Old plug

Years ago when when parties in canoes was new. I used to watch people navigate through outside bends and other root filled obstructions without a care in the world. It has always made me wonder why more people do not drown now day. I have seen 16 ft Jon boats sucked into root wads and broken in half and spit out the other side by current. There is nothing I respect more on a moving current than a obstruction like a root wad or anything else you can be swept into and trapped. A few years ago we went with a large group from our lodge tubing on the current river. I would not go into any shoot I could not see through or any shoot with a bend and root wads in that tube. I would get out of the tube and tie a rope onto my wife's tube And walk us through. Well we went a couple miles and we all came into a blind shoot all bunched up with the beer coolers and what have you and I just knew there was going to be a pile up. There were a few comments about me being chicken. But they rammed into a big root wad and several of them got slammed on it on top of one another. Nobody drowned. Do not think they realized how darn close they came to it. Rivers big are small are living things. I do not care how well you paddle but you better not loose your respect for the moving water and its capabilities.

Yeah there are not many. The one I mentioned was the first trout I ever caught. I just rolled a little creme plastic worm over the edge of a drop off into a hole and there I was. I never caught a decent trout after that in my life until the last trout I ever caught period fishing with wrench one time down at Bennett springs.

Huzzah is my old stomping grounds. As well as the Meramec. Wife's family has been in the Leasburg area since about 1815. I have caught trout in the the huzzah as far down as its mouth in the late fall and early spring. I thought they stopped stocking them. I caught a rainbow down there one time in November about 2 lbs rolling a small plastic worm over the bottom. I think the they come down father if the weather chills the water enough.

Thieves are low life. But they are good at what they do. I remember onetime down on wappapello at holiday landing they stole 3 or 4 heavy 150hp outboards right off the back of bass sitting in the docks. Can you imagine how they must have done that. They had to have a boat with a winch among other things.

Your chances of recovery are almost nil. I bet they sold all of them real fast. They go around the clubs a bars and fences they are known in and the stuff is gone in a couple if hours. I know it happened to me some years ago.

In my younger day I used to fish the Meramec river a lot from the bird nest to Onandaga Cave. At that time there was a old man that was a true ozarkian. Lived his entire life and raised his family in a log cabin on a hill above Onandaga. He used to make these real float boats that were very narrow but up to over 20 ft long. He used to build them then set them in the river and they would about mostly sink until the boards swelled and you could bail them out. They were nothing but a fine river boat for floating. Those boats were HEAVY. As heavy as they were you could set those things through a riffle easier than a canoe any day. They had a sluggish response to that I felt comfortable with. It was slow but smooth. I had a 18 ft freighter canoe years later that I never liked as well as those old wooden boats. Worst thing about them as far as I am concerned was getting them onto a flatbed trailor for a haul back.

All I know is what I see in nature around me. We have had a few birds at the feeders that we had never seen before and they were not suppose tobe this Far East. Then there are the armadillos. I never seen a live armadillo till about 3 yrs ago. But since then I have shot several. 5 or 6 last year alone. There sure is something going on and it seems to have been going on for the past several years.

I have seen what seems to be some improvement in catfish fishing on the lake. The other morning I seen a guy with 5 real nice channel cat he caught that morning in the next cove. I do not fish for them except with family members off the dock with bait. But I do truly love to catch them in the fall under feeding white bass on spoons. I believe that the big blue cats follow the white bass up on points and when the white bass slash feed as they do the blues sort of go along under them lie some vacuuming cleaner. That is about the only time I really use my fish flasher. I have caught catfish up to 48 lbs on 10 lb test doing that. I use a steel leader. I learned the hard way not to. I call it the poor man deep sea fishing.

I have tried cotton seed cake when I fished on sloughs above St. Louis. I think it is far inferior to about anything else you can find. Here on lake of the Ozark's shad without a doubt the king of catfish bait with chicken parts coming in close behind. I have not touched a trot line in many years, but I would have misgivings about setting a line on the bottom. I would think you could snag and loose the whole line like that.

