top_dollar

It is probably somebodies lost dog.

Getting humbled is probably the best way to learn IMO. There are a few techniques that I feel I am really good at, but I know that there are better anglers than me that would out fish me 10 to 1 with the same lures. As someone who generally fishes alone, I think there would be a lot to learn from fishing with someone like that. Sounds like a fun time.

I didn't have anyone to shuttle me, so I just put in at the access, walked/paddled upstream to the holes I wanted to fish, and paddled back down.

I fished Saturday around the Sam Baker access. The water temp was 45-46 degrees all day, air temp about the same, clarity about 6 feet or so. I brought my fish graph this time to see how deep the holes were, and the deepest I saw was 14 feet. I was there from about 11a-4p and looked for crappies for an hour or so to no avail. Picked up a jerkbait and immediately started catching. One of the better days of bass fishing I've had. I quit counting at 10 fish, and they just bit better and better throughout the day, then the bite stopped abruptly at about 330. If I had to guess, Id say I caught somewhere around 30 bass. Most were fairly shallow, but up on the deep banks. They were mostly between 13 and 15 inches, with the biggest being a 17 inch LM.

Got 3 or 4 inches in Wayne County overnight. I don't think I've ever hunted opening day with snow on the ground.

The irony of this thread is staggering. People have been panic buying ammo for decades now, as seen in the comments here. How on earth would you expect skyrocketing demand to result in stable prices?

Nah I'm sure you could take me! It was a great float, and my catching expectations are generally pretty low when I float a new stretch anyway. I was pleasantly surprised how many trout we caught down to Welch spring. Heck i caught 2 just standing at cedar Grove put in. It was a gorgeous stretch of river, especially compared to where I normally fish. I still need to do the upper jacks fork, but so far this and the eleven point were the 2 most scenic we've done.

You told me that? I don't recall. That's ok though, we just want to try different rivers. I caught enough to keep me entertained.

Last weekend a few friends and I floated the current from Cedar grove to Pulltite. It was my first time on the Current river. We caught lots of trout from cedar grove down to welch spring, but then it got super slow. With only a few smallmouth and pickerel afterwards. Otherwise it was a great 2 days. We saw cave spring which is quite impressive and we visited Devils well which is also very worth the trip. It was pretty hot for camping, but we had a good time anyway. Forgive the latex glove, I had an operation on my finger and was trying to keep it from getting infected. It did seem odd that there were trout stacked up like crazy where Welch spring dumps in, but just a few miles down at Cave spring there were barely even any minnows? Id have thought there would be tons of fish there too. Most of the fish I caught were on 2 inch swimbaits and small plastic bugs on a 1/16 oz jig bounced along the bottom, or reeled super fast then stopped. I did catch a few trout and a pickerel on a green hair jig. Nothing on the jerkbait.

I don't care what you or anyone else spends on anything. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming to be connected with nature while being a pro bass fisherman on table rock lake. That is funny to me. Its like when a big fat person orders a diet coke with their giant burger and fries. Yes I am taking a shot at bass fisherman but because it is the internet I expected some hyper sensitive individuals to start melting over a joke.

Yeah what a dummy. The real way to connect with nature is on a 50000 acre man made impoundment fishing out of a $70,000 bass boat with more electronics than a best buy. I get that its fun to crap on people for their stupidity...but lets face it, we are all as dumb as that guy if you ask the right questions. Everyone likes to think they are in the "smart" half of the population. Him and his group probably make fun of hillbillies who bass fish for a living. In fact...now that we are entering fall, I cant tell you how many times respected professional fishermen say that fall fish "feed up for the winter". Any third grader can tell you cold blooded creatures don't do that. The temperature drops, their metabolism slows, and they eat less. What's crazy is the people that say that are "connected" with nature, albeit via a livescope.

I have experimented with several different types of wading shoes over the years. Wading boots work well, but they do need to fit snuggly or they will fill up with water. Plus in the summertime I just don't like them. My personal preference is a 3 strap sandal like Teva makes. The rocks are going to get in no matter what, but the straps allow them to go in and out freely. Croc type shoes allow rocks in but not out. Tennis shoes fill up with rocks instantly. The 3 strap sandal allows you to just curl your toes and shake the rocks out in the water. https://www.teva.com/sale/original-universal/195719334703.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=pla&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyuORvofW-gIV8_3jBx2Y3gQREAQYASABEgJc0vD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I have a heck of a time casting a small jig with braid. I just cant cast it far enough to my liking. I stick with 4# or less mono or FC, change it out every 2 or 3 times I go, and spray some silicone lube on the spool and line guides.

