Tightline

Man that looks good!!!

Good job Dutch, try to leave a few in that lake for us fish hungry guys !! Lol

Nice Jack !!!

I didn't see anything stupid in any of the responses to this report, just a guy giving his opinion on they way he sees things . I think everyone deserves that right . Very good report DD ,You have come a long way in your fishing expertice in the 9 years I have been on OA, hec I remember you needing directions to get to the Blunk hole years ago ,LOL Good job.

Heehee , i hear you capndan , gotta watch those pictures with recognizeable stuff in the background also!! Live and learn .

To each his own opinion on taste or catch and release. From what I have seen with the whites on James this year is that there is a year class missing maybe 2 years, they have good and bad years just like any other fish, (remember Bullshoals several years back) whites were as scarce as hens teeth. I'll feel alot better about the James when I start seeing lots of pecker heads caught. Hey BATCAB27,nice catchs, thanks for posting. I was wondering, do you ever keep Bass,LM,SM or Kentuckys,they taste great?

Well said,and so true,usually we won't hear about the trips that come up with little or no catchs,especially after posting you just slayed them. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Great mess of crappie you got there,looks like a good mixture of black and white crappies,,ummm good. I love fishing down there,and would alot more if it weren't so far. Good job!!

Thanks , Motoman and Vonreed,we were kinda on a mission to find some whites and feel some power on the end of our rods for a change.Alot of the females were 18 inchs +, you guys know the power,it was awesome. There was no way we could've used 1/16 ou heads where we were at, making long cast and throwing cross wind. At 9:30 am when we put in,I said to myself we're going to have to get lucky today with all the boats,and we did,left at 3:00 pm.

My son and I put in at Flat creek,and quickly realized we had forgot it was the opening day of spoonbill season..I can't ever remember seeing that many boats from Flat creek to Ashers.It took us a good 1/2 hour to weave through all them to get up there. 2 whites and 3 crappie in 3 hours just wasn't getting it,then the wind started to pick up so we ran back down past most of the boaters to a bank that the wind was just pounding.We started catching whites right off the bat in about 3 feet of water. We caught 41 whites all together, we released 21 sows and brought home 19 males and 1 sow to eat. Caught 6 keeper crappie also. We used 1/8 ounce heads so we could cast in the wind reeling fairly fast with our rod tips high. Ice colored swimming minnows were the best but smoke also produced along with white sliders. Here are some pics of the sows compared to the males that we kept. PS. Don't know how the date on my camera got on march 17,I guess I messed up the last time my batteries went dead.

Pressey has been one of the best point guards I have seen play in years but at times I could just ring his neck. Go Mizzou !!!!

Exactly!!

Awesome pictures oneshot, if you blow up the pictures you have marked as Taneycomo you can see Powersite dam in the back ground.Looks like the ole Pothole was a busy place back in 1957. I would've been 5 months old and living just up the hill to the right of the pictures. Love old pictures, do you have more?

Josh,i have 2 journals that span from 1980 to 2000 , mostly bass fishing, but alot of crappie and white bass fishing too ,its really cool to look back and see just how good it use to be and the different lures we use to use. 20 years from now you'll really enjoy looking back and reading about the good ole days. I just wish I would've wrote down more of the really bad days fishing too there would've been alot more to read though,also there were a few years I didn't keep track of much,got lazy I guess.

Nice Hybrid.

Nice mess,Josh did you learn to crappie fish and learn how and where to find them all on your own or did your dad and relatives help alot ?? Jimmy got me going up to Pomme de Terre years ago in december when I couldn't find em on TR or BS, we slayed em for years up there.

Thanks for the pics,it keeps my fever high through the week when I can't go.Nice slabs.

Did you guys see any whites caught up there??

Good job Bill and Phil,and you said you weren't a crappie slayer Phil ?? How about some pics if you get a chance tomorrow. Good luck..

That rain water has warmed it up,I can't believe we aren't hearing any reports out of Long or Cricket they are there but the water is clearer and cooler and the bite is always a week or 2 behind the James.Or maybe they are just being quiet. I am also surprised that the whites aren't being caught right now, espeially in the Capefair area, we usually are killing them there. Good report.

Hey PD no need to apologize your just sticking to what you believe, and i've done a little prodding and picking myself in this whole conversation. I do know one thing you guys from up north can really catch those eyes especially in deep water.If they are not shallow I don't have the patience to fish for them. I'm no biologist,and i'm relying on what I was told and what I seen while living on the banks of the Pothole when I was young.Dad was an amazing walleye catcher,and in the winter time some years we almost lived on fried or baked walleye. Him and his brothers use to go to Lake of the woods up north about every year.When he'd come home and open those coolers full of walleye fillets ,but not a one could have come off a fish bigger than 5 lbs. I was use to seeing fillets as long as my leg.no kidding,and can remember him just loving the fact that they could catch 50 -60 eyes a day up there and just scooting them across the top of the water because they had no fight. So I'm a little biased from what I've seen from my younger days,but thats just the way it is . This has been an amazing thread.

Powerdive,umm, I don't know if facetious is what I'd call it , But you've been on this forum for awhile and I see from some of your post you do know about fishing and deserve respect. So i'll try to be nice, and thats really hard for me at times but thats what Bill wants from us. A fish is a fish humm. Tell that to the guys out in California who catch those 20 + lb largemouth see if they would mind if we brought some of our Bullshoals bass out there and turned them loose.Or go to Alabama and see if they would mind if we brought some of our Spotted bass and turned them loose down there.There are different strains of alot of fish and some grow bigger than others.And I do think our walleyes were different and bigger. I'll take Arkansas,Missouri,Tennessee and Kentucky walleyes over any northern states or province any day, and I HOPE that the walleyes stocked from the land of a thousand LAKES didn't completely stunt our strain of big river walleye.

Powerdive, only time will tell. The 21 lb state record caught in 88 would have been 14 to 16 years old well within the time frame for an old river jack. I imagine there are pockets of the old walleye strain left somewhere in Bullshoals or Tablerock like Wayne mentioned. Wayne thanks for posting that link I really enjoyed that article.

Powerdive, just an example here. What if we took hundreds of our Largemouth bass and transplanted them in Lake Okeechobee in Florida where they have of course the Florida strain largemouth that get up to 17 or 18 lbs what do you think would happen later than sooner. The farther south you go the bigger the fish get and alot of strains are unique.Florida largemouth look different than our largemouth. Missouri,Tenessee,and Kentucky have a special situation when it comes to Walleye,longer growing seasons,but water still cool enough to support them.. Look up some of the northern state records for eyes,Minnesota,17 lb, Wisconsin 18 lb. Theres nothing that can be done about it now and I am happy with the good walleye fishing we enjoy, but just wish that the MDC woud've tried a little harder to get eggs and fry from our original river jack salmon. Just an opinion of mine.

Excellent story Bry,I can feel your pain and disgust,and have had 2 family members go through a similar experience. But when you take out the bad instances where you think they have totally screwed up, they (MDC) have gave use alot to be thankful for compared to other states. Alot of State and Federal programs and institutions are not perfect, but neither are we. Good post and great story Bry.