knuck

Thanks for the follow up.

Assuming this is long gone?

Absolutely do not want to deny anyone their own avenue of enjoyment on the water but do not get the wake board crowd. Second year in a row we have had several boats rafted up and anchored waaay in the back of Jackson Hollow along with many other anchored boats and these guys just come back there and apparently have no clue as to the havoc they are causing, we actually had some ropes bust and it pushed the entire flotilla towards shore. So they just don't give a darn about anyone else, they are trying to entertain us(show off) or they are simply clueless. Maybe on the dash right in front of the driver there could be an additional informational/warning statement regarding responsibility for their wake. Never happen, just a thought but man some of these guys are extreme meatheads.

Had a group of buddies heading down to a resort in Aunts Creek for a little resort derby this past weekend knowing it could be a bust considering the forecast. Overall from Thursday afternoon till Sunday morning the water came up 10 feet give or take. Most of you reading this already know that but to be there and see it happen first hand is amazing. Saturday night alone it came up about 6 feet, it was ridiculous as we sat on the deck watching various reference points disappear under water. We could still walk to the dock at 8PM but at 8AM Sunday there was roughly 4 feet of water over the walkways. Bob the owner has two docks and their were still about 20 boats or so in slips because of the severe storms that rolled in about 1:30 Saturday. He came out Sunday morning at 7:45 with his swimsuit on and tow straps in hand, got both docks pulled in and everyone dealt with the extra aggravation of limited access pretty well while loading rigs. The fishing was good to very good Thursday & Friday for everyone and just decent on Saturday. When we arrived the water level was around 918.8, we fished in roughly 10-15 FOW with the Neds and it seemed most anywhere on the lake worked as long as that depth was maintained. Loads of Smallies. Caught quite a few fish on an abbreviated derby day but the only keeper we saw was lost at the boat. Several 6 fish limits weighed in and the total weight was roughly 13 Lbs. with a 3.32 big fish. Just really feel bad for the resort owners and anyone else that make a living on or near the water, the extra work involved with the flooding and getting ready for the summer season has to be somewhat overwhelming. Hoping the sky's clear and the water drops ASAP.

Last one I promise, forgot to show what we thought was a tooth mark on the reverse side.

Maybe Rapala will replace the shad rap, that big guy just destroyed it. Was surprised the Trilene XL 4 lb. held up, through the entire fight I thought the fish would bust that line. At one point the drag was just ripping for what seemed like an eternity, we were drifting on the inside bend above Lilley's which as most of you know is loaded with timber, the current was running and it felt like he wrapped me up but then all of a sudden he was shooting out towards the middle again and gave me a little more hope we would get him in. Still riding that high and will be for a while.

Steve here, both the fish & myself made it and thanks for the concern. I think my buddy & net man Kirt had a tougher time through the ordeal, I could not hear a thing since my heart was pounding so hard but he claims he was making a huge racket because he could not catch his breath, hyperventilating I guess. Just an amazing experience, something I'll enjoy playing back in my mind forever. Want to send a huge shoutout to everyone at Lilley's, this was the 35th year of the Boswell Memorial Tournament which has been at Lilley's Landing since 1990 and everyone there puts in a great effort to make sure we are all taken care of and in doing so provide a fantastic event for us. Thanks to all! As to the triploid..... Phil, Ryan, Duane & Curtis put in a huge effort to get this guy safely weighed, measured and back in the water. Made my day guys, really appreciate it.

Phil I had to read the 1st sentence several times, just can't imagine you're the type of guy that would fish in his B-day suit........all kidding aside those are some colorful rainbows. Steve in STL

Phil we actually only trolled the last 1 1/2 - 2 hours to try and fill the livewells, our shoulders, elbows, backs were sore from throwing countdowns for 2 days so trolling seemed the obvious choice to finish off the day and catch a few. That keeper brown was Kirt's 1st fish of the day on a countdown below Fall Creek, my rainbow was caught on one of your jigs just below Branson. We only had 7 fish to weigh, we tossed off several 6-8 inch fish early on "knowing" we would have no problem filling the tanks, we're both glad it didn't cost us. I'll bet we caught 30-40 nice but short browns, 15-20 on Saturday. Thanks to all of your family & staff for putting on a great tournament and taking care of us. Steve

