Johnsfolly

I still haven't come close to those annual numbers. I have averaged only 80 trips per year over the last five years with an average of 812 fish per year and only 38 trips per year the five previous years. Most of those trips were less than 4 hours of fishing time. The last five years has been spent primarily targeting new species either for the annual count or for my life list. I have averaged 65 species a year for the last five years and added 94 species to my life list in that same time. And yet there are so many "common" species that I have not caught yet, like any gar other than a Florida gar, or grass carp, goldeye, skipjack herring, flathead catfish, sauger, northern pike, burbot, any sturgeon species, etc.

I would say likely less than 40 people in the US have caught this fish on hook and line.

Sounds like an awesome trip. Thanks for the report.

Hey don't forget that there are actually three species of "rock" bass in MO, the northern rock bass, shadow bass, and Ozark bass. In most Ozark creeks, I would tend to agree with @tjm that spring and summer are when I catch most of the rock bass that I have caught in those creeks. But I also don't fish many of those same creeks in the late fall or winter. However, don't give up yet. There are spots that you can find actively feeding rock bass and shadow bass in the winter. You would have to travel a bit further to get to them. You might even be able to catch a brown trout as well.

My kids hate that I know all the lyrics to this song 🤣.

Go ahead and rub it in buddy 🤨 LOL!

I think that we just targeted them too late in the day. Most brown spots were hammered by the time we got after them.

I saw the Moody Blues at the same venue as we saw James Taylor. That was a good concert. Never saw Pink Floyd but saw both David Gilmour and Roger Waters separately. Eric Clapton was playing with Waters on that tour. Saw Clapton on his own tour later.

Pete you may not remember but when @Ham and I met you by the dam we missed the slam by not catching a brown trout. 🙄

Sausage and gouda Flatbread pizza. Little salad topper 😁.

Awesome! Excited to see those big darters 🤣. Congrats!

You sometimes have to really look for the males or supermales. They're out there. May have to pass on the many brown ones. We got @Daryk Campbell Sr on one a few years ago.

Homemade sauce. Been slow cooking all afternoon.. Going to have spaghetti and fresh garlic bread.

They always did have flare for colonial/period clothing. I didn't see a tomahawk or a bowie knife .

They can be bad during the day as well. My buddy had one bite through his waders while teal hunting. I actually get more worried about otters while wading, especially when I can no longer see them.

Knowing @vernon probably going to get snow !

Spin tackle with #26 tanago hook small piece of of redworm. Did almost get spooled at the pier last week but that's a different story.

I saw Styx on their Paradise Theater Tour. Not my favorite concert. My least favorite concert was the Cars with Wang Chung as the opening act. The Cars were immobile and did nothing different than their albums. Wang Chung was better. My girlfriend at the time bought the tickets so we still Had Fun Tonight!

What seemed like the longest concert was Ravi Shankar. We sat on wooden benches for two and a half hours before we left. He was still playing, but he sits on cushions . Most underwear onstage was at the Frank Zappa concert. Most opportunistic concert was seeing the Who at the Meadowlands. I got the tickets the morning of the show and had to drive almost three hours to get there.

When I saw Aerosmith in the 80's a couple was arrested for having sex and Steven Tyler wanted to know what song got them motivated. The warmups were Rose Tattoo and Pat Travers (Boom Boom out go the lights!) I also saw the Kinks in the 80's and Billy Joel when he released the Nylon Curtain album. FYI there never were any steel mills in Allentown. They were all located in Bethlehem and Hellertown PA.

Thought that this was Hilarious. I must be a sick man🙄!

Females do not have that spot. Based upon it's size that is not likely to be a juvenile and more likely to be a female. I have gone more with distribution on identification between the two species.

Did you notice the "fluorescent" patch on their heads? Most of the topminnows, e.g., studfish, blackspotted, blackstriped, plains, starhead, etc., in MO have a similar patch but in different shapes and sizes. A size 18 or 20 fly would catch many of those smaller species. I've caught bleeding shiners and southern redbelly dace on elkhair caddis and hare's ear nymphs.

If you get over to SWMO and fish the Spring river, Elk river, Indian Creek, Neosho, etc. you can catch the redspot chub which looks just like these guys. From Indian Creek. However any river or creek that ends up in the white River system like Roaring river still have the hornyhead chub like this male from RR.