Johnsfolly

Here's what I would like to achieve in 2020. Catch a fish in 1 new state - I have 28 states already covered; so have to really travel to get just one more. Catch a MD native brook trout or stripers on fly rod (BH flies) Catch 12 Lifelist species - Including: New lifer darter and/or sculpin American Shad Northern Kingfish or Black Drum Three new sunfish sp. Two shark species including dogfish sp. Trips - White River/Norfork River - March/April - NJ/DE for Black Drum - May/June - Lake Erie - May - Chincoteague Island July-Sept - spadefish trip June-Aug - Flathead/Blue catfish in Potomac or Susquehanna - Pike or Musky trip

Great looking male rainbow! 98 to go and counting ! Good Luck!

Might be "Dead Meat" with Scott Leysath. That show highlighted lots of unusual critters being shot and eaten. I once had a conversation with Scott about a injectable mixture idea that I had to be used in a fawn leg roast. The meal turned out great!

Looks like a great way to spend a Sat morning Ness. Good for your son to get dad and the dogs out in the field. Hopefully a good pheasant dinner followed the hunt 👍.

Back to the original question. I fillet most fish. My daughter hated picking bones. Most of the fillets would get fried. I will keep some fish whole to bake or steam. Larger trout would typically get baked. Lately I have been making spicy asian pan roasted trout recipes with whole fish. Then she just had to deal with the bones.

Mitch that is my experience with farm raised tilapia - tastes terrible. I worked at the Univ. with a professor that raised tilapia for research. I would feed them when he was on vacation. The agreement was that I could have one or two. These were two to three lb. fish. They tasted good when I prepped them. Thinking back they had a good flow of clean water through their tanks and were not in a stagnant pond getting fed cheap fish feed or dog food. I won't buy or eat any farm raised tilapia or catfish.

Awesome stripers Dan! Congrats! Good to see you on the water again.

We were back in Missouri to spend Xmas with our kids. We had Xmas at my daughter's place in Warrensburg. Then on Thurs took my son and his family (including our 1st grandchild) back to Fort Riley KS. I have not caught a fish in Kansas even though I have spent a couple of springs hunting turkeys in Kansas. Just never fished the state. I took advantage of this trip to get a KS fish. Moon Lake is 10 min from my sons house and they stock it with rainbow trout. I figured that a cold water fish may be my best bet for a first KS fish. I looked over the dam area of the lake and it looked promising. However, I really wanted to check out what looked to be a spring creek coming into the lake. The water was clear and had some spots with 2 to 3 ft depths. I saw a few trout in the stream including a palomino that was hanging below the overhead tree cover in the above photo. I was fishing a 7 ft UL Airstream rod with #2 PLine. I put on a #14 hook two small split shot and baited with Gulp "corn". When I got in position, the trout spooked. I waited for about 10 min for it to calm down before I made a cast. The trout charged the bait, but I pulled the hook. Another wait then another cast. Again the fish hit the bait and I was able to set the hook and land my first KS fish as well as my first palomino/golden rainbow trout ! I caught a couple of regular rainbows in the hole just below the spot where I took that first photo. I turned and tried downstream and found another deep stretch of water. I ended up catching a couple more rainbows. They were all 9 to 11 inches in length. They fought well for stockers. Ended the day with 6 trout before heading back to put in some grandpa time .

SIO3 already replied that it is the bridge that I was referring too. All of the water above that bridge up to Montauk is the blue ribbon trout section of the river. In my opinion one of the most scenic Ozark rivers. Good luck if you get to fish there.

If you add on and start at Cedar grove low water bridge will add about another 3 to 4 miles. Good access on both ends. You can hike along the river or there are many trails along that way that will give you some backpacking experience. If adventurous, you two could go up and over some of the river bluffs. As Ness mentioned the land around North fork is mostly private. The Current is surrounded by the Ozark national scenic waterways so most of the land surrounding the river is public land. Plenty of fish in that stretch to try fly fishing. Nymphs and streamers should work well.

They look great.

That all looks delicious! Definitely good eats!

Good luck guys. Looking forward to some tall tales!

Poor fish handling especially in warm water or below freezing air temp is in my opinion the number one killer of any fish. There was a report in MD that striper mortality due to catch and release could account for up to 46% of the annual harvest quota for the bay.

Congrats on a great hunt and getting a banded bird! Did you find out where it was banded?

Al I don't have much time since I'm headed to work. I want to present your argument from a different point if view. I understand with the vastness of the universe that the math would indicate that there are other planets that support sentient life forms. That should not diminish that as we currently know we are the only fully sentient beings in our solar system. That in itself should be considered significant. I will get back to this later today.

When I fished for the first time on Missouri this year back in March, I fished Bennett Springs. That trip was on the back end of Jigfest. The temperature was in the 20's. I caught seven fish on the 3rd and 20+ fish on the 4th. Hardly anyone was out. Well it's the 22nd of Dec and I am back in Missouri for work then the holidays with family. Again I am fishing Bennett Springs. This time during the C&R season. Again very few folks fishing. Big difference was the weather. Today was sunny and warm for December. Water was running clear. Lots of fish were stacked up in the usual places. I did get to the park later than I hoped and it was close to 9:30 before I started fishing. I started with a John deere microjig. Though I had a few trout chase on each cast, it took a few casts to hook and land my first rainbow. I soon caught another before moving to a spot where I could access some deeper water. I did catch a few obligatory Ozark sculpin from the rip rap. Did my daughter proud with this guy. In case you are ever down at the park and see a guy fishing like this guy (photo from a few weeks ago with a fellow OAFer), they are likely catching sculpin ! I do wish that I brought a net. I had to find shallow spots to bank larger fish. Caught this guy on a 1/32 oz tri-olive Zig jig. I fished spots from close to the spring down to the confluence of the Niangua. Only for about five and a half hours. I caught two dozen rainbows ranging from about 10 inches to about 17 inches. Most were caught on the John Deere and the 1/32 oz tri-olive Zig jig. Only caught a half dozen sculpin and a single striped shiner. All in all a good book end for my trips to Missouri this year. I hope that all OAF members have tight lines. I wish you all a Happy Holidays!

Lots of misdirection with this post. Just where were you fishing? We may never know.. Well played my friend. Well played😀.

Looks good. Going to try that with white perch this spring.

Looking at the background of this photo pretty sure it was caught from a bass boat😀. Could be wrong. Nice report Jeff.

Congrats on a tough day.! This looks delicious!

I am currently looking at fishing the Kaskasia River below Carlyle since it will be on our way back to MD next weekend. Shelbyville is not too far off out of the way either. I have looked at Clear Lake and Okoboji Lake over the last few years to try to ice fish for yellow bass, but never put together the time or convinced my daughter to go with me.

I want to catch some yellow bass to complete my goal to catch all of the temperate bass species in the US. I saw on some blogs with some guys having success catching yellow bass on flies and crappie jigs. Since these fish are found in the midwest I would like to find a way to limit my having to lug bait around as I travel. So any ideas on what baits may be good for this species would be appreciated. Also best times of year etc if you are wiling to share. I have plans to try a tailwater in Illinois the weekend after Xmas and planning on soaking some worms.Maybe I will get to put them on the list then.

So the last that I saw on this thread this morning was something like 8 pages ago. Must not have been a productive day at any OAF member workplaces 😌.

Probably didn't want to end up like Epstein. Press the Clinton's too hard and you end up having a mysterious death or disappearance. Also couldn't care less anymore on what Stern has to do or say about anything. After getting out of high school his antics didn't hold much interest or appeal.