Johnsfolly

Nice Fish and report! Have to get back to the 11 pt.

we put our feeders out yesterday. I need to get an oriole feeder out as well.

JD and MO - I agree with both of you. I have seen a lot of pig hunting shows and have always questioned how effective hunting would be if you only shoot a single boar or two on a hunt when each sow can drop two or three litters of piglets a year. Got to get most if not all of the pigs at one time.

Can't hunt pigs in MO anymore, so if I get out I don't think I will stumble upon a blind pig and I hope to find more than just a couple of acorns. Good luck to those going out on Monday. Be safe and know your target.

Good luck on Monday. Work will keep me out of the woods until later in the week or more likely the weekend. Haven't really patterned any birds yet. Hope to not take the blind pig approach this year.

Nice bunch of crappie. Congrats on a few great trips.

I have had good luck with Shimano and Plueger president reels. I'm a 95%+ wade fisherman and have had both brand of reels last a fairly long time after being in water, sand, thrown on gravel bars, etc.

Here are photos of one of the cardinal shiners that I caught and the banded sculpin from the Spring River. I also caught this longear sunfish in the Spring river. I had never seen one with so much turquoise before. An orangethroat darter from Prairie State Park. I caught this one on the #26 tanago hooks. The coloration is different than others I have caught. So I don't know if this is a young male, a post-spawn male, or maybe a different subspecies. I'm still researching the subspecies, since there are supposed to be at least three subspecies throughout MO.

Nice trip report and photos. I love the colors on that first fish.

A couple of nice hauls for early season. Got to get out, but with all the fishing opportunities and the #26's calling to come out... Maybe convince my wife that the morels are out.

Great fish and post catch story/video. It's great to see that fish back out in the water with a chance to get bigger.

Gavin - I fish a river in mid-Central MO that can be a waisting stream during the summer months. I have found that once you find those holes, the fish tend to be ultra-aggressive. The water coming in from under the gravel is often several degrees cooler which means more oxygen and the bait in the holes gets rather depleted as the summer continues.

Ham - did you get a photo of the darter? Love to see it. I fished the Spring river right off of Rt 97 north of Stott's city in SW MO and also access in Robert Talbot CA. I caught cardinal shiners (new life list species, they were not in spawning coloration yet) and a banded sculpin bringing my 2016 list up to 19 total species as well and four new life list species. I'll post photos once I have a chance to download off of my camera.

Griz - we did get down to SW MO and visited Prairie Stat park. I caught creek chubs and with the #26 caught a couple of orangethroat darters in the small stream running through the campsite area. There was several topminnows that stayed about 2 to 2.5' further than my UL rod could reach. Now if I had a 7 to 8' tenkara rod, maybe I could have added those to the list.

I have proof positive that pink salmon will hit a pink clouser minnow fly. I don't wee why they wouldn't hit a pink worm.

Awesome musky and great photo!

Murv - Once you go smallmouth you never go back. I consider them to be much better fighters than largemouth bass of the same weight. Also the waters that are most productive for smallmouth are fantastic places. I fish a lot of stream and rivers for smallmouth and you just need a mix of topwater, midwater, and bottom baits. I prefer walk the dog topwaters after they spawn, flukes and marabou jigs all season, and soft bottoms baits, like a soft craw, short worm, etc. There are a lot of resources throughout these forums for bait choices. Pick a couple and get confident in using them and you will catch smallmouth once you go to a place that has them, like the Current, Big Piney, etc.

Enjoy the time with your son. Hopefully he gets the fishing bug and you have a fishing buddy for life.

I bought my snelled #26 tanago hooks from Chris's website. Trying to put together a family SW MO trip to hopefully see some bison and prairie chickens, but also to fish the Spring river (the other Spring river that flows into Kansas) and tribs. for cardinal shiners and redspot chubs. I might even try out the #26's for mosquitofish. Good luck in the tournament.

When I spoke with my wife about setting up this tank, she really wondered where would we put it in the house. I think that there was a "priorities" statement that went into this discussion as well. Still in my early assessment phase (could take another year or two). Maybe my son will be out of the house before I make the move on this aquarium. He is a Sophomore. So not too much time before he leaves the nest (hopefully).

I would suggest fishing upstream of the Whistle bridge using a float and microjig. The ones that my daughter has the most luck in getting strikes are the pastel pink, yellow, and white, bright pink, yellow, and white, white with a red spot, or plain white globalls. Also the green body with yellow eye spot John deere jigs work really well under a float. From the bridge, the baits will spend a lot of time in front of fish. You will get some aggressive strikes, but most will be subtle with maybe just a stop in the drift of the float. So make sure that they are able to see the baits as they drift towards them and have them try to anticipate the strike. The fish will often circle the bait before they hit it. Once the fish flares it's gills, have them try to set the hook. The globalls can be a challenge in getting a good hook set, but the fish sometimes cannot keep off of them. The problem with the bridge is that you will need a net to land these fish and preferably one with a long handle to reach the fish. Also I prefer to fish 2 lb test and think that we get more action than with 4 lb line. The 4 lb will keep the fish from breaking off. so it can be a trade off. I hope this helps. Good Luck.

Thanks for the report. I may have to try some other places this weekend.

Marcus - I was in Indianapolis a couple of years ago and had a morning to fish. I fished Fall Creek (comes out of Geist Reservoir) on the Northeast side of Indy and caught some bass on flukes and jigs with plastic crayfish bodies. Nothing big, but a fun morning. Before I went I found that the Indiana DNR had a pretty good interactive map for fishing access with aerial views and I used that to pick a fishing location. I didn't fish on the way to or from Indy. So I can't help with any fishing options while you travel. Good Luck.

Anyone get out there this weekend? Any luck?

I have always thought about keeping longear sunfish. Now that I have been catching these darters, the idea of setting up a stream tank is on my mind. Any issues with keeping the fish colored up? I have ready access to live midge larvae, larval fathead minnows, and Daphnia. So a live diet is not likely to be a problem. Would I need a chiller?