Old plug

Wrench is right. I have built a few large crappie beds in my area. I have watched people come buy these places and map them on their finder. They come back and cannot catch crappie. Many times it is because they are in the right place at the wrong time. The other big thing is they get way to close. In my experience just because you see them does not mean they are going to catch them. I use mine to look for structure now and then. The finder is never going to fish for you. There is a lot of things between the seeing and the catching. I would rather know those things.

What gets me is 90% of the people in the state of Missouri have never seen cotton mouth or evan knows what they look like. Summer people come out here to the lake go nuts every time some little water snake swims by their dock. I THINK I only seen one in my life in Mingo many years ago. Rattle snakes I have seen plenty of a few right here in my yard. Wife opened a small hose locker a few years go and one just missed her hand. It was a little thing about 12 inches long. I was told she was lucky because a tiny rattle snake contains more powerful concentrated venison than the adult version. It is the way nature give them a better chance at survival early in life. There is sure worse things in Missouri. Black Widow and Recluse spiders are 2

We have a man here that has been collecting lures rods and reels for over 40 year. How does has over 16000 lures, over 6000 realls and I have no idea how many rods. He is a bit on the shy side of showing any of it. considering the value of lot of that stuff I do not blame him.

I go along with Wrench. I am sick and tired of the water level management. Since last Saturday they have pulled the lake down. It is not far from winter pool. I know it has really fouled up the white bass run in the Gravois. I think the MDC should be stepping in. Dredging out the creek at the end of the Gravois arm would help I believe. As far as BBB goes you would be just as well served going to casino. The winners versus losers might be even better in a casino.

A friend was rummaging around in his basement and found a bag of 25 of the large sized wine colored Flip Tail worms that dated all the way back to the Mid 60's. You could still read the price tag. It was $9 and something. Only change in them over about 50 yrs was they have taken a slight set but straighten out again. I tried one and it caught fish just like it did long ago. Over the years I have become less and less concerned about Plastic worm color. The big thing it seems to me is action or lack of that counts and the odor and how they are fished. I use a lot of Big bite 9/12 inch worms,Net bait in the same size plus Zoom Old monster, and Big Dead Ringer. GITNBY------ Almost everything I have lots of brown and watermelon brown mixes

I want to tell you guys something about wrench Not only is he a very knowledgable fisherman he is one of the few people I ever knew that is tuned in to the fishes wave length. That is something few people possess. I know I don't. Hell I can't even stay connected to my own wave length at my age. I can remember one time fishing with him and we were going along this bank with Rogues. This one spot was just like all the rest we had been passing. We both had made cast with no results. I was about to kick the trolling motor to move us on. Wrench said "no hold it there is a fish there I just feel it". Well he made about 3 more cast to that same spot and sure enough he catches a real nice keeper. You do not learn that it is something your born with I believe. I have not fished with Him in years. I am a loner for the most part because I like the solitude for concentration.

I bought a Arbogast Mud Bug in 1968 when they first came on the market in 1968. It was plain brown with black strips and it caught its share of fish. We used to call that kind of bait bottom bumpers instead of crank baits. It has a metal bill and plated hooks. I really liked it and fished during my time floating. Those old lures took a lotos punishment being beat them rocks rocky bottoms. I fished it in lakes for awhile also before arthritis got to me and I had to stop using any bait that you needed to bang out a lot of cast and retrieved with higher resistance.

Was That in the Gravois or out in the main lake. Only place I fished for them in the gravois this past year. were places above Tony's point on the Gravois. I did get one 10 on a spoon mid spring. But nothing else. But i need to admit after a few times and a bunch of channels I stopped even trying. But I will test it again this year. Only way i fish them is with spoons and sometimes with hunks of shad on the spoon.

I cannot really relate to you gardeners on here. I am a total ornamental gardener. Do not even like to eat veggies. At one time I had a collection of over 100 species of Hosta , a small collection of Huechera [ corral bells] , planted 2-3 hundred inpatients every year and god only know how much other stuff. It has gotten to be way to much and we are cutting back on several things. I still however relate to the work you go through and the animal problems, building good soil, and about any other thing that relates to the ground. Wrench---- This is for your lovely wife. Around our area around most places you cannot start a new garden. First off You got to get rid of the rocks. I have a 30lb railroad pry bar I used for that a lot. She is welcome to borrow it anytime. Then you will find out that wonderful looking black soil that is left is so deficient of the proper balance and nutrients it is about useless. What you have to do then is build things up. That is costly and time consuming ,in the case of some things like Turkey compost that I use. Then after that the animals will be after what you have left. I give Ed Bryant a hosta are two every year for his garden host garden. Last year the deer destroyed the whole thing in one night.