Make it 6

Watcha talkin bout here, I thought it was already established on these here forums that corporate america always has the best interest of the environment, including the air we breath, water we drink and soil we plant in at its fundamental core of business decisions. I shared some similar comments over on the 60 Trillion Dollar global warming cost post. Hey I'm not always on the EPA bandwagon but North Saint Louis just had a victory due to the EPA nailing down the former "owners & operators" of the former Carter Carburetor plant which I believe has been on the Superfund site list for nearly 3 decades or more. It seems the "former owners & operators" had a very complex corporate structure which made it difficult to pin down who was responsible for the clean up. Imagine that. But as long as there are people collecting paychecks, pollute away. And as to those enviro-whackos might as well put a bounty on their heads. Steve in STL

I get it, read many of Justins posts, he's passionate about his views. It is totally understandable why so many people get riled up over enviromental issues when a good portion of people won't even recognize obvious problems, dismiss science as some fabricated science fiction stories and keep their heads firmly planted.(Reference to a bird mentioned earlier in this post) There is a lot of good happening year in and year out by conservation minded groups from all over the planet that work and sometimes fight court battles to save entire ecosystems right down to an individual species. I just get aggravated by people that feel the need to brand these planet loving people as tree hugging extremists. We should focus on what we can fix and work to prevent future enviromental disasters before they occur. We need to hold corporations accountable, they reap their profits and leave enviromental disasters in their wake. I could fill pages with companies that have dissapeared and left their messes for "We the people" Uncle Sam" whatever you want to call the American taxpayer. I happen to live in Saint Louis and we currently have several sites in the greater STL area dealing with radioactive material In groundwater and another location where a former landfill is contaminated with radioactive material and has an underground fire in a different, newer section of the landfill. The current owner, EPA and Missouri Dept of Natural Resources are scrambling to create a barrier between the two areas so the fire does not reach the radioactive material. There are rarely answers when the powers that be are asked what would happen if the fire spreads to the radioactive material. We worry about terrorists creating dirty bombs, shoot its possible we might do it to ourselves first. Actually we already have, Hanover in Washington state, Monsanto in S Carolina, mining tailings all over the country(short list). Corporate America lines their pockets and create 100's if not 1000's of millionaires and provide work for the middle class but at what cost. This country hands over mineral, timber, oil & gas rights and then more often than not we are told its our responsibility to clean up the messes left behind. This is a pretty cynical view and things are probably getting better in our USA but not because of corporate responsibility, its because the EPA & public outrage force the issue. We might be getting better at cleaning up after ourselves but China is a whole other story. Knuck in STL

But without earth there are no people!

Its just discouraging to me, that with all of the enviromental messes we have created for ourselves we still are reactive rather than proactive. Even if we don't know for sure the cause, natural or manmade why would'nt we error on the safe side. I'm afraid its because the genie is out of the bottle and its called population growth. We hear daily about the growing middle classes across the globe, great for humanity short term maybe but long term its a problem as we all vie for the same raw materials. The more we consume the more we destroy the planet collecting the materials to provide our comfy lives. I realize thats a pretty lousy outlook but I have kids that might have kids. As lousy caretakers of the planet(the only home we have) I fear we are going to leave them with problems that can never be fixed, no matter how much money we throw at it. On another tangent when God shows up and wants to know what we did to his garden we are really going to be in trouble. Steve in STL

I had a 3 paragraph post written and just deleted it, why waste time. How can anyone really argue whether it is completely naturally occuring or manmade? It's pretty darn hard to argue though, that humans have no effect on the planet overall, take a look at any night time satellite photo and look at those lights. Dead lakes in the north east due to acid rain(coal fired power plants) gulf of where ever dead zones around the planet due to fertilizer and pollution runoff, pcb's in the Hudson, freshwater deltas & marshes around the world becoming brackish due to low river flows because of damming, how long a list do people want. We don't have any affect on the planet? Oh sorry we were talking about weather. You know what really sucks, we make these monstrous messes and have absolutely no way of fixing them in most cases. Saw a story last week the CIA is "requesting" funding, permission whatever to study the possibility of altering weather for economic benefits. Look up the US Air Forces definition of research uses for HAARP(yep, I did it, I am now officially and forever going to be labeled a conspiracy theory believer) its all for communication advancement, my butt. As a famous author once wrote"its all just mental masturbation" None of it really matters because those idiots over in China will probably blow a big butt hole in the atmosphere soon enough and we'll all be roasted like T-day turkeys. Steve in STL

Some of the above posts are the reason I have problems with right to carry / concealed carry. In todays devisive climate peoples patience are at a low and their tempers are at a high. Makes me wonder if the Zimmerman & Trayvon conflict was a harbinger of things to come. We all know a lot of hotheads that should not "carry" on a regular basis. Steve in STL

