bryantsmallie28

You definitely have that right. Every hunting season is closing down and its kind of looking like winter here lately, there isnt a whole lot to do, besides sit on a bank with a couple poles with slicks on them and not catch anything. I guess talking about grabbing makes you think of warm spring days of sucker grabbing in the morning, and white bass fishing in the evening, and a little turkey gobbling thrown in while those other two are going on. Man im ready.

OK hold on a second. Before you go blaming the lack of smallmouths in the creek solely on gigging lets remember a few other things. Gigging is definitely not the sole demise of big smallmouth. How many pictures do you see from the ol days of huge stringers of monster smallmouth. And you cant tell me they didnt gig them back then too. Many things have changed since those days not just gigging technology. The main reason the smallmouth are disappearing is habitat change. How many big holes in the creeks do you see that are filling in. There just isnt the water to hold those big smallmouth there used to be. I know places on small streams where i used to catch 15 inch smallmouth and swim in holes that were over 8 feet deep, where now there is barely any water in them and you are lucky to catch a 8 inch smallmouth, and I am only 22 years old. And yes fish are gigged illegally i have done it myself. I didnt keep it because that is illegal. but when the water is murky and there are a bunch of fish sometimes it happens. yeah more fish are probably killed on purpose but dont say it doesnt ever happen accidentally. Just think about what you are saying before you say that giggers are the only reason there arent as many smallmouth.

Bobby M. I dont think i just heard you taking credit for taking care of those fish by yourself. If i remember right there are other people who feed those fish too. And before you are talking about keeping native fish in an aquarium i'd check with the wildlife regulations or talk to quentin about it.

Hahaha. I just thought id get this topic going and post something figuring someone would say something. I didn't konw that it would take this long for someone to say something, I figured this post was just dead from the start. I would a lot rather have a mess of walleye, crappie, goggleye, or other fish than suckers, but they do provide for fish fries well, and they are pretty good unless cooked wrong.

Wow I didnt realize it was that easy to figure out who I was. I guess I was wrong.

I know before this last rain we had it was still creeklike at the stumphole. the ramp there was wrothless. I think looking from there it looked like what some people call the goat hole, which is the bend below the stump hole conservation ramp, seemed to be lake water. And then udall is really low but it is lake water because i saw a guy in a bass boat fishing out in front of there. but dont ask me how he got there because I have heard it is tough to even find a ramp to put a bass boat in, even in northern arkansas.

Ok i am probably gonna make some people mad here but why cant some of the money used on trout be moved to smallmouth. It would seem to me like a native ozark stream fish would be a little more important than a freakin trout. But id say there are a few strings that wont allow that.

I wasnt thinking along those lines. I would think that updated equipment like that lighting it up even more would make it easier to not gig bass accidentally. Yeah you are gonna have the people who just do it anyway, they will do it no matter what. If you take away the new technology and make them gig with dimmer lights you are gonna have more bass killing on accident. By halogen lights are you just talking about the ol square shop lights that have been around for a while, and most everyone has. Because i know around my area the newest thing that lights it up even more are the gym lights that you have to have the ballasts for. They are more expensive, but you only need like two and they light it up more than anything i have ever seen. You can see like the whole creek bank to bank in most spots.

Yeah I dont think there will ever be a time when there aren't people who just break the law for no reason, just to do it.

What new technology is this I guess I have never heard of it. I wish there was something that could be done to slow the gigging of illegal fish, but i dont think there is any way to stop it. I really dont konw of anyway to slow it down too much either besides more patrolling of the high traffic areas on the creeks. I dont konw if people really have much of a fear of getting caught. I think a few people getting caught along the creeks by agents with night vision goggles might slow it down some. Just putting the thought of someone watching along the bank without knowing they are their might deter someone.

I havent caught many down there but my friend lived in west plains so that was the closest fishing for him so he fished there quite a bit, and he said he would stumble into them while white bass fishing. It was usually right around when the whites were running maybe a little later i think. And no i havent ever fished for them all the way to dawt. By that time i usually have tamed my fishing down and im concentrating on turkey hunting. I know the stripers and hybrids do get all the way up there, im not sure what number or anthing but they do go up there. I have heard a rumor, keep in mind this is a rumor, about somethign like one year the water was really up and they were afraid it was going to get up over the dam allowing the stripers into the precious little trout area(sorry I'm not a big fan of the trout, its an opinion shared by many giggers) and the way i heard it was they were gigging them off the dam or something to keep them from coming up there. Yeah it sounds crazy and i dont figure it is true, maybe someone can enlighten us on this, it just adds a kind of entertaining story to this.

Yeah I understand. The best advice I can give you is to go to these creeks mentioned and look for the vehicles. the fish are surely soon to be found. If you cant see the people listen for them yelling haha. generally, where one car goes there are others to follow even if there aren't any fish, but if there are fish the cars will stay and more will follow.

