vonreed

Drowning someones dog won't be an issue. We'd be setting conibears strictly underwater, but avoiding people is always a plus to. We might come over and do a scout trip next week. Thanks.

Thanks for the info. I'm looking for a couple 7 mile floats or approx close to that, that are consecutive for my partner to trap also. We just got done trapping almost all of Bryant and thought about moving on over a little further. Thanks again.

I was looking for a little help on some advice from you trout fishermen. I'm looking at possibly coming over and doing a float for some otter and beaver trapping in a week or two. Does anybody know if someone has trapped certain sections of the river? With the drive I have I'd like to make it more productive if at all possible. Thanks.

Thanks for the report, it's hard to get anyone to give one down in that area. I hope to start fishing again here in a couple weeks.

Powersite is not even in the same ball park as Warsaw. Although at times you can catch a lot of fish, it still is no comparison to Below Truman dam.

If I had to fish Lake Springfield for catfish, I'd be on the upper end away from all the people. You can catch some sometimes below the dam at certain times of the year, but they get fished out from to many people fishing there constantly. I've been fishing the James River basically all my life and if I had to get down to using some of these funky baits people use, I"d just take up trout fishing or something. If you wanna catch some catfish in the James you gotta get away from all the people and easy access points. Go upstream or downstream to get away from the easy spots. After you do that you'll get into some fish. The only bait I ever use for catfishing is what I can catch when I get to the river. Either get a cast net for minnows, or get a small bait net for catching crawdads. But if you want the best possible bait there is for catfish, go after the Leopard Frogs that are on the bank. They will flat tear them up and not many people know about it either. So good luck and I hope you take some advice, for your own sake, lol. Hope this helps.

smallmouth are good eating, and that one had lots to eat, congrats.

Thanks Emjay. We didnt try there because of the fence. I guess we should have. Yes I meant 6 stripers from the bank. But I didn't see it, so it may not be true. The gaurd that evening said he had seen 1 caught since he started. I would think the morning would be a lot better than the evening for the stripers. Plus a lot of the wannabees won't be out in the morning.

I was down there the other day and talked to a guy who was there all day, fishing off the bank. He said he saw 4 stripers caught in the morning and 2 caught in the evening right before I showed up. There was way too many people there though. It was real impossible to find a fishing spot up by the dam. We fished for whites and walleye til 10 and never even got a bite. The only stringer I seen in the water had a largemouth bass. Nobody else had anything I seen.

Hey guys, no report from me. I need a report from you all. I'm planning on going down Saturday night for some fishing and wondered how the fishings been. If anybody has any info, good or bad I would like some. Thanks a lot.

I float Bryant creek all the time in the winter. It's a great clearwater stream. It has great scenery too. It's my favorite to float.

Hey, I was just curious if you was ever able to catch any of the walleye that you were seeing. I hope you're right, because that would be great. It'd give me an excuse to come down there. Was the fish all the way up river where to lake backs up to? I'm curious still.

You'd have to have a kayak to go back upstream within a reasonable distance away from a put in point. I passed my takeout point by about 3 miles one time in a canoe. And it was next to impossible to go back upstream without killing myself. So I hope you're planning on using a kayak. Usually people paddle upstream first then float back down to the put in point. I'd beg someone to help you instead.

Me and my daughter went down to the James for a couple hours today. To swim was the main reason, but I had to fish a little. I ended up catching a few catfish. And a few bass too. I went down to the mouth of Goff creek for a little bit and walked upstream and there was a rainbow trout in there. That's only the second trout I've ever seen in the James. It would be interesting to know where it came from. The water was plenty cold in the creek to keep it alive, which is why it was in there I reckon. As I was walking out of the creek at the mouth I looked down on the gravel bar and couldn't believe what I was seeing. A nice arrowhead mixed up with the gravel. It was a lucky day.

A good place to buy swimming minnows is at either of the bait shops in Forsyth. But worms and minnows work well also. I'm assuming these fish are probably way upstream now since the water is so high and you can see them. I can't wait to get down there now and check this out.

Walleye have a white tip on the bottom of the tail. If they are walleye, the only way I know to catch them in a clear stream like Swan is to wait till it starts getting dark and use a purple swimming minnow in a jig head. If they are walleye you will catch a few. But most likely like was said above, they are probably suckers you're seeing. If not, post a report again so I can come catch some.

The name of the road is Union chapel, which turns into Nelson Mill Rd.

There's several places to launch a canoe or kayak on that stretch of river. One is at 160 hwy on either side of the road. The East side is better than the West side though. Another is down around Rivercut but is difficult because of no parking. Then downstream from there is a bridge that I forget the name of that is at the end of A hwy. Then another bridge downstream from there that you can get to but directions are difficult kinda. Go down 14hwy to M then take a right at the light. Then go approx. 1 mile and take a left of I think the second Left and follow that till you reach the river. It may be the first left though, I cant remember. Someone else can give better directions I'm sure.

I try to avoid the crowd as much as possible. We were downstream from Riverdale though. There's lots of catfish in the finley. You just gotta find the spots that are better than others.

Me and my son went to my favorite fishing hole yesterday on the Finley to catch some goggle eye and catfish and the spot had completely changed after this last flood. It's been the same forever. We didn't do too well compared to normal. Then 3 teenage kids came through and walked right through where we were fishing to top it off, lol. If I'd been their age there would have been a fight. My son's 11 and couldn't believe it, lol. We ended up catching 2 goggle eye 5 cats and a dozen smallmouth.

It looks like the cousin of that lobster that was caught in Canada. Being blue and all.

Looking in otter poop might be a good way to make some money for some of those tags. There's lots of otters over in those rivers.

It was strange, last night when I was cleaning the fish. The white bass had shad in their stomachs, which is what I expected. But the walleye had some kind of a chub minnows in their bellies. I'd thought they would be full of shad, but none of the walleye had 1 shad.

I went down again tonight. I heard the water was supposed to be turned off at Tablerock. I got down there around 7:30 and fished till dark without even a bite. I was using leftover shad from other people on one pole and lures on my other pole while waiting. After it got dark it turned on. I left at 10:30 with 1 huge crappie, 5 whitebass with eggs in them and a limit of walleye! Plus I had a couple others get off close to the bank. The calmer water has the fish turned on again. I hope I can get up in a couple hours and get down there before light to do it all over again. Good luck.

Thanks for the report. I've been wanting to put in a couple trot lines in on Tablerock here fairly soon and that's encouraging.