Johnsfolly

I got out to Little Dixie at 6:40 pm this evening. The was a constant north wind. So I fished along the dam near one of the east fish attractor brush piles. I put a nightcrawler on a circle hook and cast it out using a very light drag. Last year under similar circumstances with this wind direction we saw large fish just off of the bank. My hope was to catch some crappie and some large bottom fish. My other rod had a jig and float combo. The black and green jig was about 14 to 16" from the float. The stiff wind made it difficult to gauge if I had a bite or not. My retrieve was a reel and drop then reel and drop back to the bank. I did have a crappie hit the jig on my second cast, but it went silent for some time. The worm got picked up and the fish swam off with the bait. I tightened the drag and it pulled tight. After a short fight I landed a fat yellow bullhead. I got one other bullhead and a small channel catfish on the bottom bait. The crappie fishing picked up when the wind died down and the lake flattened just when the sun went down. I caught a half dozen white crappie all about 6.5 to 8", a couple of bluegill and a couple of green sunfish. If the lake flattened sooner, I should have caught a few more fish. I can't complain with 13 fish in about 2 hours of fishing.

Like you said - some chunky fish! Nice photos BH!

Just thought I could help out. By the way don't tell my son about the quail. He wants to have California quail.

BH - I missed this post earlier. Great stringer of white bass! I haven't fished a place that I could fly fish for whites. Sound like fun under the right river conditions.

The male was back right at dusk sitting in a dead branch just above the feeder as if he owned the place. He's pretty plump. I'm surprised because usually they are real thin after their migration.

We have had rains everyday and the ground is still good and moist. I would suspect that around us we may still find fresh morels through this weekend. I will probably go back to fishing (saw a couple of topminnows that I may be able to reach with my 9' flyrod) and let my wife and kids continue the myco-foraging expeditions. That is until some new mushrooms, like chanterelles start popping later this spring and early summer.

Thanks for the information. May explain how the mushrooms move from one location to another as the mycelium is feeding along the fallen tree or root system.

BH you need to get some chickens to produce your own farm fresh eggs. You want a couple of ours? We have 12 layers and two roosters in a suburban neighborhood outside of the city limits. I came home from a business meeting/dinner last night and found we now have three chicks in a warmer, Wife and daughter believe that they are all females. What we don't need is another rooster or two. The chicken yard is too small and the neighbors are somewhat tolerant to crowing at 5 am everyday by two birds, but maybe not three or more. If I was really serious in my offer, I'm sure that there are a couple of birds that just aren't as popular to my kids that they could probably go to a new home.

Nice catch of walleyes!

Well we tried the dryad saddles tonight. I sliced it real thin and cooked with a little butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. They do have a melon like smell when I cut them. It was decent tasting and not too tough even though these were older mushrooms.

BH - do you know how old the mycelium of a morel can live or how old they must be to produce the fruiting body? We were wondering that as we were hunting. I hadn't ever looked into their age before.

Just had our first male visiting our feeder this evening.

One thing to note is that this snake like other venomous snakes tend to float on the water surface. Water snakes will only have their head out of the water. Gutsy photos BH!

Last year I could not find a single morel. To my credit, I did catch a lot of fish and a variety of fish during the morel season. So this year my wife taught me that to be successful at morel hunting that I need stop looking in the water and look on the banks. I did finally succumb to going out with my wife and daughter to go hunt morels on land. The first spot, I just couldn't find any early on. My wife started finding them and even got to the point of pointing one out to me and offered that I could pick it just to get the feel for it. Now I knew what to look for to find these morels. We did find many more. Even I found several. However, my daughter and myself still found less than my wife. These morels were found in a public park that gets some attention from other mushroom hunters. So we were pretty happy with our bounty. We did find this other mushroom on this trip. Any one have a thought as to what this might be would be appreciated. My wife has been obsessed to go out to a location this year where my daughter found a really large morel last year. So we had to go to this potentially overlooked spot. We (I) only found two morels, but they were big ones. We were pretty happy with our total number of mushrooms including a few dryad saddle mushrooms that we are going to try.

Awesome giant morel. The coolest microsnake that I have ever found was a worm snake (I stole the picture from the internet). It wasn't that different in size of that killer snake that you found on the road. We also found giant 5" ringnecked snakes terrorizing our neighborhood as well. What a safer world it would be if we ran them all over. Just kidding. I do get a really pissed when I see cars intentionally run over turtles.

Thanks Al. I appreciate the response. That's a lot of water with all kinds of opportunity for both big fish like smallmouth bass, whites, walleye, etc, and the little guys as well. I do like catching big smallmouth and trout as much as catching a new darter species. I'm just a bit obsessive lately about catching some new species and the darters are really cool now that I see them and can catch them.

I was pleased how it turned out. I've got the family out looking for more morels. Now it's up to me to bring in some more fish.

Al - do you know how many miles of water make up the Meramec river drainage system? Ham mentioned to me the other day that there were about the same number species found in the Current river system. It would take years to learn all the haunts of each of these fish and a tremendous amount of legwork to get access to all of those waters. I would love to just get 11 or so new fish and am really looking at the Meramec to get a couple of those species. Thanks for piquing my interest in this river system.

We had hybrid striper fillets that were placed upon and topped with thinly sliced onion and garlic, a slight drizzle of olive oil, salt/pepper, and a little oregano and baked until flaky. Some fresh cooked spinach. Topped the fish with a morel cream sauce with morels that my wife and daughter picked on Sunday. Went off the diet with the cream sauce, but you got to treat morels with some love. Extra salad and carrots today to make up for yesterday's meal.

Great fish! I've been fishing smallmouth for a long time and have not come close to a smallie that size. You guys are putting the work and just slaying (at least figuratively speaking) giants on the Meramec!

I used to catch a lot of pickerel in the Poconos when I lived in PA. In Missouri, I have only caught one chain pickerel fishing the 11-point River and a couple of grass pickerel in Crane creek. Fun to catch. I'm looking to tangle with a musky someday. I was hoping to post about catching a new life list species after this weekend. However, the topminnows are kicking my butt. On Friday I found a couple topminnows in a local stream known to have red and redfin shiners. The minnows were in the deep pool under the bridge. Went out Sunday with my wife spotting above on the bridge directing me to where the fish were headed and just could not get a bait in front of them. Again they were always 2 to 3' further than I could reach with my rod. I think I will have to break out the 9" flyrod and put on my spinning tackle to get the bait in front of these guys. My wife went off to look for morels (posted under the mushroom discussions) and I went to find fish that were more ready to take the bait. Caught mostly chubs, longear sunfish, but did catch my first couple of commons shiners for 2016. I also added white bass and hybrid striper to the 2016 list on Saturday down at Truman dam. I hoping that we get enough rain to get more morels out, but not enough to muddy up the streams.

I love the video. Looks like nice fresh morels are for dinner.

Congrats to everyone that got birds! Definitely jealous thinking about being out in the turkey woods or fields, while I am stuck at work preparing for a big meeting this week.

Also we need some perspective on its size, possibly held up against a hand or near a face. I agree with JD with my first thought that it is a young ratsnake.

There's nothing better than I can think of than catching a bunch of fish after a bad day at work or at home. Especially if the trip was as uncomplicated as your trip. NIce photos.