Buzz

That is a great photo.

Very cool picture.

Sounds good Ollie. I'm sure we'll do just fine. I look forward to meeting you Wily.

Great looking fly Leonard. Congrats.

I agree totally. IMHO,these are generally good topics for discussion, but those who post them are known for their distaste for the administration and title them in a way that begs for a fight. Just a suggestion, if you really want to discuss these things don't title them in a way that will obviously put people on the defensive.

Cool pic Chief. Just goes to show that they are eating pretty good, and still hungry enough to eat your plug.

Now that's a cool pic. Thanks for posting it.

You got it, Ollie. I'll bring the canoe. Which section do you think we should work on this time?

Great narrative Cricket. Those are the fish that keep us going back.

What is highlighted is almost exactly like the day I had at Crane except for the big 15 in. ( my biggest from Crane ) male that I ended my day with. Just saying, you really never know. I also believe, that since most people will stay home and watch a football game, it can be your best chance to catch a really nice wild fish. On the other hand, you might just freeze your tail off.

Hey, I thought this was about winter trout fishing???????? Don't forget there are plenty of White Ribbon areas to fish during the winter and C&R at the parks. I tend to start to get really pumped up about this time of year and trout fishing. Is it cold sometimes? Yes. Is it unbearably cold sometimes? Yes. Do the trout bite during these times? Oh yeah. My biggest Crane Creek trout was caught one January day with the temps never getting above 35 degrees. It hit a # 14 Hares Ear Nymph. Last year and early this year during C&R at Roaring River I caught several really nice fish on Bunny Bugs and Mohair Leeches. White Ribbon trout are obviously a little easier to catch, they will bite about anything, but still fun. As far as bass ( Lm and SM's ), I tend to wait for the Indian Summer weeks and float the creeks. Some really big fish can be caught during these days on about anything, cranks, tubes, soft craws, and spinnerbaits. Since we don't have as many springs as some, it's best to wait for that odd warming trend.

Thanks for all of the comments guys. Glad you enjoyed the pics. The fishing is definitely hot right now. I went out this evening to a walk in spot on Shoal Creek and landed 13 fish, most were in the 1 lb. to 1.5 lb. range with a couple of shorts. I lost 4 good fish when they jumped or tail danced and threw the hook. Again they were all over the Spinnerbait and soft craw. They are hungry. It's time to get out there and catchem'.

I'm like you, I have always used trailers on my spinnerbaits. I like the added weight plus I believe they can add to the action when the bait is falling. Also it allows you to get a little bit of contrasting color. Instead of changing baits you can change the trailer color and sometimes that is the difference between getting bit and and getting skunked. As an example a few years back my ex-father-in-law and I were fishing Table Rock at night. We just couldn't get any good fish on the same black with black or black with blue spinnerbaits. So I decided to experiment with a bait that had a black/chartreuse skirt and a white with green spots pork chunk. It was like turning on a light, I started catching some good fish and then he dug out a matching skirt and chunk and we caught a lot of good fish the rest of the night. I sometimes change up the trailer on my day baits too if I'm not getting any good bites. I never use straight colors and will seldom throw one without a trailer, even though the War Eagle's say you don't need one.

I took this picture last weekend while floating and thought I'd post it.

Thanks for the report. I might have to try to get down there this weekend.

Knowing full well that last nights overnight temps would be in the low 50's and the high today would only be in the mid 60's, Chief and I decided to hit a section of water neither of us had ever been on. At 9:00am the temp was 53 degrees and overcast with a brisk breeze, chilly to say the least. When we met up we both made comments about how it was probably going to be a tough one, and figured we would be stuck flipping jigs back in the log jams. I decided I would start off with my lucky spinnerbait and Chief tied on his trusty crankbait. Within 50 yds. of where we launched I hooked up with a nice LM and missed 2 more pretty quick. Chief jumped right in and was hooking up soon after. The bite never did die off, we caught fish the entire 6 miles of the float. Chief gets the award for the two biggest fish, a big 4 lb. Lm and a very nice nearly 2 lb. brownie. We were able to stick with our favorite lures all day with no problem finding fish. Well over 50 fish caught today. I'd say the fall bite is on.

I like the modifications too, but I have one concern. Maybe a bigger beer holder/pouch.

Wayne, I have no doubt that you have fished some of the streams in our area, and I agree that we may not have as many 18"+ brownies as some of the other streams ( I have no doubt they are in there though ), but we do catch our share of 15"+ fish. ( I'm still looking for that big fish hook-up though. ) Right now, I'll settle for a day of catching keeper size to 15" brownies in areas that are not on the trophy hit list. As far as giggers go, I haven't seen any sign of this on the streams I am commenting on. Maybe the Elk and it's tribs where the water is accommodating to the rigs that those guys use. I really don't know. Most of the waters we fish are barely float able by canoe, which, I would think would hinder that type of fishing. I am also not a fan of the giggers who have no regard for the smallmouth and largemouth that they often stick. Thanks for getting back to me.

We have taken several trips in that old jon-boat of Chief's and always did well. Especially when we needed to go back upstream, just crank on the old trolling motor. My old fiberglass canoe was on the water before any of these fancy plastic boats got popular. I bought it off of a buddy for $100.00 back in 2000 and have no good reason to change now. A little fiberglass work every once in a while as needed. This summer we patched a couple of worn spots and I changed the color from red to hunter green. Looks pretty dang good too. Just one advantage over plastic and aluminum.

Wayne, I'm not sure if you read this post ( below ) I made on another thread earlier in the month. I'm not going to divulge the stream I was writing about either, but the term "Smallmouth Galore" is not an incorrect statement. And although I don't see any sign of gigging in our area I do agree that it would probably be the most devastating to big brownies. Laker, Thanks for your input. As a C & R guy, I think you might have a good point. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat fish and I will admit to a small amount of laziness. I really just don't want to mess with cleaning them. And we are talking about all species of fish. Chief and I have talked about taking a few limits, but just haven't done it. Actually I think it would be most beneficial in the smallmouth stream that I wrote about being over populated with mostly smallish sized fish. There are a lot of good sized brownies in there but, the vast majority are in the 6 to 10 inch range.

I like the YUM craws in the 2 1/2" on a 1/16 oz. weedless jig and the 3" sizes on 1/8 oz. weedless jigs and the deep diving REBEL craw for the shallower water with my spinning rod. For deeper water the YUM Big Show craw on a 1/4 oz. weedless jig works well, both dead drifted in faster water and jigging through the deep holes with a baitcaster. I prefer the watermelon colors on most all of my craw baits.

Man, that's just crazy.

Hey Fishin4Fun, There are also a number of very good brownie streams over here in the S.W. corner of the state, which are not much more than an hour away. I know that you are looking for wadeable water ( we have those too ), but with the temps of the streams dropping as they are you might also want to look into good floatable water. We float our streams year around and do very good with both numbers and quality of fish, you just have to get away from the easily accessed areas. Buzz

Question:: If these triploids are the eating machines that they say they are, how would this affect the browns in Taney? Would the competition be more than the browns could take? Or, would it just be another rainbow mixed in with all of the rest?

Yeah, I forgot that pic. Looks like it is a normal part of the smallmouth. It must be a natural occurance in the species. I do have some pic's of smallmouth that don't have the spot, but they are more green in color.