Seth---- I did not know that. I will be checking it out for sure. But last summer I had been out a couple times looking and all I could catch was Channels. I had a note from Wrench saying he was having the same problem. I did catch one about 10 lbs off a very tiny node off of coffins beach mid spring. Maybe I just did not keep at it long enough this past year. I made no attempt in the fall what so ever. I also have not heard of anyone busting big blues above Cedar Point. I have juggers out there pretty regular and from my deck I have not seen much action.I watch them a lot when I am hvi g my c offer or BBQing. Strange isn't it.

I use one but do not like to. I only started last year. Skin gets thinner as you age and you will have trouble. But as real pretty as my dermatologist is I do not like her burning and scraping things off my arms and head. Just how many of you sun lovers are over 75.

I have 700 watts of low voltage bulbs on my dock. That can be pretty bright. I just spent $100 for a 1150 lumens submersible. We will see The other above water though seem to do the job. My son and his wife caught over 70 crappie one night last summer. All from one stall. The reason I changed Is i hate the bugs all over you with dock ceiling lights.

I just got back from setting up my battery chargers. I am thinking this next rain tomorrow is going to be warm. Cannot keep me off the water when that happens. It can be a wonderful day of catching bass all sizes and crappie as well. I am really tired of building and painting birdhouses and yard work. Im going.

There you go Mr BILL. You encourage these young people to spend their money. A rich fella like you does not see $60k as much at all. A lot of these young guys on here got young families and the responsibility of providing a roof over there head and good nutrias food in their mouths. I really worry for young families. With the state of this country and world. They could be broke faster than and in deep dodo in a matter of a couple boat payments. I really think they should be thinking about that before a $60k overpriced boat to be cool.

We have not seen many good blues up in the Gravois the past couple of years. They can be suckers in the fall of the year for spoons fished under frenzy feeding schools of white bass. When the whites feed they slash through those schools and they kill about twice as many as they eat. Big blues will lay on the bottom and just open there mouth like a vacuum cleaner and just scoop them up. Fishing for them on purpose in that situation can be about one of the most exciting and also heart breaking things you can do on LOZ with lighter tackle. I usually forget about the whites and start searching for the big blues. They show up on the flasher as blobs rather than arches. When I find one I drop the spoon down right close to him and just beat it off the bottom with small jiggles. I have caught them to 48lbs doing this. and many over 10lbs on 12 lb test line. I always think of it as a poor mans salt water fishing. Sorry to say it has not been that good in the Gravois this past couple of years. I tended to agree with Wrench on this because off the shape of that head. As soon as I seen the picture I thought Channel Cat. Something about the overall shape in that photo.

Dave .....it is listed in other Missouri Waters. You know in with the inferior areas. Dave Understall...... You have a point there. I cannot blame anyone from showing pride in there area. A lot of these posters on here believe they live in unpolluted gods country. But they are having problems in their own lakes.. I can guarantee you they will not get better either. But I do not like to see anyone making remarks about other areas that are not true. Most making those remarks do not understand the workings of such things as Septic tanks versus ground water an how it travels thru the earth. Or just plainly toooo many people polluting one way or another. I live lake front on LOZ. They are trying to deal with our problem. In my area we have full sewers that cost me $60 a month. I am happy to pay it too. As to any Association with SE Mo and Clearwater Lake. I love the entire area. I had friends on Clearwater. My cousins daughter also owned Choania Landing on Wappapello at one time. Jerry.....I Know you knew John Earnie. I was just wondering if you ever fished crappie with him or seen him out there using a 9ft yellow 1 piece spinning rod for crappie fishing. I made that rod for him way back in the 60s. There were only three of them. That one one I made for another friend and mine. I made them from salt water fly rod blanks. Way Way before the rods they make today for crappie fishing. We used them to stand off from crappie beds and cast out with and fish bobbers 4-6 ft under the cork.

Jerry tell this Lansing Kansas cowboy a even harder to believe tale Tell him the story about the stringer of Bass Frank Mc Callister brought in one time. This is from the days when we still had a 10 bass limit. I was a limit and and the smallest one on there was 5 1/2 and they went to 8 from over 8 from there. Sorry dave none were caught on anything like the ned rig though there were plenty of little plastic junk around then too.

