Smithvillesteve

Bill: My friends and i enjoyed meeting you at the OAF tourney. And like everybody else we always appreciate the valuable info you put on here. Let me ask you a question. If somebody hires a guide to take them out on a lake on a fishing trip, is it ok for them to go fish those spots the guide took them to in the next following days? Or is that kinda considered improper? Thanks.

Thanks for the report Bill. Always appreciate your valuable info. I fished the Rock wed thru sat with 5 other buddies. Wed was 30 mph winds with 40 mph wind gusts. But our group caught a lot of fish. With several keepers. Nothing too big. Thursday it was cold!! Low 40's, still windy and cloudy. But once again we caught several fish. One buddy of mine caught a 7 lb fish on the front hooks of his crankbait and a 2 lb on the back hooks. I would put the pic on here if I knew how? Dont laugh. I'm 64 yrs old and all this technology eats me up!! The guy I was fishing with caught 25 bass with 9 keepers. The biggest was 18.5. 3 others at 18. Great day of fishing even though he kicked my butt!!! Friday we had the high sky after a front. Low 60's light winds. One of my buddies son caught a nice 5 lb. But the bite slowed. Saturday we didnt get on the water till around 3 oclock and fished till around 6:30. We were just plain wore out. Of course, staying up till 3 am playing cards doesnt help!! It was a nice bluebird day, good golf day, and we didnt do much good. One nice brown fish. It was a great fishing trip to the Rock with several good buddies.

I too really enjoyed my first OAF tournament. It was really nice to get to put some faces to some names. Enjoyed talking to Mr Babler and Quillback. Thanks to all who did a magnificent job with the food and the organizing. Congrats to Joe Lane for winning this year. I really thought it would take a 6 or 7 lb to win with the coniditions we had. Moon phase, clouds, 50 degree water temps, light winds and steady air temps. Great pics. I wish i could have personnally met M&M, Ketchup and a few of you other regulars here on the website. I just wanted to say "thanks" for all the valuable info you guys put out there for us that only get to fish TR on a limited basis. Oh, i did get to talk to RPS and he gave us some valuable walleye information. He is a good guy!! A great time spent with good people!!

Quillback: I tried sending you a personal message but not sure how all that works so I will repeat myself here. I am going to fish the OAF tournament saturday. I will probably put on up around Viney Creek instead of coming over to Eagle Rock in the morning. Just trying to make sure i am getting registered. Thanks for all you do for this tournament. Smithvillesteve

Thanks for a great report Bill and the awesome pics!! I'm going to try and come down wed afternoon. Fish thursday, friday and the OAF tourney sat. Hope to anyway. New moon begins tuesday. water temps look good. Hoping to catch some bass.

Hazbin: It was the ramp across from Turkey Mountain. There is a spaceship looking thing there. They are not golfers so dont look around any courses! Didnt touch my golf clubs. Took my clothes bag and some food. My truck was the only vehicle in the lot. Right after July 4th holiday. Thieves stole my buddies transom saver out of the back of his truck at Orleans Trail at Stockton last year. Some guy came back to his trailer at High Point at Stockton and his lug nuts were all missing on his trailer tires. Police told him they were probably stealing his tires when he pulled his boat in and scared them off. Story about that kid getting killed at the boat ramp a month ago was very sad. Point is we all have to be smart, be alert, help each other, report suspicious activity. Pretty sad that a guy gets an opportunity to go out and enjoy the outdoors, get away from the "rat race" and has to deal with this kind of crap!!

Last year in early July they broke into my truck at the ramp for Emerald Beach people. Stole my clothes bag. Pain the butt to replace shoes, orthotics, clothes, clean up kit. But thank god they left my golf clubs!! But yea, pisses a guy off!!!! I wont leave anything of value in my truck anymore. And its not just Table Rock. I think its these "crack heads" stealing anything they can get their hands on to buy crack!!

Smalls!! I got a question for you since you work for Bass Pro. My batteries are going on their 4th year now. A friend of mine told me to replace both batteries, starter and trolling motor, after 3 years. Both batteries seem to be fine but i had a starter battery go dead on me all of a sudden 3 years ago. Is it your recommendation that i bite the bullet and go get two new batteries?

I would love to come down and fish the OAF with you guys. Trying to talk a buddy of mine into going down with me. Just not a 100% deal with us right now. Can we just show up around 7 oclock and register? Or do you need to know beforehand?

Nice fish and nice boat! I bought a Lund boat back in 2002. I go to Canada every year and like to fish Stockton a lot in the summer. Handles rough water extremely well. Mine is only a 16.5 with a 40hp. Would really like to upgrade to one like yours. But would have to hit the lottery!! Thanks for the report.

No Revo Bearing sunglasses at the Sams Club in NKC.

Thanks Dave. Hopefully that will stop a lot of the complaining on this site about how we hold bass for pics. I always try and support a fish for a pic by holding my hand under the belly and take the pic of a fish horizontally. Glad to hear that according to your post that seems to be ok. Guess I'll have to worry about if I'm doing it right when i catch an 8.5 lb bass!!

