Skell9653

Those are awesome! What drone do you use?

Those fish were from a private pit so no limits for me! haha I was getting ready to have a fish fry so figured I'd add one last batch to the freezer. My 12 foot jon boat with oars or my kayak is what I've been using most of the time. A little easier to load than my scamp or hooking up the bass boat.

That sure made for a fun evening! Especially since I only got to fish for a couple hours!

Here's a solid mess of bass I caught out of a strip pit from earlier this fall.

I've never been a part of a hunting club. How has those worked out for you guys? Good experiences?

haha I take plenty of still photos and tell the stories (I'm a story-teller and I like hearing stories), but I just think that video would add the extra dimension to that memory to be able to go back and re-live it.

We're pretty lucky here in SEK to have so much access to public pits that have quality fishing. My family started buying up strip mining land in the 60s because it was going for dirt cheap (before anyone thought it would produce such good fishing) so I've lucked out to be able to have that in the family to have access to a very large quantity of strip pits. As well as some very close friends I now have access to around 50 private strip pits. Some small and some extremely large. My dad tells me about back in 70s and 80s when he could pretty much fish wherever he wanted and people didn't care. Heck ten years ago I had a gun pulled on me for turning around in a fellas driveway learning to drive a standard at 13 years old. I enjoy taking people fishing on the land we own because I get about as much enjoyment seeing other people catch great fish and have the time of their lives as I do catching fish myself. Like I said though, recently I've been fishing the public pits more than our private ones which says a lot about the fishing in those pits (and let me tell you I have access to some dang good private pits full of 5-9 lb bass).

I'm so stoked that Phil got this Strip Pit section going! I'm a fairly new dedicated trout fly fisherman but my roots are in the strip pits of Southeast Kansas. So many lunker bass that I couldn't even count them on all my fingers and toes. I've got great access to somewhere around 50 family owned private strip pits that I can pull some huge bass and crappie out of all around what locals call "Strip Pit Alley" (K47, 69, 620th ave.) but honestly have done more fishing in the public pits in the past few months than I have the private ones. They are great! You may ask why... that's a great question. TROUT PIT. Fly fishing is my newfound love and it is a blast to fly fish at the trout pit over by Hallowell, KS. It's one of about 200 pits in that area working up northeast to Pittsburg, KS. If you haven't made it out there I encourage you to. You will not regret it! There's been some huge rainbow, brown, and even catfish and bass pulled out of that pit. Last year the state record brown woulda been out of there but it never got "officially" weighed even though it clobbered the current record. The current record channel cat is out of that same pit. As well, the state record rainbow was out of that pit up until last year when someone beat it. With that being said.... why wouldn't you fish it? It's not the same as wading into the river and you'll definitely want to fish from some sort of boat, kayak, or tube but it sure is a fun time. Anyways, I haven't made it to R.R. yet for CR but have seen the videos and pics people are posting. I think after one more trip to the trout pit before Thanksgiving I'll be heading up to R.R.

I'm looking at getting a GoPro to be able to record and remember some of those awesome fishing trips. I don't know much about them but was wondering if anyone on here uses them. Which one should I get? What accessories work best to record some from above the water as well as underneath the water. Mainly looking to use for trout and bass in rivers and strip pits. I'll be wading as well as fishing from a kayak, jon boat, and bass boat. Thanks! Any advice or tips is appreciated!

I haven't used anything but a fly rod for the trout so far. I've had no reason to switch as me and a couple buddies have been killing it on the fly rods. It's a blast!

That's true. Better be legal. The game wardens are thick, which I'm thankful for. It definitely helps preserve some good fishing and upkept pits and land for those of us who are thankful for having more places to fish. You should come give it a try! Boy it's a blast! It's be cool to get a group of some of us fly fisherman together to go out there and camp out for a night. Sure would make for some good stories. Between a group of us surely one or two would haul in a lunker.

It's pretty nice. Nice boat ramps! I put in a 19 foot champion bass boat no problem.

Ya it's pretty unique fishing. They stock them but since the pit is so deep they grow year round. It's a big pit as well so there are a lot of stocked ones that will survive in there for a few years. Where it's shallow I've seen lunkers just swimming under the boat. Now getting them to bite is a different story but you can catch eating sized ones all day long! A lot of times I just throw them back anyways and just go for the excitement. It's only about a forty minute drive for me and I'd encourage you to make the trip to come check it out! They got a couple cabins there that are pretty nice you can rent. It's well worth the trip. Plus you got 199 others pits there within a twenty minute drive to fish for catfish, crappie and bass. Actually the trout pit has some massive catfish and bass as well. I just haven't done much fishing for them.

I'm new to this forum and to fishing Capps Creek. I'd like to hear some more about this "Olliefest"! Unfortunately I'm in Joplin and don't get out of church until noon! I'm curious if any stragglers will still be hanging around till later afternoon.

Well from the experience that I've had there it's a blast. A lot of small ones (probably haul in about 20-30 in a couple hours). But it also has some of some great size that a buddy and I have gotten into lately. It's not the full experience of wading into a stream but it sure is a lot of fun! Here's a 22 in. my buddy caught on Sunday in a kayak. He sure had a fight with his ultra-lite fly rod.

I'm a relatively new fly fisherman and fish Hickory, Crane, Capps, and Roaring River (I'm from the Joplin, MO area). I've been checking Ozark Anglers for quite awhile and am a new member and can't wait to spend more time on here. However, I also spend a lot of time fishing strip pits in Southeast Kansas for bass, crappie, and most recently trout out of the Trout Pit. I'm a big time hunter as well. For this reason (hunting and fishing areas outside of the Ozarks) I have created a new forum. If you search 4-stateoutdoors.freeforums.net you will find the forum and I invite any of you to participate!

Has anyone else here fished the trout pit in Southeast Kansas? I am a R.R. regular but the last month and a half have made the trip over by Scammon, KS half a dozen times.