I'm jumping in real late but wow to the original post! 1st a rude gawker might get shot down for his inability to keep his eyes inside his skull and then the profession that has kept me employed for 30 years gets lambasted by at least 4 posters by my count. Never a dull moment on OA. As to boat ramp "fun" I'm sure most everyone on the forum have a few favorite stories. What do you do about boat ramp knuckleheads, ask if they need help or sit back and watch the show. For a little guilty pleasure pull up "boat ramp follies" or something similar on youtube, its pretty amusing stuff. Steve in STL

And Stan Kroenke has municipalities fighting each other to give him TIF money to build walmarts. And he is holding Rams fans in STL hostage, threatening to move the team unless we the people build him a new stadium. How much money flows to the very rich in this country all in the name of job creation. Right now we are watching a boom in gas and oil production in large part due to fracking, after the powers that be make their billions and move on who will clean up the mess left behind, you all know who,we the people. We're all stuck with the lousy choices we make every 4 years, where the hell is Harry Truman when you need him. I'm with Agnew and a rising chorus in the country, vote em all out.

Phil thanks for posting the results & photos so quick. Steve in STL

Just back from a few days of much needed down time and lots of fishing action, thanks to Phil & all of the staff at Lilley's for another relaxing & care free trip. I have to say there is nothing better than an early to mid-week fishing excursion. We shared the lake from the dam to the Landing with the same 7 or 8 boats (3 of which were in our party) Sunday,Monday,Tuesday all thanks to Lilley's fisherman special. It's so inexpensive I almost feel guilty when settling up. Three boats in our group and all had their own preferences as to fishing methods. This was our boats best for the trip, a 20 1/2" hook caught just below the upper island and on the bluff side in the trophy area on a floating (being cranked) 4" black & gold Rapala. Released ASAP after a few photos. We caught too many fish to keep track of in our three days with quite a few Browns from 13-17" and at times Rainbows one after another. My bait of choice were 2 1/2" countdowns in either the Rainbow or Brown coloration and my partner stuck with his lucky Rapala, lucky right up until he embedded a hook past the barb underneath the nail in his index finger (A special thanks goes out to Curtis who popped that hook out of my buddies finger, a true man of all trades.) We made a lot of dam runs which provided some of our best action, focused on both Fall Creek & Short Creek in addition to drifting inflated crawlers from Short Creek to Powerline when our arms felt like they could not throw one more crankbait. We threw some jigs but just did'nt have the patience to stick with them, some of the guys in our party fished jigs almost exclusively and had very good results with them. Just to mix it up a little bit we fished around the landing and wound up catching 2 chunky largemouth & a black crappie on the crankers, you just never know what you might catch on Taney. All in all a perfect trip, we even dodged a bullit with the rain that was forecast. Once again thanks to Phil, his family & staff for the welcoming & responsive service we always experience there. Steve in STL

Phil the photos looking down from the overlook have given me the best insight as to where all of the boulders have been placed, nice photos. It is amazing to see the water that low. Steve in STL

Hey all, Wondering if anyone has been out and might have info to share about water conditions & fishing results. Steve in STL

I don't even have a comment on the "potential" lead ban on fishing equipment. I would like to say the tone of this topic and others recently on the forum give a shining example of why nothing gets accomplished in this country, finger pointing, name calling & insults abound all in the name of ideological BS. Steve in STL

A dear Son, Father, Brother and Friend has passed on much too early to the dismay of all who cared for him. Mike was the founder of the Boswell Memorial Trout Tournament which has been taking place at Lilley's since 1991. Mike started the trout fishing tournament back in 1981 with family & friends as a way to remember his father Elmer, this years journey south to Lilley's will definately have a bittersweet quality to it. Please say a prayer for his Mother, Daughters, Grandson, Sisters & Brothers.

I could use conman's post as my own! We had 4 boats, 8 adults and 5 kids in tow. We arrived late Friday so we missed out on the Friday night bite. We all spent most of our time on the channel bends and deeper water due to the fact they are dropping the lake 6 inches a day. We were on the Pommie arm and we all used various soft plastics most of the weekend. Texas rigged 5/16 oz. 7 1/2 " Junebug Culprit curly tail was my weapon of choice. We had some throwing nearly the same thing in a finesse, some throwing chompers with a stand up jig and so on. Predominant colors used were Junebug, watermelon, watermelon red and pumpkinseed. We all caught fish in water from 1 foot to 20 feet. There is just so much submerged cover it is hard to figure out where to start. Between all of us we caught a lot of fish and quite a few keepers but none of us had any heavy fish. Saturday morning I thought the fish of the weekend was hooked but it turned out to be a 22" channel. Good luck Steve in STL