Those look great, but I think with panfish baits the super durability of elaztech is no real benefit. At least with me, I break off jigs in brush and such before the plastic gives out. Especially with crappie, I stick with 2 and 2.5 inch keitechs with a no collar jig and a dab of glue. They seem to be gentle and I can generally catch several on 1 plastic. Bluegills are way meaner and will rip the keitech tails right off, but for bluegills I like to use powerbait nymphs and panfish magnets. Just this past weekend I had an order come in from Eurotackle. I got a bunch of various panfish bugs they make. I used a few this weekend, and caught a bunch of sunfish on the 1.5" Anisoptera. That thing freaking works! So does the 1.2" mayfly, but the anisoptera is quite a bit larger and on a 1/32oz #8 hook jig I could cast it far enough. The little mayfly looks best on a 1/64th oz jig, but I may need a weighted cork or something to cast it.

I've caught a handful accidentally while bass fishing and now try to avoid hooking them. They are hard to hold and stink like you wouldn't believe. I do enjoy watching them chase my popper, but I always keep it just out of their reach.

FWIW in my experience at table rock, if I can find a group of them, they will eat a whole crawler better than a chunk of one. There have been multiple times where we would see them on the graph or catch a few, drop down pinched crawlers, crickets, plastic baits only to catch a hand full of small to med sized ones. But as soon as we would go back to the big crawler the size and numbers went way up, in addition to catching any other species in the area.

I don't follow pro fishing much, but just out of curiosity, have tournament weights jumped dramatically since the forward facing stuff started? It seems like it will allow guys to just obliterate old records, but that may just be because of my own poor understanding of it. I remember a few years ago I was cleaning fish on a dock at Kimberling city (bluegills), and Pete Wenners and his friend or client pulled up to wait out a down pour. He was showing his to me, and it was pretty impressive to scan directly under the dock. I am no purist by any stretch, obviously, but I understand how professional anglers can see it as an unfair advantage.

Congrats on a real trophy!

I don't have good electronics, but I've always found at table rock, that live crawlers and trolled deep diving cranks are excellent fish finders. And I am not above using live bait, nor am I good enough to catch them equally well using fake baits, so worms it is. Regarding bluegills...we never found them out on the point like we normally do, but we did catch plenty of good eaters fishing the dock's deepest boat slips in the middle of the day FWIW. It was probably 30+ FOW where the eaters were, and they were mostly just off the bottom in the deeper slips. Bait sized ones would be suspended right under the slips, or up shallower.

I fished a few days this week out of kimberling city. It's a family vacation we do every year. W.T. was about 88 most mornings. I could see bottom in about 5 or 6ft of water. I always fish the same couple of areas. The points at the mouth of schooner creek, the steep side of point 7 and the bridge. This year I didn't fish point 7 at all because I caught them well enough in schooner. Early in the mornings I ran to the point at the mouth of schooner creek. That but typically slows by about 9, at which point I go fish the bridge. I use jigging spoons and nightcrawlers mostly. I caught a few fish on a spoon, a keitech swimbait and a few on a plastic worm but most were on live bait. Mostly caught kentuckies with a few smallies and lm mixed in. I only caught 1 catfish, 0 walleye and a handful of bluegills. Normally I can find a big school of bluegill around the point, but not this year. Everything I graphed was 25 to 35 feet deep on the bottom or suspended over the channel in 50+ fow. The bridge bite was as good as ive seen it. Generally the best bite for me has been midday through the afternoon. Often times you can catch as many spotted bass as you have worms. This year was no different. There seemed to be quite a few shallow fish around the pilings. I generally toss the crawler out about 20 or 30 feet, it often would sink just 5 or 10 feet then one would grab it. We also like to hang crawdad traps around the dock slips using cut bluegills as bait. Our most productive traps were in probably 15 or 20 fow. Shallower traps produced small crawl, and we only had about 20 to 30 feet of length on our ropes so we couldn't go too deep. Way back when the kimberling inn docks had a fish cleaning station a feller used to hang traps, but nobody does it anymore. The folks around the docks are always one part amazed and one part disgusted at the sight of them lol.