river onto the bottoms during heavy flooding. the amazing thing to me is everywhere i had zoysia grass in my yard it looks great. all the areas that had leaves with no green growth were washed out leaving eroded ground.

Caught these on a yellow curly tail with no leader at Rainy lake last year first week of June. and we will be heading there again in a couple weeks. I actually did catch that pike on the curly tail with no leader while fishing for walleye.

This is a scary scenario and it would indicate the levies they have in place right now will not help if this happens. I cannot understand though how the Bourbeuse was not blowing away the old records. With as wide spread as the rain was over the state and how heavy it was it seems odd that the Bourbeuse did not get that high.

This may be off topic here, and I may get some argument from the lake fisherman, but i truly believe if you grow up fishing streams and become good at it, you will be a better fisherman then someone who grew up fishing lakes or none moving water. To be a good river fisherman you have to learn quickly how the fish relate to current and also learn how to cast to a spot accurately. And feeling a bite in current was also was a skill that had to be learned. I started on the Meramec and when i started fishing LOZ with my buddies, casting to specific spots around docks seemed easy. Casting a jig and letting it fall and feeling the thump of a crappie was super cool and amazed me as to how easy it seemed. Same with casting a spinner bait or crankbait along side a dock and getting hammer by a bass. I know lakes and rivers are apples and oranges and I am not saying when fishing lakes i always catch fish, What i am saying is it did not seem as complicated as fishing a river. And also if you grew up fishing a river, the skills learned while river fishing will make you a better fisherman on any other body of water. But in both cases you have to find the fish to catch them and that has always been the hardest part.

This is a great topic and I have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments. To me this started as Al talking about what it takes to be an “expert” fisherman and evolved into everyone’s definition as to what an expert is. And then quite a few of you threw in the points about whether you want to be an expert and why you fish period. As far as my fishing, I have never considered myself a expert fisherman but I have had some good days for sure. And I can normally manage to catch some fish most every time I go. But I don’t always catch the biggest or most and for sure don’t care anymore. Now whenever I have someone else in my boat, I normally have a goal get us to a spot where they can catch fish and love it when that happens. There was a time in my younger years when I did have the competitive streak and ended up fishing some tournaments and even won a few. But even then I felt more like we had got lucky and found the magic spot to catch 5 nice keepers versus really having them figured out. And even though we won, I still felt like most of the guys who fished way more tournaments then I did were no doubt better fisherman. I guess I have mellowed more in my older age and have finally figured out that the best part of fishing is just being able to go. Being out there as much as I am is truly a treasure I cherish every time I go. And it is even more sweet when it is on a beautiful Ozark stream chasing smallmouth.

You guys reminded me of another time many years ago at Meramec springs while trout fishing. A big storm blew in with a bunch of wind, thunder and lightning and everyone scrambled to take cover. Most people went for vehicles but we were closer to one of the buildings so we headed there. While a bunch of us where huddled inside a bolt of lightning hit the building and came down a large steel pipe that was attached to the wall. I am not sure what the pipe was there for but two people standing close to it got knocked flying. They were not killed but were sure dazed and confused and they were hauled away in an ambulance.

In my earlier years all my fishing was while floating in an aluminum canoe. When you were out on a river like that there was really no where to go, I had the sh-t scared out of me a couple differents times. I remember one with this giant wall cloud that was green and the wind blew so bad with thunder and lightning we pulled up on a gravel bar and tried to hide under a rock overhang. Then the wind blew the canoe off the beach and i had to run and get it with lightning crashing all over.. i though I was gonna get whacked every second i was on that beach.

Pulled this from the AccuWeather site. Be careful when fishing.

Speaking of fishing clothes, let me throw this out to get others opinions. i grew up wade fishing on the meramec and i was told by the old timers there to move slowly and quietly and wear colors that would match the background. So i usually would wear some camo or something in light blue or grey. Once i started fishing from a canoe or boat i kept with that philosophy as i figured the fish would be able to see brighter colors. But now it seems guys will wear the brightest things they can find especially the tournament fisherman. Seems to me if you are trying to fish a bedded bass with a bright chartreuse shirt the bass would see that from a long way off. But maybe i am wrong because they sure seem to catch them. What do you all think?

I started fishing the Meramec way back in the middle 60s when I was 9 or 10 and we got our rental cabin at Twin Springs by the caverns. I used most of the lures you mentioned and the River Runt was great for walleye along with smallmouth. My go to bait back then was the original floated Rapala and I still use it today. We also used some in line spinners like the Mepps with the squirrel tail trailer and Shasta. Spoons were used by the deep bluffs and we would get catfish on them. We also fished some live bait with hellgrammites being my favorite. The old timers around there showed us how to take a screen and hold it in the water behind big rocks, which were turned over and the current would sweep the crawdads and hellgrammites onto the screen and hold them there. And a hellgrammite was a great bait because you could catch 3 or 4 fish on it before it would get tore up. Amazing to think there were no motors with jets back then and everyone ran the river with props. We have a 14 foot Johnboat with a 7.5 outboard that had the shallow drive. But we still went through a ton of shear pins each summer probably spent more time wading then fishing from the boat.

But right new the bass season is closed on Ozark streams correct and that includes spotted bass?

It was 52 -53 all day where i was around St Clair. Picked up a few, nothing big.

Great line Wrench "I'd rather live a shorter awesome life than a longer sucky one". That could probably go on a lot of headstones. I am sure many people feel that way. Back in my other life in lawncare and landscaping, i had my Missouri's pesticide applicators license. got that when i was applying different chemicals to lawns, trees, and shrubs. When i was working at a golf course, knowing i had the license, they asked me to help spray greens with the different chemicals they apply on them. i did it one day and with the wind swirling, the stuff ended up covering us and my whole body was burning at the end of the day. As soon as i got home i took a shower but still felt rough for a couple days after that. Right then i made the decision to not be doing any of that spraying anymore. BTW, golf courses have more chemicals sprayed on them then about anywhere you can find. i bet if they tested a typical golf course it would be declared a biohazard and nobody would be allowed on it.

Nice report. Thanks for the info.