ollie

Throw in plenty of adult beverages and I might, might be game.

Ok, lets get something straight right now. I have fished this creek for at least 10 years in a row and have never seen any big fish except about 5 years ago. Never will forget that one either. Big brown surfaced about 10 feet from me twice and then disappeared. The biggest I ever caught there was 16", but many people have told me of bigger fish they had seen or seen caught. I am still in denial of what happened today. Never will I say anything about Capps again regarding size EVER! The day started out pretty cool. Cloudy and overcast all day with little wind to none. Cold front coming in tonight I think with a chance of rain. Perfect conditions to fish I thought. Man I am still STOKED! Walked quite a ways down stream until I found lots of stocked fish and went on to catch several with the biggest being 14". I counted at least a dozen in about 2 hours that I C&R. BTW, all fish where C&R today. I walked a long ways to get to what I wanted also. After catching the stockers and seeing lots and lots of ducks I walked back up to the truck. It was about 1:30 now so I decided to fish upstream and if you want specifics you will have to pm me. Ginger is the color I have been into big time this year. Last year I wouldn't go to it and this year it's all I start out with. Let's see, I watched two hawks hunting today when no one was around. I got "spooked" by an Armidillo. (I wish they would go back to Texas) And I caught two LARGE trout. Oh yeah, i did catch two nice fish within 30 minutes of each other. Ok, I have caught some nice fish at RR and caught 4 twenty inch plus fish in one outing, but nothing could compare to what happened today. When you catch two fish over 20" in a little creek like this it makes you wonder if there can be any better. Two fish within 30 minutes of each other I might add. Two fish over 20", did I say that already? I am still in awe as I write this. First big fish was a brown that measured out at 21". After reviving this fish for around 15 min. I let it go without any problems. I went on over in the same hole and then caught a 20" rainbow. I don't know if I will ever catch any fish like this again down there, but it is truly a trip worth a lifetime for me or anyone else. Why is it you never have a camera when that happens, but you have one when nothing happens?

Just read an article in the local news yesterday and the DNR stated that 4 or 5 local streams are loaded high in E-coli bacteria. Shoal Creek, Capps Creek, Indian, Hickory, and I can't remember the other one. Anyways, I knew Shoal had it bad in some places and I definetly knew Hickory had it's problems, but I would have not guessed Capps at all. I am guessing that a high E-coli reading is mainly from farm run-off? I generalize the words "farm run-off" to include many different agriculture operations. So how is classifing these streams as impaired going to effect me?

Let us know how it goes. I was thinking of heading down there myself on Sunday if it's not too terrible outside. Oh wait, I have to do clean-up of the ice storm. Maybe I can talk the warden into it!

Here's a picture of just some of my heartaches that I will have to clean-up when it gets a little dryer outside. I should note that is a pic of my backyard looking out at the boys clubhouse/storage building.

Ok, it's pretty much a diasaster zone down here in Neosho. Lost power last night around 8:00 or so and just got it back on about the same time this morning. I don't have a single tree still intact in my yard. ALL of them have broken limbs along with the pine tree in the back yard. A lot of old trees around here and you could hear them all last night breaking. I am hoping we will continue to have electricity through tomorrow, but I fear for the worse because of the latest weather forecast I just saw. Man do I have my work cut out for me later in the week clearing down limbs. I feel real sorry for my next door neighbor. The tree in my front yard took down her power lines into the street. The same tree we tried to get the power company to trim back in the spring. Go figure. I might try and post a pic later.

I just read about it a few minutes ago. Thank the Lord on this one for sure.

Just really caught this last night. Terrible thing to imagine. I pray for his safe return. Doesn't sound like a kid how would go out on his own without someone knowing about it. I know I will be on the lookout around my own area, I hope everyone takes that kind of attitude also.

Anything BUT the 1/16th size. Small creek and I normally don't go any bigger than 1/32.

You don't have to ditch the flyrod if you don't really want to. I have seen guys using 8-9" rods down there. They had to roll cast everytime in some places, but they did alright. I strictly spin fish because that is all I care to do or want to do. I also jig fish and some people don't get into that so I don't really have many suggestions for you. Rooster tails use to do the trick until I mastered the jigs. I LOT of people use powerbait down there too. Sorry I can't help out much on lure selection, but I can show you some spots when we hook-up.

Look forward to it drew. I have to work M-F so I only have the weekends to fish anymore. Actually, Sunday is the best day for me to go. There is no closed season on Hickory as far as I know. Hopefully we will get some more rain so the trout can be spread out more. They are very sucseptable(sp?) to netting from our brethen of southern descent if you know what I mean. That problem does exist still down on Hickory. Capps was actually looking pretty good a couple of weeks ago, but you never know in a couple of months. Just let me know when.