I have caught bass and crappie on a bare hook about 1/2 dozen times time while searching for hidden brush piles back in the day before fish flashers. Fish might bite on anything. Ned is nothing more than a variation off a jig. The jig is the most productive lure ever made. Trouble with a lot of people they keep searching for some miracle lure and there is no such thing. Find just a small selection and learn to use them. The thing that I did not like about some of the ned heads they claimed they had a something that was a answer to all your dreams. Sound a whole lot like high pressure sales to me. I personally do not like the Z man plastic I have lost a few fish with it on some of those baits because the hook did not come thru the soft plastic. A few time is a few times to many for me to tolerate. And as far as the wiggle goes. If thats what you want you should try tying a strip of rabbit fur on the shank of a ned head jig. It kid a lot tuffer than the plastic and every bit as fluid.

I will tell you all something about confidence in a lure. I have a friend has a lot of confidence in this little plastic worm about 6 1/2 inches long that has not been made in several years. But his confidence was such that he bought 7000 of this things all in motor oil color from the manufacture about 22-23 yrs ago and even today he is catching a lot of bass on them. He and his wife caught over 11 bass last year over 5 lbs on that little worm. Its not the worm its his confidence in it and his ability to get the most out of it. As strange as it seems I could never warm up to that worm. All mine are at least 9 1/2 inches and up and I do not care what the color is though using one in dark brown dark green or some mixture of those two does spark my confidence more.

I am 76 and been ant this fishing since I was about 5 yrs old. I really do not care to carry a bunch of lures with me at this stage of my life. I have learned to use to use just a few very well. If the fish do not want to hit my baits for some rare reason it does not bother me. I am content just to be fishing. I just think that if you can understand and use a few types very well you will save yourself a lot of fishing time and destruction of your confidence.

X 2 But I think it will catch more crappie than bass right now. Crittermo---- If your out of Rocky Mount your already in what is commonly called the north shore area. I had home in Lick Branch Cove for sometime before I moved up here on the Gravois. There and many many North shores. Remember the sun is farther south and cast more sun on the banks facing south. Just look for them and try them. But do not fall in love with those type try others as well.

Terrierman --- I spent a weekend at some resort down there several years ago for my sons bachelor party. I do not even remember the name. My sons future brother in law rented several cabins for the party for the weekend. I did not fish that time. I did go down on the dock at night and watched several people pulling trout out left and right under lights. I think they were using something like crappie nibbles. If there is no houses across from falls creek I have no idea where it is. I seen pictures of the house were going to rent and I do hope it was worth the $750 I paid for the place for the couple days were going to be there. If I do fish it will be by rolling small plastics over the bottom. I will check on that. But after a day keeping up with those grandkids I think I will be more than happy to sit on the deck and drink coffee.

No I will not be below fall creek as I understand it the house is right across the lake from fall creek. My grandkids are 4 and 5 years old. What do you mean by legally???? I never fish illegally. And I have only been to Taneycomo. Is there some restriction above Falls Creek. I have never heard that there was some kind of restrictions above falls creek. Somebody tell you Illigal fish or is that your own assumption.

Your right I jumped the gun. When I seen from the bank and knew it was in a river it brought back some fond memories. There use to be a hole many year ago just on the inside of the mouth of the Huzzah Creek. It was a shallow wide shoal then just dropped straight down into a hole about about 8 ft deep. In the winter the Rainbows would move down the Huzzah all the way to the mouth of the creek. By accident I caught one of the first trout I ever caught casting a purple and pink old creme worm( that shows how many years ago that was) into that shoal and letting it roll into that hole. I did that almost every time I was in that area in the winter. I never caught many trout but I caught a few real nice ones. If I was that guy and did something like that on the White River I would keep it handy in the back of my mind. I am going to Taney in May to take my grand kids to Silver Dollar City. If I fish at all it will be from the bank near Falls Creek where we rented a house. If I do fish you can bet I might be rolling some standard bass sized plastic over the bottom hoping for a big trout.

You all seem to have the impression it was a total fluke. I did not see any post describing him as a beginner, or catching something he was not targeting. How do you know it was just a lucky fluke. I just have a notion he may very well knew exactly what he was doing. I just wonder if maybe he fishes for larger Trout. He might just well have a system there. I did see a post that said it was caught on a plastic worm. I can just picture him standing there casting that worm up stream and just letting it roll natural over thee bottom and drop off into that hole. I would not be surprised if the plastic worm was at least 7 inches long either. I am not saying he targeted this fish. But if he targets large trout anything can happen when that worm or jig drops off into that hole.