I go along with OLD WRENCH. He was a very accomplished bass fisherman around LOZ . I want to add that most of the real good fisherman I know or not just bass fisherman they are just good all around fisherman that have pent most of there life at it. If you have any dreams of fame and fortune you need to understand your going to have a lot of frustration, disappointment and other things that come with fishing with bunch of guys who want the same fame and fortune you do. I have very little tournament fishing. Very quickly I learned I did not want to deal with the stress it cased me. I get my share of bass and if I don't. Well it is no big stressful deal.

I have 2or 3 lures I will use year around and on occasion I will use something else. The three are a jig, trick worms including those like whacky and regular plastic worms. I have been using these for years and understand all the angles with them very well. At my age I tend to fish how and when I want. I rarely spend more than a few hours on the lake. If the fish do not bite I will just go home drink coffee on my deck or work in my garden. Fishing to me is for enjoyment. I am not into all the malarkey that goes on today.

That looked like it was a on partition ski boat. I never seen them going to fast. It looked to me like tour typical summer people boater. Come done to OLS next weekend and park yourself out in the middle of the lake around horseshoe bend somewhere and I can guarantee you these drunks ,or kids or whatever would look very mild indeed.

That is he absolute truth fishinwrench. I think that is way better way to describe this whole time if the year. I seem to have a problem keeping it simple. Maybe they are on the beds someplace but not in my area. But I have not talked to anyone up in town who has seen any on the beds either. Myself I do not fish for them if I see them on beds. Listen to this guy fishinwrench . He was a very very good bass fisherman before he turned to the fly rod full time. And yeah you can foul yourself up with electronics and a lot of the technical stuff. It tends to get in the way of establishing a pattern. Fishinwrech I sen my owl evening before last flying around overt there, She did not come close and I was disappointed. I sort of though she might be in love with me.

No the LMB are not even building beds yet. And this cold front coming through will not help. I have been fishing the channel banks for two weeks and I have yet to see a bed. There is a lot if hoes in the mossy bottom and I think people believe that they are seeing spawning beds. I have caught a abnormal amount if 13-14 inch Kentucky bass this year. Their color tells me they were very close to a spawn. A few f the LMB were dark also. But I have seen only one with a sore tail and I am not a bit sure it was from spawning activity. It just did not look right to me. I also caught a big female evening before last that was in spawning color but the other big ones I caught were not. I will about bet on a week to 10 days.

I like the bass BPS brand of tournament series whacky worms but I am just liable to put anything plastic in the tackle box on the line and use the same technique. They are not my go to 12 months a year. I do not worry much about the color just dark or light shades. I do have a few pink and green however for real low light periods. Wacky worms and trick worms take a lot of practice to be to understand them and really be effective with them. There are so many variations to the system of fishing them. The past 2 weeks I have been fishing them off channel banks that lead to spawning areas. I have been fishing them with a slow drop as As deep as at least 10 ft. It is a tedious thing to do and take a couple of minutes for a retrieve. It works that way for me. Lot of the fish I catch or not right on the bank either. But I make my cast to the bank and work the wacky back and down.

Well I do not really want them to sink any faster. I work them very very slowly thru the water. So anything that adds weight is out for me. I have a couple of those Z-Man things. I left a package down in the dock locker and they were pretty stuck together when I looked at them this spring. Another thing about them I tried them and a few times that plastic balled up and interfered with the hook set. Mitch f that would be a nice thing. But your never going to see a manufacture do that. They would not sell as many. RSI Breth. When I am using them I use a lot if them plus magnum magnum type plastics of this sort. For about 3 or 4 weeks in the spring I fish with almost nothing else but this type of thing.

This is my first year trying them and I must say the jury is out. I am almost sure they have cost me fish. I have tried them with different sized hooks and experimenting with the rings. I put two ring on and cries crossed them then inserted the hook between the cross area. It made the hook right angle to the worm and I hoped eliminated the situation where the hook winds up under the worm making a hook set impossible. Trouble with the two crossed rings is that it is pretty rigid but can still turn over and wind up on the bottom of the worm in the jaws of the bass ending any hope for a hook set. I am about to throw in the towel on them.i really believe they interfere with many hook ups.

