Johnsfolly

With all of the talk about largest smallies or what you've caught I decided to start a thread to post all of your gratuitous bass photos. Post photos of memorable fish, largest, smallest, whatever. Here is a few of my own to get started. like the tip jar with a couple of dollars as starter money! A couple of Current River smallies - this first one was caught on a marabou jig in the blue ribbon section. I have caught big browns in this hole in the past and on this trip only caught a couple of brown bass. This one is my current PB smallmouth that I caught on the lower Current River. You never know where or when you san catch smallies. Here is some summer smallie. Both were caught on baby bass flukes. The infamous Neosho smallmouth bass! A shoal bass caught on a Excalibur spit-n-image down in Georgia. And the river that I caught the shoal bass! My first redeye bass also caught on the same bait as the shoal bass. I was trying to catch all species of black bass at the time. There were nine species at that time and at least 6 of them could be caught in Georgia. I went and fished several creeks and rivers and ponds all across the state. Now they have added the Choctaw bas and split the redeye into four or five species. Looks like a whirlwind trip to Alabama and Georgia is likely in the future! Upstream from where I caught the redeyes I could have trout fished. This creek is fed by the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi. I'll end with a largemouth. I had caught a bluegill on a sunfish bug and this bass swallowed the bluegill! My largest LMB caught in Georgia.

Tonight was an old favorite. It paired smoked ham, swiss cheese and chicken breast for a chicken cordon bleu. My betterhalf breaded the chicken and fried the breasts. Cut in a pocket and stuffed with the ham and cheese. Into the oven to finish in the oven. Topped the chicken with an herbed béchamel sauce and sided with broccoli.

May largest smallmouth in Missouri for a long time was 17.75". I caught it in a small river/large creek south of Columbia (actually still my go to smallmouth fishery). I was wading well upstream from the access and came to a deep bluff pool. At that time I almost exclusively fished walk-the-dog (WTD) topwater or a fluke style jerkbait. I actually caguth a couple of bass off o the boulders/chunk rock at the tail of this hole. At the head of the hole, the majority of the water comes in along tight to the bank then hits the bluff and makes almost a 90 deg turn into the deep part of the hole. There was a 12 to 15' long log that was at least 18" in diameter wedged into that corner. I was using a chartreuse shad Gulp jerkbait. I made the long cast right inot the water upstream of that log. Jerked twice maybe three times and got bit. That bass jumped, went deep, ran upstream, etc. Finally got her lipped, measured against my rod and released. I don't have a photo of that one, but two years later caught it's twin in the same spot (log was no longer there) with an Excalibur spit-N-Image WTD bait. That was in 2007. Today that fish would not have left the water or would never touched that gravel.

Very sorry to hear about this horrible loss. We will keep you and her family in our thoughts.

I have been discussing musky with my friends that I went fishing and was successful at catching Musky last year. Still seems early. We fished the first week of Oct last year. I hope tha we can get into them again this year. May have to try to get to Fellows or Pomme this year. Good luck if you guys get out for these toothy fish!

Stayed overnight in Illinois on Saturday and went with my daughter and good friend to the Missouri Botanical Gardens on Sunday. I always enjoy walking the grounds and looking at the different garden styles, landscapes, and planting displays. Some of my favorites are the water lilies, the tropcials and desert plants, and the Japanese gardens. Here are some of the photos from the day. Monet's Waterliliy paintings are some of my favorites that adore our home. So naturally I target the waterlilies. We have several orchids at home and always enjoy seeing the more obscure ones like these: You never know what you are going to find in the gardens. This is a fishing forum and I am a multispecies nut, but I did not take any photos of the giant Koi in the Japanese gardens or the cichlids in the tropical garden. Today's trip was all about friendship and the plants. I have a slight knack for gardening and bonsai, but the item that I have cultivated over the years that makes me the most proud is the following: We had a great day. We will be back there again this Saturday for their annual Japanese festival.

Al - those are some of my favorites to find this time if year. They have the texture to stand all kinds of cooking. Great find!

