mjk86

My fav trout recipe.....Preheat oven. butter, salt, pepper, wrap in foil....place trout fish side down in trash can/dog bowl. Go catch crappie, fillet, bread, fry, salt. YUM!!!! This recipe is also great for salmon, and white bass, as well as a variety of ducks and geese.

I live in valley park. It's really incredible what's happening. Fortunately I live on top of the hill but we are pretty much trapped from going south.

Ya it's messy....the rivers by me have been running very high before all this. Now 8-10inches of rain...flood gates are goin up for sure! Also it seems like flooding should be worse in the winter time when plants aren't actively drawing moisture in. That's totally a guess on my part though. Check ur basements!!!

I think suspend dots are common in warts. My grandpa left me with several old wiggle warts and several of them are the same color with various amounts of lead added.....if you post that pic on the table rock forum someone will tell you the model and color. There are sure few experts that will chime in.

This is as good a place as any......I fish forest park on my lunch break if the weather is nice...which it has been amazing for december. One of my most productive decembers in terms of fishing....not so much deer/woodland critter killing. :/ Anyhoo...in the spring and fall i can usually go up there and catch a few in the 45min i have. Summer and winter not much, although ive had some exceptions. Fish there are surprisingly good size, never any giants, but usually good 15-18inch fish. Summer and fall i always use topwaters, but in october i switch to a jerkbait, as they stopped eating a topwater for me. I was able to get them consistently on jerkbait up until december, then that just totally quit. I probably went up there 5 times using jerkbaits and swimbaits and not a bite. The other day i decided to switch to a jig.....nothing....then a flutter spoon....nothing...finally i switched over to a redeye shad and picked up a few, including one nice one around 18inches. I find it odd that they wont hit a jerkbait, but will happily eat a lipless bait....seems like it would be the other way around as the water cooled...shows what i know! The trout guys are catching fish one after the other, its wild. I even got in on the fun with one i caught on a jerkbait. Caught another one on a swimbait.

Keitech swing impact Fat, Keitech swing impact, Keitech easy shiner, Lake fork lures book tail shad. I dont use an arig, but one of my favs is a 4-5inch swing impact on a collarless jig head with a dab of super glue. Yes, they are fragile, but they work just about anywhere/time/and species.....personal favorite is a 5.8inch fat in bluegill flash.

Lol at megaprice! Hopefully a 30 dollar lure comes equipped with good hooks...

Awesome!! Love the giant bobber cooler too. A must have.

what about a lipless or sinking/countdown crankbait? or even a casting spoon.

This works very well for crappie....I'll do a 1/64 or 1/32 and 2.5 inch trailer behind a trout fly or bug. Doubles happen pretty frequently! I'm no musky fisherman....but I've almost changed my mind after a big one blew up on a crappie I was reeling in. Definitely a heart stopper.

depending on growth rates too i think the smaller ones eat better.....at least thats what ill tell myself to justify cleaning a bunch of 9 inch fish....haha.

Those are great little lures for crappie, they are a bit larger, and obviously good durability. One problem is that the tail doesnt kick at nearly as slow a speed as a swing impact.....ive yet to find a swimbait that kicks like a swing impact even at painfully slow speeds. If they are willing to hit a faster moving bait, then these are def good lures.

I bought two lews reels a few years ago and I like em. I can cast a pretty small bait a good long ways. Like others I don't understand all the brakes and such. I turn everything to zero/off and just use my thumb. I do backlash but not too often anymore.

holy cow those are some giants!! Wish i could find some of those!

well heck just do that....just about every spinning rod made has a 2pc version.

trebles i use are death traps, or gammy round bent size 4 or 6, usually a combo of 4s and 6s will do the trick. Im not sure the split ring size. It does take some effort, A small scale helps tremendously. Also...Im a paint formulator and work in a lab with automotive 2k polyurethanes, which are less dense usually. Especially the clear that I use because I have it modified with rubber/wax and silicone to enhance deflection off of structure....Yes, i know..i put way too much thought into fishing....These variables all mean that i ended up having to put larger split rings on to get them to suspend right. I guess i could have used lead strips or something, but it never crossed my mind at the time. A word to those who do this regularly.....Painting lures needs to be done in a VERY well ventilated area. Yes a respirator will help as long as there is sufficient oxygen...but honestly it needs to be done in a booth with very good draw. The older fellas that I work with, that have been spraying paint for 40 years all hack and cough and the sinuses/allergies are all mucked up. Breathing in organic solvent vapors all the time for years is dangerous...for obvious reasons.

Can you not bring a 2 pc spinning rod on a plane?

Thanks guys. Those are are a few of the best ones..obviously I didn't show you the ruined ones lol. Also I can't do crawfish patterns they are way more difficult than minnow patterns.

Well since gas=plastic and we just burn it all into the sky...Eventually, when there can be no more plastics made we will be digging it all back out of landfills. So rest assured It will all be recycled one day no matter what. It all came from oil which we will run out of. Fortunately since plastic doesn't degrade quickly it will just be waiting for us underneath miles of dirty diapers. Same goes for rare earth metals. They will be dug up and extracted from waste when rich ores are exhausted. Fortunately in st Louis city and in south county it's all single steam and I just throw everything in one bucket. That's the key to recycling imo if recycling is as easy as throwing something away people will do it. If not they they won't.

Good point....i generally will use the 64th oz jig for less than 15fow....any deeper than that and ill bump it up. Bob Bennett (stockton guide service) fishes for crappie in the winter using a 16th oz jig sometimes over 50 ft deep. Thats a bit of a stretch for me. The 2 inch swing impacts you get 12 per bag, so its not too terrible....need lots of super glue, and fortunately crappie are gentler than bass....although bass do love em and rip em up in a hurry.....they are by far the most effective swimmin minnow lure ive come across and ive tried them all and then some. Another good one is the 2.25 inch lake fork lures boot tail baby shad...although still doesnt get the bites the swing impact does, in my experience.

I ordered a few, yes they require a bit of work to get them to suspend right, but its not difficult. Plus, as was mentioned water temperature and such also has an effect, so you will just have to experiment. I painted 4 of them....the pearl white was much heavier, as white is TiO2 and very dense, so it needs smaller split rings and a smaller tail treble. The others are nearly identical. In order for perfect suspension youll have to tinker on the water...but remember that youll only achieve it again at that same water temp, and line size/composition. All that said....its insanity to pay 30$ for a stupid megabass jerkbait, when you can get these, and paint em for 1/10th the price.

I'll even go so far as a 64th oz no collar jig with a 2in swing impact and a dab o glue. The slower the fall the better imo for crappie.

Great lures. I have a box of old ones. My grandpa would troll them with a 3 way rig. A short leader to the plug and a long leader to a nungesser spoon. It worked!

I'm not a wart thrower the ones I have I acquired and ur right they sit in the basement. I think I may have even sold a few to Alex....nice work guy glad to see their gettin use. Also worth nothing....companies that deal with molten plastics have a hell of a time keeping everything consistent. Meaning quality control sucks. The same plastic will have vastly different properties depending on injection temperatures, cooling rates, and cooling distribution. The same goes for paint...there was and still is quite a bit of variation lure to lure it was just way worse 30 years ago. I imagine it's exacerbated by the fact that they are 5 dollar baits to begin with. it's all in our heads.....just has to have a touch of purple.

This is incredible. I like the really wild paint jobs on some of them like the bottom center two.