Thanks for the report Phil. Nice pics. Two buddies of mine plus myself had a great trip this past week. Wed afternoon thru sunday at noon we boated 280 trout. Biggest was a 17 inch rainbow and a 16 3/4 inch brown. Several 14-15 inch fish. A lot of fun and good fighters. We caught and released all but two fish. One of my buddies wife wanted a couple of trout to eat. I dont usually pay a lot of attention to Taneycomo on the website as this is the only time we make it down to fish this lake. But i try and pay attention for about a month prior to our trip. We thank you very much Phil for posting information on the site that helped us catch a lot of fish. Sounds like we should have boated up to the dam to catch a few bigger fish. But no big deal. We fished all the way from Fall Creek to Monkey Island and caught fish in most the entire area. The weather was absolutely wonderful and it was good to get out and fish with a lot of friends. In our tournament sat and sun with about 30 guys a 2 lb 8 oz rainbow won 1st place. A 1 lb 14 oz rainbow finished 2nd. Good time. Good memories. Thanks again for posting valuable information that we could use Phil.

That makes me feel better Phil. Looks like some nice trout caught in the Masters tournament. Fat and healthy. Like me!! Looks like we will catch some decent weather. 50's and 60's into the weekend. My first stop after launching the boat is your place Phil. Get some advice and buy a few jigs.

Thanks for the report Phil. Coming down wed and staying thru sunday. I spent about 20 dollars yesterday at Bass Pro on various sizes of white jigs!! I figured everything would change about the time we got down there. "Should have been here yesterday!" is a remark i have heard over and over in my fishing years! Oh well, we will have fun. You know the old saying, "a bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work!!"

Very informative read Bill. Thanks for the info. I am yet to catch a fish on the A-Rig. But i have not thrown it very much. I bought the Yum set up. My problem is I am 64 years old and just cant throw that darn thing very long. Wears my old butt out!!! Now, i dont have the equipment that you have listed here or anything like that. Maybe that would help me immensely. I do know this, that thing looks deadly swimming in the water. I will continue to use one on occasion until I finally wear down after about 30 minutes!!

Thanks for the written report and the video Phil. I am coming down in late Jan. My concern is that they have been running water for a month and now all of a sudden it stops. What will that do to the fishing?

Great topic on the rain gear. Great pic of winter float trip. Now, my question to you boys: What is the best cold weather base layer? I have some of Cabela's ECWCS that I use for cold weather deer hunting. But I cant remember if it is for the coldest weather possible. On the answers to best cold weather rain gear several of you mentioned Under Armour. I am going on a trout trip to Taneycomo in late Jan and want to go buy the best cold weather base layer i can get!! I have seen that Under Armour has a base layer at 4.0, 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0. With 4.0 being rated for extreme cold conditions and so forth. Any advice boys?? Sincerely appreciated!!

I cant say "thank you" enough for all the responses to my question. You guys are the best. Whenever i get on here and ask questions about fishing Taneycomo or Table Rock or Stockton i get timely responses. I have always told people that 99% of fishermen and hunters are just good people!!

Thanks mwfischer. Greatly appreciated info.

I dont fish for trout very often. I enjoy the experience just dont get the opportunity. I have a question for anyone on this site and your help will be greatly appreciated. I am going down to Taneycomo in late Jan for a tournament with a bunch of "cabin fever" married guys. I try and watch the topics on here leading up to my trip to find out what is working. With all this high water lately that has been tough. I have 3 ultra light setups that i take. I spool one with 6 lb test mono for throwing jerk baits and 1/8 oz jigs. I spool one with 4 lb test mono that i use the most. Drift fishing, spoons, crankbaits. I spool one with 2 lb test mono for small jigs under a strike indicator. I have never used flurocarbon down there. I just use my Trilene XL green mono. A buddy of mine claims i need to be using flurocarbon at Taneycomo. I use flurocarbon at Table Rock as a leader on my braid for drop shotting. I just dont think it is very strong. Any advice for this novice trout fisherman would be greatly appreciated.

I too have had the Cabela's Guidewear now for about 3 years. I go to Canada for a week in late May and you better have some high quality rain gear!! I have been very satisfied with that choice. Have fished in driving rain and get back to cabin dry to the bone!!

Thank you for the report Phil. A bunch of us coming down the last weekend in Jan. Hope you will report what is going on down there with the generation flow, water color, fishing conditions etc almost daily. Not too much to ask is it? Sincerely appreciate the information you give.

Thanks for posting that info Phil. Its hard for a guy like me to decipher but I'm trying. We will hope and pray that your area does NOT get that rain, or as much as predicted, this week. A bunch of us are planning on coming down the last weekend of Jan. Any opinion on lake conditions by that time? Any opinion on what trout will be doing by then? I know thats 3 weeks away and with the current conditions and forecasts a lot can change. Stay safe. Stay dry!!

My heart goes out to you people down at Taneycomo. I only fish down there a couple times a year but really enjoy the experience. Could somebody please explain something to me. There was an article in Sunday's Star up here in KC about the highlights/lowlights of 2015. One of the top stories was of all the rain we had early in the year. Table Rock high, Bull Shoals 30 ft high, Truman and Stockton record high levels, Kansas lakes record high levels. They quoted a guy from the Corp as saying, "these lakes did exactly what they were built for, flood control". Why is it that they release water at such levels to flood Taneycomo? They dont release water like that below Taneycomo, or Stockton, or Truman or other lakes? Last time i was down at Taneycomo I saw signs in peoples yards claiming, "Corp get your act together!!" "Corps needs to think about their decisions!!" Obviously people not real happy about the Army Corps of Engineers. Maybe these other lakes release water like that but it doesnt have businesses below the dam like Taneycomo? I realize Lake of Ozarks is not a Corp lake. Anyway, I hope everybody down there stays safe.