Jmes Someone said there are stages to a fisherman. First he want to fish.Then he wants to catch big fish. Then he want to catch certain fish and finally he just likes to go fishing. The last stage is where I am at. I catch my share but return them to the water.that includes crappie as well. You cannot really hide a place you catch bass on the Gravois. There are some pretty good fishermen favor fishing that arm for pleasure including the Hibdon family. I think you got deeper than most fisherman around here do right now when you were fishing. I know I have been avoiding it because I was so frustrated with the moss. I fished a unweighted trick worn this morning. Caught bass after bass but only 2 keepers. But that is how I am going to fish because I love to do it this time of year. I can use rods you would fish for crappie with and 8-10 lb test line. You can still go behind the docks and handle the big ones but it is tricky and a thrill. My best so far this year was a 23 in LM I caught last week. I do not weigh them I measure them. It is a more accurate way I feel. As an example. Last year I was catching 18 in bass at this time of the year would hardly make 3 1/2 lbs later that summer they were well over 4. Fishwrench has had his experiences with feathered friends. Almost got his butt beat by a sea gull one time.

Yeah I know. But you know I never do tournaments. I think that crazy owl was dead set on taking that wake bait away from me. He never flew in when I was casting it but the minute it was in the water he was all for getting it. I just shouted at him when he dove and he would break off and return to a nearby tree branch and sit there and stare at me. That went on al the way down that very narrow tiny cove st the mouth of Bough Bay I felt like he was saying come in you blankety blank just try it again.

For anyone interested I just got off the upper Gravois about a hour ago. I caught one keeper ( only caught 2) that had a red spot on his tail like he had started fanning a bed. But I don't think we are that close to a spawn the surface temperature this evening was from around 57 to close to 58. When I came in my keel reading was 56. So We got a ways to go. I am hoping for a warm rain later this week. Even as old as I am you cannot keep me off the lake when that happens at this time of the year. It is the time to catch the linkers but if you don't you can have a picnic catching a lot of bass. What the heck is a TX. ??? I do not fish tournaments. Did a few but it was never my cup of tea. At 74 I just like to fish the way I want when I want.

I am on this forum and he madea implied threat in general to any readers. I am one of them.

I was going let this crap pass. But I want this guy to understand I do not like any type of legal threat. I seems clear you are not in public relations down ther in Springfield. Really I do not care what are you or who you are for all in know your Jonny Morris himself. As far as people making statements there is a thing about freedom of speech. Your real sure you want to get involved in " consequence games". There is also a thing about false or misleading advertising. That is another game that has consequences. I was just down there Friday and I think there is something wrong with your employee management relationship. Every time I go down it seems they care less than the time before. I bet I am right. Tell you what I think I am going to do. I think I am going to copy this letter of yours and send it down to Springfield and tell them I do not like being threatened with legal actions because I may express a view. I figure someone somewhere in that organization knows who you are and that you did this. If though you are Mr Morris himself. Well I have been using BPS for many years and do support the store in many ways, but if your going to threaten me forget it.

I have caught really nice bass on the front side if a snow storm twice. But this is something entirely different. A lot depends on the temperature of the rain on LOZ this weekend. We are going to have two days of severe thunderstorms they say. And with a high odd 54 for sat it tells me the rain is going to be cold. I bet the temperature at the spawning level has dropped 5-10 degrees.

Snow would be a disaster for me. I collect hosta plants and have a yard filled with near 100 varieties. At this pint they are already to large to put covers on. A lot of them or sitting within a few feet of LOZ I hope it helps prevent any ice.

Up in that area of the lake is the top end of the lake for both crappie and walleye. They have been catching them at 5 ft since the surface temperature was in the 40's. that is normal for up there. It has a lot t do with the current effect I have been told. The lower like is more effected by the temperature of the water at the spawning level.