Johnsfolly

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?

Love the video. Look's like the season has begun. We are going to get warmer weather, but more rain would also be helpful.

Nice job and great fish!

Oneshot - did you ever get into any redhorse on the Niangua this year?

There was a huge number of caddis flies all along the river. I also saw a bunch of small mayflies flying around. What was strange is that I did not see a lot of surface action.

Looks pretty convincing that this is the same fish.

I was able to get Friday off from work and with hopes of finding and catching a current river darter and a knobfin sculpin I headed down to fish the Current. I figured my best bet for the small fish would be Ashley creek. So I hiked down from Baptist to Ashley. I stopped to fish the big S bend below Baptist with no luck other than one brown trout follow. I did see what I'm pretty certain was a 5" lamprey attached to a rock in the riffle as I was crossing the river. Instead of using my waterproof camera to take its picture, I tried to catch it with my big holed net. Needles to say I did not catch that fish. I saw in the "Fishes of Missouri" that the least brook lamprey has been collected in the upper Current previously. Still have a bad feeling about seeing this type of fish in this river. I got down to Ashley and was greeted by 50 head of cattle. Really not happy about seeing cattle along this creek and the river. Some damage to the banks was evident. I fished Ashley with no luck on the current river darter. I caught several rainbow darters, stonerollers, and bleeding shiners. I then focused on fishing the Current below the confluence. The water was running clear. I have caught good trout and some smallmouth in this section in the past. I tied on a 1/16 oz tan marabou jig and landed five smallmouth bass (first ones this year). The first one must have been feeding heavy or thinking of spawning looking at the size of its belly. Kept fishing the jig while heading back upstream. I wasn't seeing a whole lot of fish following my baits. I got to one of the better holes. There was a lot more sand and less rock on the bottom, but still a lot of large structure, i.e., boulders and laydown tree. I did have a couple of fish follow the tan jig including one larger fish after casting between two of the large boulders. I switched to a 1/8 oz chenille body and marabou tail jig and cast right back between the two boulders. That larger fish hammered that jig. I thought I had a big brown, but it was a 15" smallmouth with a blocky body. This was the heaviest smallmouth I had caught in the Current to date. Still no trout. I lost that jig in a root wad further up the river. There were some deeper runs just upstream and I switched to a float and fly/microjig combo. I did not have any follows in the two runs that I fished. I did end up catching a knobfin sculpin before I got to one of the deep bluff holes. Again there was a fair amount of sand on the bottom. I made a couple of casts to the head of the bluff hole using a John Deere microjig. I missed one strike and then caught a longear sunfish. As I was reeling that fish in, there was a giant brown trout (24+ inches) following the sunfish. I switched to a rapala countdown in rainbow trout and got the trout to follow it twice. It just followed and circled the bait and never contacted it. No other baits that I threw into that hole even got noticed. Further upstream where it gets rockier and shallower, I put on a Rapala UL jerkbait in brown trout pattern and fished the fast water. First cast into one of the current seems, I caught my first trout of the day, a 18" brown. I got it revived and back out in the river. I caught one other 13" inch brown trout that was really dark orange. After that I had no more looks for the next 1/4 mile of river. Worn down by the cold wind and water temps, I called it a day and headed home. Not as many fish as I would have liked, but I caught a one new species and several nice fish. This was much better than a day at work.

Just the upper Current below Baptist access. I was trying to find the current river darter, but only got into more rainbow darters. I caught this one in Ashley creek after I chased the cattle out of the area. I kicked up a madtom that was desperate to find some cover and did not want anything to do with me. Also saw a fish that I am pretty certain was a lamprey in the Current. It was about 5" in length. I don't know why I did not try to get a picture, instead I tried to catch it with my net with the large holes.

Was able to add three new 2016 species on Friday. Largescale stoneroller, smallmouth bass, and a knobfin sculpin (new life list fish) from Ashley creek and the Current river. This stoneroller is ready for charming the ladies with his nuptial tubercles.

Great fish. My largest largemouth is only half this fish's weight. I have been trying to top 7 lbs, but have not fished for bass that much over the last couple of years. Too many trout and oldball fish to catch.

Another awesome and fat rainbow. Congrats.