OK just to save some person, who decides blind grabbing for 8 white suckers in an hour sounds fun, however much money the fine is, The fall grabbing seasons ends tomorrow January 31. (which you couldn't pay me enough to go do, yellows maybe, well nevermind not them either I still have better things to do) So before someone decides to go out and do this its not legal after tomorrow. Also yeah there might be a few suckers at the mouth of roark. I figure there would be suckers up in roark if there was enough water. There are suckers in most creeks all winter long, how else would there be fish for people to gig. The spring grabbing season opens March 15 and closes May 15. So everyone will have to wait until then, unless they want to risk it. And to clear things up blind grabbing is usually done when its windy or muddy and the suckers are pretty thick in a hole when the odds are pretty good that you will hit a fish every few casts, or when you are bored haha. Grabbing in my definition is done when it is clear enough you can see the fish. I have seen times when you could see the fish but the school was so thick that unintentionally you would hit something else. I remember back when the lake so low a couple years ago that you could stand on those little bluff at the maiden hole and the bottom was just black with fish and a majority of them were suckers or carp and buffalo but there were white bass in the midst of them and you woudl grab a white every once in a while and just had to throw it back. those kind of days make for some bad confrontations between the grabbers and white bass fishers. Another place that can get bad with that is up swan along the road. Well sorry that was so long but i thought id explain everything, and i really didnt want anyone to go out not knowing that there is a season and get fined. oh yeah, and sorry if i sounded sarcastic or something, but I just really didnt understand spending that longof time blind grabbing for that little number of fish which are harder to clean and not quite as worthy of the trouble it was to get them.

Yeah i know i just figured someone would have caught a few down around twin bridges somewhere or something.

Has no one been down the the spring river yet. Seeing as how warm of a winter we have had I would have thought someone would have least caught a few white bass by now.

This is a post that you aren't going to get much info on. Sorry to inform you but people are really quiet about their grabbing holes. There are the holes that everyone knows about and everyone grabs, but then there are the holes that are way back off some cattle path that few people know about that people will even go as far to blindfold people on the way into them so they dont konw how to get back. I have heard people lie many times as to the whereabouts of the fish they have grabbed, and even went to other places to clean them so people dont konw there are fish around. This is definitely something that locals have an edge in because they konw the backroads and know the landowners. You will kill plenty of fish though going to the well known places the key is just to find the ones that are easier to grab. There are certain holes that seem to always have at least a few fish in them and they are hit everyday.

Yeah I have fished it some but I usually stick to the bull shoals area because it seems like there is a little more area to spread the people out at least somewhat. It seems like every white bass/walleye fisherman on the lake is around tecumseh that time of year. There are a ton of fish there though, If the rain doesnt continue coming down like it did today and get the creeks rolling enough to keep up with the generation at the dam, so it will fill up the lake you will be able to wade fish for them at the liner ramp. It looks like a creek at the stump hole. I have fished down there quite a bit though and plan on fishing there a little more this year because I have a friend who knows it a little better than I do who i will go with more since this year im not down in branson at college. I'm just thinking if it doesnt come up a whole lot before spring a lot of peoples money spots above the tecumseh bridge are gonna be lucky to have the numbers of whites come through them this year.

Yeah i know what sod farm you are talking about. It is over near that Talbot Conservation Area. It does seem like its all around the river right there. HAHA if it was affecting it and nothing was done im sure its not too hard to catch about 50 armadillos and turn them loose over there...just kidding

Yeah it seems to be taking it over. I have heard the name of it too and can't remember it. I have a couple of ideaas what the source of it is. It could something to do with the millions of cows you see standing in the middle of it, and I have also heard something about a certain town that starts with a H and ends with an artville, along the river and its sewage treatment thing right along the river. Not to nam e any names or anything.

You know boys its a hard thing to say, but I really think its a pretty safe bet that we will never see the kind of fishing for smallmouth in the creeks like their used to be. I am only in my early 20's and it has changed tremendously. It just kills me to hear my grandpa talk about how good the fishing used to be in some of these creeks and know that im not gonna be able to experience that kind of smallmouth fishing. It just seems like there are too many people out there who care nothing about anyone else, and has only their betterment, or well believed betterment, on their mind. You see so many people who care nothing about these special places we have, and dont realize how special they are and just use them however they feel. You see so many people doze all the banks up to the creek just for that extra blade of fescue to run one more cow which stands in the middle of the creek all summer. It just kills me when i hear people say something about losing field to the creek, or how shallow the creek is getting and you look out in their field and it is just bare up to the creek and big ol mud banks that are constantly falling in. I guess the thing we have to do is just enjoy what we still have while we have it and take plenty of pictures. I konw from experience its nice to have pictures to look at and see what creeks could produce and dont anymore. Sorry to be so negative but I have just had my fill of some of this stuff and felt like venting. I just hate to see such a good thing go to waste.

Yeah winter is definitely the time to fish the Gasconade. That or late fall of Early spring. Once the summer starts to get the weather hot it gets pretty nasty. every gravel bar seems to have a herd of cows on it, and every slow hole is full of weeds.

I'm betting anyone who has went grabbing and ran into anyone and asked where they were from will agree with me. The Sucker grabbin' capital of the world would have to be the Hartville/Mansfield area. Not in terms of places to grab but in terms of sheer numbers of people who grab. Yeah nixa has sucker days but i would bet that there is an amount of fish way over what they have for sucker days that goes to that area. I would bet that at least 70% of the grabbers you run into on the bull shoals and norfork tributaries are from that area. I was talking to the guy at fin and feather the other day and he was sayign that 90 percent of their business in grabbing supplies goes to that area.

Yeah that was the Orla mill. We took out of the Orla bridge on that float. We had quite the break playing on the concrete slide next to the dam where the water went around. It was a lot of fun. I kind of like having a little of that stuff to play on and swim in during a float, it seems to give you a break from concentrating and fishing and getting hot and sweaty. We did hear a story though later when I told some people from Lebanon about it that someone supposedly died playing at that dam but it was just a story i dont konw if there was any truth to it.

So how many millions of dollars in rogues do you think someone got out of there as the water got low. I had meant to go down there when it got low again like that to try and get some lures but I forgot.

Hey Bobby M., I know who you are. I am a former C of O student who looked at Ozarkanglers with you. I was telling someone about your pond the other day. I'll get in touch with you sometime to find out about your hunting season this year.