JestersHK

Man that is beautiful and turned out great! Some fish are just head and shoulders over the others when it comes to natural beauty. I've thought of getting a replica of this bow. He's prolly one of the biggest weight wise I've caught out of Taney but believe it or not he was not 20inches. His colors were amazing though.

That stinks... It was starting to get warm when we left. Watcha chopping up?

John caught a window to go fish today, and I'm glad I got to spend time with him and his daughter Liv again while they were here in MO. We had been texting throughout the week and finally settled on the current River as our destination. Me and the kiddo Departed the house around 430 this morning and hit down to Baptist around 7. We walked down in front of the bathrooms and Kierstin caught a really pretty rainbow on her second or third cast. Sadly for the rest of us that would be the first and last trout caught on this short morning trip... We went up to Parker hollow and John showed me some great looking water. Only thing I caught was the far bank, and rained down tackle and jigs like I was burning money lol. Had some nice follows, and a few bumps. Caught a shad and some other chub looking fish that John said would make Ham jealous lol... We had a BBQ we had to get to today so we Departed around 1030 to get back home in time... As always the girls had a blast together. Liv was chasing micros and catching them by hand too! Hopefully John can add his perspective too! Even though fish didn't cooperate, had a great time with great company! This post has been promoted to an article

I wore a new pair on Wednesday thinking it might increase my chances of getting back in Duanes boat! LOL

I believe it was guys marking smallies on one of the rivers. Clipping their tails in a similar fashion. Why the heck would you even begin to want to do something like that?

That looks like it will be a good one. Can't wait to see what you catch!

I can neither confirm or deny if said jerk baits made it back with me!

Travis, I forgot to reply to this post earlier, but the areas we fished in were very navigable even in the dark with the fog. Trim your big motor up. You may bump some rocks, and maybe Duane can give ya more pointers. As long as you're not in a glass boat, I'd say put in at the MDC ramp, and go up from there. Most of the hammering took place pretty close to the ramp. First time out in the dark on a boat for me down there. Can't wait to do it again...

He's got the formula nailed. And the painting is just stellar. After fishing these it will be hard to ever go back to mass produced... No hype here, they are legit given results yesterday. Repeated over and over and over results!

Back home and finally a shower lol. Although I was already soaked from fishing in the dang rain... I took the flyrod down by outlet 2. Stripping wooly buggers in the monsoon... Good news is my new rain jacket worked well. Bad news is I think my tippet was old and brittle as I broke off two nice fish. As for my gear this morning I was throwing 10lb spiderwire braid in smoothe green on my buggy whips... Retrieve was also slow for me. With short sharp jerks. Not quite as slow as when I'm wading, but we target the moving current more while being in the water. In the flat water this morning they liked the pause, and I sped my retrieve up as it got sunnier.

Yeah I called it quits heading home now broke two off on wooly bugger...

I'm down here sitting in pavilion waiting for lightning to let up lol...

I'm gonna go give it a whirl. Break in the new rain coat maybe lol

I'm at Phil's and it just let up. Trying to figure out if I'm gonna stay and fish for a bit or if it's gonna keep at it...

Well what I can say is that it's gonna be a long time before I can even pretend to know as much karate as Mr. Miagi! I had just got done releasing a little Walter when my phone went off at 4:45. "U ready?" Was all it said. And you betcha I was up the hill and headed to the MDC ramp. By this time Mr. Miagi had already landed 2 fish on 4 casts. It was gonna be one of those mornings I could feel it... We drifted around by the ramp and just sore mouthed a boatload of small to average rainbows on the Duane special as I'm now calling it. A 2 hook shallow stick which has some amazing action to it, and is a masterpiece to boot. We took turns whacking them along with a few doubles in there to boot! Had a ton of light from the moon and water was like glass. We'd catch a V every now and then or they'd hit it from below and come up with a big splash. Makes me giddy when they do that lol. We worked our way up past the boat launch again taking turns catching fish. I hung for a few fish then Duane really started whacking them. He was also hitting the best fish as I milked a school of stockers just to try and not get lapped too bad by Mr. Miagi. With thunder in the distance the sun started to creep up. By this time we were almost up to the root wad by rebar! Duane even pulled one out of the choot lol. He also hooked a nice one that we could actually see now with the sunlight, we think it was a brown but broke him off along with one of his lures... that made me sad, but some lucky angler now has a chance of scoring a Doty original if they can land that fish! Luckily I still had waders on as Mr. Miagi caught a snag on a log and I did my best flying kick impersonation as I jumped right into the lake to retrieve it. These babies are worth saving! Bite pretty much shut off for me after sun came all the way up. We drifted back down, I even jigged for a hot minute, but as soon as the jig would hit the water, guess who'd hook up again lol. Fantastic morning though. Beautiful and it didn't start raining til I was getting my gear outta the boat. Timed it perfectly. No big brownie this time. Duane did catch a smaller brown though so there's that. Among with a fat little stinking bass too. @duckydoty thank you buddy! Truly you are just a heck of a fisherman, and just a great and generous person. I learn something new each time. It's always a pleasure, and I'm lucky to get to spend time on the water with you.

Not a bad start... Solid bow

When I question my sanity... Made good time, wadered up and guess I'll go get a head start before my ride gets here. Hopefully more to come.

One seats filled... My dumb self is getting ready now to hit the road... Should be there before 5 lol. I pray one day I'll stop getting this mad at em, but can't turn down a Doty trip lol

I know... luckily my middle child just had a birthday, off to find out where her cash stash is LOL. Can't wait to see some monsters caught on them.

Man that's a good looking stretch of water.

Hmmm if I leave now, I could fish from 11 til 5... fish with Mr. Miagi til 9, then be back to St. Louis by 4 for a coworker's going away party... I really need you to make a teleporter in that woodshop of yours!

They are beautiful... I hopefully will get to try one out some day!

I just bought some SIMMs freestones which look almost identical to those. Wonder if they are made same factory... freestones aren't made in US like their Guide line. They were $200 as well.

Jeez, I'm not a vampire or anything LOL. Sorry SIO3 for hijacking your post buddy! Hope you can get out there with Mr. Miagi and put a hurtin on em!

Just tell Pat you gotta go pick up your son with her and the boat. When you guys pull into launch it will still be early and hopefully Pat is groggy from the nap during the drive, then I'll just hop in real quick and do my best impression of BH Jr.! We can make this work buddy! After we pillage Duanes boat of all his Unicorn stick baits we'll just tether up to his new boat and he can drag us up and down the lake to all his honey holes. Love it when a plan comes together... disclaimer: If any of this pans out I'm down for sleeping in my car to accomplish this... Heck who am I kidding about sleeping...