In the next week or two we will be going out to a pick your own apples. We'll make the crumble if you guys bring homemade ice cream☺! May have to meet around Bennett's or LOZ.

Jackie and I went to the Indycar race with a couple of friends. One from Columbia and the other from Indianapolis. We had purchased paddock passes and wanted to try to get some interactions with some of the drivers. Wandering around the paddock is a juxtaposition of the high rollers out to be seen to the true motorheads drooling over engines/transmissions that can put out 800+ horsepower and propel these cars to speeds over 180 MPH. We were a little bit of both. Impressed with these vehicles as well as some serious people watching and autograph hounding. Cars going in for pre-race inspections. Our friend Owen who is from Scotland. He is a big F1 fan that has been to several F1 races. He was absolutely gobsmacked by how close you can get to the cars, the track, and the drivers including his new man crush Josef Newgarden. Jackie on the pit wall. Jackie was excited about meeting Tony Kanaan and we spent most of the day to get his autograph. If you know Indycar racing you will know that TK has a prominent proboscis. My daughter wanted to meet him and ask if she could boop his nose. Well after several attempts at putting ourselves in a position to get near TK we never really did. So she asked one of his crew members if she could boop the nosecone of his car. It was a beautiful night for racing. There were a couple of crashes within the first four laps. One of the drivers bumping the wall was Tony Kanaan. He ended ups three laps down and never really recovered. James Hinchliffe (got his autograph) in the pits. They were quick stops all night long. The cars just looked great under the lights! After leading the majority of the race, Josef Newgarden found himself in second position with less than 30 laps remaining. He made a extremely risky pass where he actually bumped his teammate out of the way to take the lead. Could have taken himself and Simon Pagenaud out of the race. The pass stuck and he won easily. Pagenaud lost the lead and also got passed by Scott Dixon and ended up third. Top four from right to left: Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, and Helio Castroneves. We had a great time!

My oldest doesn't like french toast. So she made an apple crumble. The apples were mixed with cinnamon, white and brown sugar, a mix pumpkin spice. The crumble was brown sugar, white sugar, flour, butter. Had to try to outdo dad. Its too bad that we didn't have any vanilla ice cream.

Haven't really been home lately. So not a lot of original dishes. Last Night after dinner felt a little sweet tooth kick in. my betterhalf picked up some local braeburn apples. Decided to have French toast with carmelized apples. I mixed the folly farm fresh eggs with cinnamon, vanilla, and almond extract. Dredged the bread in the egg mixture and into the skillet. cooked sliced apples and added cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, a little butter after the apples cooked down a bit then dark brown sugar.

Another great video! Some awesome fish!

Tahnk I appreciate the offer. Will have to talk more about a possible trip☺.

LRF pretty cool. I would try this once. Probably I would likely wear gloves. It would all be C&R for me. I still have catching a flathead on rod and reel on my bucket list.

Watching the pit stop competition. Race to.start in about an hour☺! May not be able to post pictures.

Hopefully you're not growing hair like that on your back☺!

Asian clams are plentiful. Don't know if they have a meaty enough foot to stay on the hook. Worth a try.

I seem to recall a giant fisherman caught blue catfish (100 +lbs) in a Texas aquarium died due to an infection in its jaw. Can't help but wonder if a boga was responsible for the initial injury. The way fish trash around when they are landed with those devices always made me wonder about injury.

I would hate to accidentally dig up an endangered freshwater mussel. I wonder if clam meat would work as well. Might be a good use of the oversized tough as rubber boot clams they sell here☺.

I Think those are great looking fish! The second one is just playing peek-a-boo!

Looks like I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue☺!

Now here I was thinking that you guys were going to talk about James Stewart and his rabbit drinking buddy Harvey. Looks pretty serious down there.

I've heard about it's musky fishing. That is intriguing to me. Also about bowfin below the dam. I would love to catch a big male bowfin during it's spawn. Pretty cool looking fish that time of year.

Thank you sir! I appreciate the compliment! I'm glad that you have enjoyed these posts.

He's the guy that I would to want meet up with to chase suckers☺!