Great day indeed for fishing! Saw 3 hawks and 2 bald eagles on the trip down this morning for what must have been good luck. Arrived about 8:30 and instead of fishing down at the 3rd zone, like I normally do, I decided to pull in by the cleaning station and start there at the hole before the C&R area. Not much luck for the first few minutes and had one guy ask me if I was "tearing them up" and I just laughed and said no because things were going slow. Changed colors several times and ended up throwing an olive color and caught one small dink so I stuck with the color. Moved up a couple of holes and threw into the foam at the top of the run and WHAM! A nice 16" or 17" finally came to hand. Wow, that was cool, so I fished a little more in that hole and nothing more. Not even a strike, but some lookers so again I stayed with the same jig. Moved to another hole and casted right into the foam again. You guessed it, I hooked into a nice fish again. The guy I was talking to earlier helped me with a net on this one because I needed it! This fish was right around 20" maybe 19" and fought hard and long. After releasing her ( although I had to revive this one for awhile ) I thanked him and told him "I'm tearing them up now"! What a day. Already 45 minutes into the day and I had landed 2 nice fish. I was pumped now. I moved on to several other holes though and didn't have any more success. Lost the "killer" jig and of course that was my last of that color with me. Went on up to the outlets and kept switching colors until I started catching some fish again. Ginger was the ticket this time. Normally I don't like ginger, only because it has never really produced for me. Until now that is. Wind had picked-up and it had started to get cooler out I thought. Went up to the hole between the road and the first outlet or the first hole and started to fish it. Got quite a few looks, but no real takers. Then I saw a nice big fish out in the middle of the pool. The wind started to chop the water and I threw out right in front of her. I no more than started to jig or swim the jig right in front of her and she slammed it! Another big fish right at the 20" mark for the day. By now I was STOKED! Went and ate and by now was about ready to leave although I wanted to fish some more. Headed down to the 3rd zone and fished some more. Never really caught anymore fish except one. Another large fish around the 18" mark this time. All together I only caught six fish, but four were over 16". All in all it was a seeewwweeettt fishing day!

Sounds great! Wish I could go.

drew, look me up. I live about three blocks away.

Trust me Steve, I switched colors quite a bit. More so than I normally have to. I was also fishing p-line premium in #4 low vis green. That has a small diameter to throw the 1/64th ounce jigs, but your analysis of the educated fish and clear water is probably right.

Like this?

Ended up going after all and I must say the fishing was a little tough to say the least. The first two hours I was there I only managed one and it wasn't very big. I started down in zone 3 at the end and worked my way upstream hole to hole. I tried a whole slew of different colors and the only fish was caught on ginger. After 11:00 I decided to move up to the upper end of the park by the hatchery. Finally I started to catch fish by fishing the outlets. Ended up catching over a dozen up there doing that on an olive color. Had my chances at two nice fish, but you know the deal, you sometimes only get that one chance. Nice fish number one was a hook-up for about three seconds before it became airborne and spit out the jig. Fish number two was a big male that turned for the jig and inhaled it for that split second and I missed. oh well, fishing seemed to be tough for many people I talked to. Just glad to get out and do some fishing while I had time off.

uuuuhhhhmmmm, will have to think about this one,

I'll be down there on Friday if anyone wants to hook-up and let a spin fisherman join the crowd. I'll be down early and driving the old blue s-10 extended cab wearing a green Corona hat. I might even have a cold one I'll share with ya.

MoCarp, compared to MANY other streams in this area the pollution is bad. Check out the PPM on some of the bacteria with some of the stream teams and then tell me otherwise. Of course I must admit I don't like fishing somewhere near a wastewater treatment plant and maybe thats why I really don't like fishing Shoal that much. I mean it is literally 5 minutes from my house and I only fished it once last year. JMO though. I do know there are many big fish in there though and wasn't in no means trying to knock anyone who fishes it.

I think I just deleted your email on yahoo. PM me next time on this site. Where are you now? Shoal runs quite some ways, but there are better spots than others. I personally don't fish it very often due to better spots around here. Shoal does have some nice fish, but there is also a LOT of pollution in that stream. Well, at least around Neosho and Joplin. I really haven't put enough time on the creek to know where all the "good spots" are, but I do know where put-ins and take-outs are.

I'm sure that's a go also. There are signs put up by Game & Commision that tell about length and creel limit over by Parker Bend and I have heard of others catching them that far upstream.

The first time I caught one, dad called it a dog fish. Has anyone else heard them called that or was my dad just full of it?

"rainbow trout at capps reproduce naturally". That is one you would have to prove to me.

There are some spots on Capps you can get by with a fairy wand and some you can't! You just have to know where to go. Try a little walking and you'll discover where the fish are. I'm a spin fisherman kind of guy personally, but I have seen others using flyrods down there before so I know it can be done. As far as the truck goes.......you just have to know the right people on that one. They don't publish that info in papers, radio, or the net.