FishnDave

Moved this post to the North and East Regions fishing reports section.

Awesome trout (s), fellas! Don's work looks great! I follow this taxidermist on Instagram, he does great work as well: https://www.instagram.com/lawrencetaxidermy/

Nice fish!

Didn't catch many fish last night. A couple decent bluegills and a bass. Bass measured 17".

That is interesting. It would be really fun to fish those, if they don't see many anglers. To avoid getting pelted with golf balls, do you go at night or on rainy days? Or off-season only?

Good I.D. on the Logperch. I knew it was a darter of some kind, but I don't know the specific darters very well. They are very cool fish! Yes, we have Yellow Perch in Iowa...they are in lakes all the way down to practically the Iowa-Missouri line. Here's the purported range of Yellow Perch in the U.S.:

Flyfished yesterday. Visited 2 ponds. Pond #1: I didn't catch anything. Pond #2: Caught at least 15 bass (none over maybe 14"), lots of Bluegills, 1 Hybrid Sunfish, 3 Pumpkinseed Sunfish, and 3 Crappies.

I'm not sure what this means...are you asking if this is caught from a golf course pond? 😎 That would be a good guess, based on the mowed bluegrass in the background. Close! This fish was caught in a public pond at a city park.

Well done! Gorgeous browns!

The markings on that one are crazy! If somebody said it was a "Meanmouth Bass" (smallmouth x largemouth hybrid), I wouldn't argue.

20" bass from last night:

There's a lot of water in Forrest Park. How much of it is public/fishable? I see one area that rents paddleboats and kayaks.

I've got a lot to learn about how Missouri hatcheries raise their fish, compared to what Iowa and Illinois do. Commercial feed for fish can be expensive, and more expensive the bigger the fish get (each fish eats more volume and larger pellet sizes). That's why stocker trout are typically only raised at the hatchery for a year or so (except for the brood fish). I'd be very surprised if the hatchery can afford to put 5 years of feed into their Striped Bass. Stocking fry is much cheaper, but survival is also much lower. I would guess the stocked Striped Bass are 0-1 year old fish, especially at the numbers they listed. It'd be interesting to learn otherwise. As an example, in Iowa, there are plenty of White Bass, but no Striped Bass adults available to use as the important part of the Hybrid Striped Bass genome, so Iowa buys/trades with other states to get their HSB fry. Some fry they simply stock directly into the lakes, some they raise in outdoor rearing ponds until they are 2-3" long before releasing. Some they raise to 6-8" in the hatcheries to use in various research studies they are doing.

I hate to jump in here and risk getting soaked by the ammonia-scented overspray... 😜 It would be interesting to know what size Striped Bass are being stocked. Whether 150K fry, fingerlings, or 6"-12" fish, could have a huge difference in results in terms of survivabilty. If its fry, and if fry had projected survivability of 10%, vs. projected 90% survivability of larger fish...you can see how huge of a difference that could be. (Don't quote those percentages...I made them up.)

Crappies love the cool weather. My experience is in Iowa, so take these observations as potentially having a strong regional bias: Crappies spend the hot summer suspended over open water, at depths that provide the most comfort in terms of light and water temperature. As the weather cools in the Fall, in my experience, crappies move higher in the water column and closer to shore. A warm spell will push them back deeper in open water, cool spells will coax them back to the shallows. They will stay very active all thru the winter, even under the ice.

Did it look like this?

Striped Bass! That's another species I'd love to catch on the fly.

For me, there are WHATs that I'd like to catch that aren't found nearby, and so that necessitates the WHERE. On my fly rod bucket list: I'd love to catch a big ol' Napolean Wrasse wherever they might be found around the Indian Ocean (probably Seychelles). So that'd be the long shot trip. I'd also love to catch a big ol' Arapaima, so that would likely be somewhere in the Amazon basin. I want to catch a lake trout. That's probably more doable...I need to figure out how to make that one happen. Another one that is more doable, an Alaska trip to catch some Dolly Varden and/or Arctic Char. There are other, more likely species I may be able to pursue without leaving the lower 48, and some will become more available to me once I move to MO...bowfin, chain pickerel, blue cats, longear sunfish. Heck, I've never even caught a spotted bass yet...there is ONE lake in Iowa that has them. Tarpon....I'd like to catch one of those on a fly rod too. Longnose & alligator gar. If I sit here long enough, I'll just keep thinking of more species I wanna catch.

I had a buddy in my boat using a topwater lure, and a blue heron flew out from along the shore to repeatedly try to land in the deeper water as it was zeroing in on that lure! And I watched an adult duck raising Cain on the other side of the city pond...in the water, but not too far from shore. Splashing and flapping and squawking...I fished my way around to it...by the time I got there, it was still on the surface, but dead. I thought maybe its foot was caught, so I poked around under it with my rod tip. A snapping turtle had hold of the ducks foot. I presume it had hold, and the duck struggled until it died from exhaustion...it didn't really get pulled under and drowned. Bizarre.

Pop-R is what my seagull hit, too! He was very calm once he got the lure...landed on the water, let me reel him in and remove the hook before flying off. I admit I was a little bummed, cuz an aerial battle would have been much more exciting.

Oh man! You win! Or lose? Cutting your line was probably best. You might even wanna just chuck your whole rod and reel into the water. Forever. Then cry while taking a really long hot shower. And have a hazmat team scrub you down. Fortunately I haven't caught one of those, but I have seen them float by in the river.

Oh yeah! I forgot about that type of stuff....I had a big fish yank an icefishing rod right out of my hand and down the hole. About a month later, the water had cleared up beneath the ice and I spotted my rod and caught it back! And I've caught other rods while out fishing. Various types of plastic, of course, ... a shoe (no foot in it)...a water snake.

What's some of the stranger things you've caught while fishing? I'll start. I was wading a river when I saw something strange float by..I chased it down. It was this bat. While flyfishing one evening, I lasso'd (not hooked!) at Cliff Swallow with my backcast. A seagull once dive-bombed and caught my popper on the surface of the water before I could get it away from the bird. It happened really fast, I really didn't mean to catch it. It was released unharmed...the hook was stuck in its beak, but not past the barb. Trolling a big 12" long baitfish in Cabo San Lucas, MX, an Osprey dropped down and plucked it from the water and flew off with it. I put a lot of pressure on it with the saltwater rod and reel, but it didn't even budge in the air. The hook eventually pulled out of the bait. Strong bird!! I was fast-reeling in a Mepps spinner over 30' of water, and somehow managed to hook and land a grapefruit-sized rock. How the...? Clams, turtles, frogs, crayfish....I was flyfishing after dark once, and a muskrat swam over my line and hooked itself. It freaked out and swam to shore and onto land....which made it much easier for me to release it! I had to unhook a duck that hit a lure my son was using.

I dunno...I DO still like the Blockhead Poppers.... Here's some of the Pearl Shiners: Has anyone tried DDH Leeches? I tied some up, gave a couple to my buddy and he caught a bunch of clear water stream smallies on it. I've had days on Largemouth Bass when they stopped hitting everything else, but kept hitting these:

Those look really good! 3mm foam? Do you do anything special to keep the foam from spinning on the hook....like glue it to an underbody? Do you think those doll eyes make enough noise to be an added attractant? I just use a sharpie to draw eyes on my Blockheads. Hmm...I think I'll tie up some like that. Thanks for posting this!