top_dollar

What makes you say that? I hope you're right, but it seems pretty popular still.

If they are the size of a pencil or bigger you can go ahead and eat them. There will be several waves of shoots that come up later in the month and into April. If they are thinner than a pencil, you should probably wait another season, but even taking a few shoots probably wont kill the plant.

My brother and I fished out of Beaver and K dock this past weekend. Water temp was in the upper 40s for the most part, and visibility of a few feet. Friday we fished out of Beaver creek from 1-5ish. We ran up beaver creek to the first bend, and fished around with jerkbaits and swimbaits with no luck and didn't see much on the graph either. Went back out to the main part of the lake and drifted/casted swimbaits around the channel drops. Ended up with 4 keeper crappie, a short walleye, and a handful of spotted bass. Saturday we went out with a guide out of K dock (Jesse Cockrum Tri Lakes Guide Service). He said crappie were biting well, and walleye were tough. We scoped up 30 solid keepers and a few shorts in about 2.5 hours. They were all scattered fish, either solo or in pairs. Its amazing you can just target the big ones with a live scope since he could tell the size and species of most of them. Also it would be almost impossible to catch those fish without a live scope. They were swimming randomly 4-40 feet down, over 15-50 FOW. He also showed us a spot that had 100+ walleye on it, but we were only able to make 3 of them bite. They would just follow it most of the way back to the boat and turn away when they got too close. Saturday afternoon we went back to the same spot with the walleye and were able to graph them with our 2d, but only caught 1. We did manage about a dozen or so bass which kept it fun. All of the walleye we caught were 17 inches, except for 1 baby about 10 inches long. We caught almost everything on 3-4 inch swimbaits on 1/8-1/4 oz heads. The guide used basically identical tackle, but also used some half oz heads to get down to the deeper crappie.

They are probably more trouble than they are worth for those lakes, but I have done way dumber things, so Id say try it and see. Honestly though, at Stockton, I cant see a reason to get a bait down more than 20 or 25 feet and it is easy enough to just longline a crankbait. The sweet spot at Stockton seems to be 15-20 feet for crappie and walleye. That is why you see most folks longlining flicker shads and bandits. They may have more use at Table Rock or the deeper White river lakes, but even than, I cant imagine they would come through tree tops very well, so you would have to stick to fairly open areas. Regular trolled cranks hang up in the trees just fine by themselves, so I would think that adding a downrigger would make things worse. Seems more of a niche deal. I troll at table rock, and with thin braid, and deep diving cranks I can get a bait down about 30 feet. Generally the thermocline is between 20-30 so I have no need to go deeper.

It is a public access.

I talked to a local fishing out of a jet boat and he said the same thing as you. He told me the St. Francis river walleye are Black river walleye. He said when he gigs he will see schools of walleye occasionally (he specifically said he doesn't gig them), but that they are pretty difficult to catch and actually target. According to him they are worth targeting on the lower black. Ill have hit that stretch sometime.

I doubt I will catch another one this spring, as I have only ever caught 2 out of there. If I do, I will certainly take more and better photos. It will give me an excuse to actually target them, although I'm sure I'd still have better odds of catching one a crappie jig. Since Lake 35 is so small, it probably does give someone the best chance at actually catching one in Missouri. I think the conservation department surveys them with the zapper boat, maybe someone from there would be able to get you some good photos.

I haven't been up to Busch a bunch this winter, but I have been a few times, and my brother has gone quite a bit. It has been borderline froze up the last month or so, but when there is liquid water, the crappie have been biting. Looks like this coming week will be good. Crappie have been pretty typical. At 33, they are best along the brush on the dam. Small jigs 1-4 feet down. Most will be dinks, but some eaters are in there. 33 is always stained, and those fish will stay shallow even in the coldest weather. Clearer lakes will have generally bigger crappie on brush but they will be less numerous, and generally deeper. 4-7 feet. Target the dams and steeper banks. I have not done any bass fishing up there all fall or winter. I did catch a solid musky at lake 35 yesterday afternoon on a crappie jig. I didn't measure, but I would guess 24 inches or so. That made for an exciting fight!

I did this same float again the weekend after Christmas (12/26, 12/27, 12/28). It was ridiculously warm out, so I thought I had to spend a few nights on the river. I fished Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday. The river was at least a foot low, and I could see the bottom in about 5 or 6 feet. I caught my fish out of the same few winter holes I have the last few years. Apparently I wasn't the only one who wanted to enjoy the weather, as there were several guys in jet boats fishing the same spots as me. It didn't matter, we were all catching fish. Nothing bigger than about 15 inches, but if you were in the right water, and put a bait near them they ate it almost 100% of the time. I found a nice school of crappie in one of the holes, and caught about 5 or so on a 3 inch swimbait. I'm sure I could have sat on them for a while with a crappie jig and caught more. Other than those crappies, and a few largemouth and spots, it was all smallmouth between 10-15 inches long. The best bait by far was a 3 inch Keitech on a 16th oz jig. I also caught them jerkbaits, crankbaits, jigs, and worms, but I caught them 5 to 1 with that little swimbait. Color didn't seem to matter much. The wind was blowing like crazy on Sunday, so just fished a few hours and headed home before the front came through.

This is quite a bit late, but I floated the Big Piney from Boiling springs down to Slabtown back in late October. The weather was unseasonably warm, and we had to sit through some pretty heavy downpours, but otherwise it was a nice trip. Even with all the rain we had, the water remained pretty clear. Everyone I was with was catching lots of smallmouth on whatever we were throwing. My best bait was a Choppo 75 and a small maxscent craw on a 1/16th oz head. No real size, but good numbers. They were scattered everywhere and were pretty easy to catch. Jigs, spinnerbaits, worms and swimbaits all worked well. It was a fun time and I am always glad to float a new (to me) river.

I have never felt the need. By and large I think I am the monster that other creatures should be worried about. I am large, hairy and make horrific sounds both awake and asleep. I tend to be tangled in a mass of treble hooks or winging them around dangerously. Like a skunk I also have the ability to generate an incredibly fowl odor when frightened.

It wasn't really much of an "attack". 1 of the 5000 bears in Arkansas smelled their hot dogs and checked it out. They scared it away, it came back a few hours later, and they scared it away again. It would be scary for the campers, but hardly an attack. Now they have a cool story to tell.

I have also caught bass suspended at the kimberling city bridge that were spitting up craws. Unless crawdads suspend at the bridge those bass must swim quite a ways to get them. I also have routinely caught crawdads in our traps out to 30 FOW. Seems like the biggest ones are usually deeper than 20FOW.

I fished this past weekend around Terre du Lac. I just put in and paddled up a mile or so to a few spots I like to target. The water is low and slow with a few feet of visibility. Leaves on the surface are getting to be a problem. I didn't bother to count, but I caught a bunch throwing a size 75 berkely choppo. I caught a few on a jig, including a largemouth about 19 inches, and a few on a small plastic craw. With the leaves on the surface I think a normal buzzbait would have worked better, but I didn't have one. Mostly smallmouth and largemouth in the 10-14 inch range. No spotted bass.

Correct, and it was fun!