Johnsfolly

Nice fish on 2 lb line. Should be a fish that she will remember.

That's a nice fish. How long was it?

Thanks Tim. I would prefer not to even float a bait past a redd. If I can see them I can avoid them. I don't plan on being in the water much or at all if I can help it. Any bait suggestions?

congrats on a great fish!

How's the water level at Crane creek? Is it fishable and clear enough to avoid any redds in the stream? Thinking about a trip down that way and any information is appreciated.

Did you see any redds in the gravel road? I would think that there was a nice current break at the fire ring might even held a big brown or two.

Nice to hear about your trout fishing trip. Sounds like a great time. I love catching trout and brown trout in particular. So just a little jealous.

Ham - congrats on the 41 species this year. I'm sitting 15 shy of that total at 26. I did catch a northern hog sucker and we confirmed (using Pflieger's fishes of Missouri guide) that my daughter and I caught both Ozark and banded sculpin this year. I'm four shy of my goal for the year, but since I follow the MO fishing license dates I still have until the end of Feb to land a couple of more species. My daughter caught an orange-throat darter by hand pushing her year total up to 11 with a goal of 12. It's her goal so she can decide her "fish catching" methods. She had fun chasing them around in the shallow water on our trip down the North Fork. The rain this spring and summer really hamstrung my bank and wade fishing efforts this year. I was also disappointed that my trip to PA did not add to my species total. I was targeting yellow perch and chain pickerel, but only caught sunfish and crappie. I bought my daughter an ice fishing rod and some lures this Xmas, since she says she really likes ice fishing for trout. I'm not sure we will have enough ice to safely fish around here. If I can afford it, I would like to do some ice fishing up in Iowa or MN to target yellow bass and perch, maybe even a walley or pike.

have fun. I too am jealous. Have family coming in and my daughter coming home this weekend and not able to get out.

Sounds like you had a great time Ham! Makes me jealous being stuck at work on a Monday.

I hope you guys have a great time! Not able to make it, but would like to see about next year's event.

Still I hope that you have a good time and let us know how you do.

That's an awesome rainbow. congrats on a great fish and the persistence to get it on another fly.

Mic - GA has a great interactive fishing map with aerials that I used to find shoal and red eye bass. I caught shoal bass fishing the Upper Ocmulgee River in Jasper county north of Macon. The section I fished was pretty fast water with a lot of rock. I was successful using top water walking baits. Hopefully this helps a little. Good luck and let us know how you did.

Throw in a couple hundred or thousand triploid fish and feed them up with high fat forage you should be able make some giant spots. Of course then everyone can catch 6-10 lb spots and they would no longer be special trophy fish.

I definitely will have to revisit this river.

Congratulation to Cayden on his first deer. Also congrats to everyone that shot and recovered deer this season. I agree that we are blessed with bountiful game and opportunities to pursue them. We all have to remember that all of that can be taken from us with a single vote.

Bill, I agree with everything you've said except for the 2 fish per day per license suggestion. That would work well if there are multiple members of my family fishing with me. However, two fish would not be enough for myself to bring home to serve to my family of four (or five if my oldest is home from school). At Taney I prefer to fish the trophy area and would only be tempted to keep fish below the slot limit and two sub 12" inch definitely would not serve as a meal in my house. I do support your encouragement for your clients to harvest fewer than the legal limits. If fishing with my family (2 to 5 fisherpersons) I would likely only want to harvest four to six fish total depending upon their size instead of the 8 to 20 that we could legally harvest in MO.

Those are a couple of impressive bucks. Congrats on your season so far!

Ham - we drifted over three or four trout that were larger than 18 inches and one that was probably 24+". I agree about the average size being much better. These fish had some shoulders on them.

That's a nice fish from the bank in a heavily fished lake. Should be proud.

Ham - great fish. Did you come up from the lake and how far upstream did you catch that fish?

That's a great stringer. Congrats. Better than being stuck at work.

Nice hybrid. What did you catch it with? Did you catch many others? Any whites or walleye?

I have been busy and mostly procrastinating about reporting on our float trip of the North Fork of the White River back in October. I have been working on a goal to catch a trout in each of the MDC designated trout streams in Missouri since the fall of 2013. I was just down to the blue and red ribbon sections of the North Fork to complete the task. On the 1st of Oct. I took my wife and our youngest daughter down to Sunburst to pick up a canoe from Justin. Justin dropped us off at Kelley Ford and the trip began. Many of you might know that I also track the various species that I catch and how many of each fish on a yearly basis. My daughter is also working on her own species list this year. I wasn't expecting much in species diversity on this trip, but was really hoping to finish off my trout goal. Day 1 - The weather was fantastic, mid-60's, mostly sunny and probably more clear than I wanted. I always prefer an overcast day to fish. The water was fast and clear. My wife is a far better canoe operator than I am and neither of us have canoed a challenging river run in more years than we like to recall. So with that in mind and Justin’s warning about the “Falls”, we set off downstream back to Sunburst Ranch. I have to point out that I wade fish about 98% of the time, so I was not real adept at canoe trout fishing. We seemed to pass a bunch of great trout water and I saw many trout as we quickly passed over them. My wife and daughter were having a good time taking in the scenery and fishing some along the way. They did eat all of their lunch prior to 10:30 am. My daughter did catch fish with her hand net or bare hands, including several banded sculpin and an orange-throat darter. Since her goal was 12 different species of fish brought to the hand or net, the darter qualified as a new species for the year. The banded sculpin was a confirmed species. We have looked over several sculpin that she and I caught this year and determined that we have both caught ozark and banded sculpin based upon the descriptions in Plieger’s Fishes of Missouri guidebook. I was fixated on catching trout, but did catch a large banded sculpin as well on a 1/125 oz chartreuse microjig. I caught the only trout on the float. The first trout was caught on a 1/8 oz brown marabou jig just below the low water bridge. So I was finally able to mark off the blue ribbon section of the North Fork from my list. I caught my largest trout on a #2 Mepps Anglia spinner in a pool just below the River of Life farm. The fish was approximately 16” and was one of the thickest trout I have caught in some time. One other trout was caught on a 1/16 oz black marabou jig further downstream. We were able to negotiate all of the rapids including the “Falls’ successfully. On a couple of the more white knuckled runs, my daughter would want to run them again. Both my wife and I declined to portage back upstream just to run those rapids again. As we were paddling up to the take out point at Sunburst we were able to witness a bald eagle harassing an osprey. Day one ended with us tired and hungry. We enjoyed the float and are planning on a return trip. Day 2 - I still had to catch a trout in the red ribbon section below Patrick Bridge. I started fishing just below the bridge right after sunrise. I caught a small 7" rainbow on a Rapala UL Minnow jerkbait in a perch pattern. I had just completed my trout goal. As my wife can attest to I am pretty adept at resetting goals once one has been completed. As part of this overall goal, I have identified all of the streams and waters that have brown trout in them. Since I have only caught browns in the Meramec, Current, Roubidoux, and Capp's creek, that is only 50% of the number of creeks and waters (including Taneycomo) that routinely have browns released in Missouri. So to catch a brown in each of the remaining waters, i.e., North Fork, Roaring River, Niangua, and Taneycomo has become the next goal. So knowing that browns are stocked in the North Fork, I continued fishing the minnow bait. I fished down towards the confluence of the Alethia Spring branch (here's a picture of the spring). There was good rocky structure downstream of the bridge and it didn't take too many casts to catch a 14" brown trout. The fish stuck around a little while next to those posts in the water (i.e., my legs) where it was released to recuperate before it swam back out towards the rocky structure on the far bank. I didn't make too many more casts before leaving to meet my girls for breakfast. After two days, I finished one goal and started working on the next. I look forward to fishing this river again.