Trav

I started slow but finished strong. It took me a long time to find a pattern today. We put in at Nemo and found most the water was between 65 and 68 degrees. You would think perfect huh? It was a flip flop of what I expected. They were still deep, very deep. After spending hours working points, bluffs, inlets, flats and humps, using everything in my arsenal, I had little to show for my efforts. As the day warmed we found a few short stretches of deep banks which would hover between 68 and 70 degrees and it turned out to be the key. I picked up few incidental bass in these areas with a deep diver earlier in the day but dismissed them since the areas were so far and few between. The only way to describe it would be small pockets of doldrums. Where the wind switched on the main lake but didn’t quite get any consistent breeze from any one direction. You could literally drift in and out and north to south like some crisscross circle. Eventually, scratching my head, we returned to where I found those fish and forced myself to slow down with a grub, starting with fifteen feet of water and working myself into thirty feet. You had to do it painstakingly slow and very close to the bottom, almost bouncing the floor every six inches but never pausing to let it rest. It only took a single catch and there would be a quick frenzy by others who would get excited about the action. Then you could quicken your retrieve and run your grub higher in the water column. Yet you had to continue to work over fifteen to thirty feet of water. After a few excited fish you would then have to reposition the boat to approach the area with the same angles but when you did you had to start real slow again and initiate the next little frenzy bite. Then reposition and repeat again. Tedious but it was the only game for bass I could find and it was productive. The last hour of daylight was the best. Like on the James arm of the Rock two weeks ago, there wasn’t a female in the bunch. Just buck bass holing up in little groups. And like The Rock two weeks ago, I am going to predict they are on the verge. We need those night time temps to stay above fifty for a week and it will be on. Just an observation….. The traffic was very light on bass. I found close to seventy percent of those who were on the water today were crappie fishing. Some of the guys were complaining they only caught twenty to thirty keeper crappies, so I take it the crappie have been very good there the past week or so and the colder nights have slowed them down a bit. Not a word on the walleye or muskie. And the whites seem to continue to be running deep. The deep water humps which I am accustomed to working were packed with fish. Huge schools of bait and the graph showed hundreds of stalkers in the thirty to fifty foot range. Probably, the majority were walleye and whites. I couldn’t get any of them to budge though. I found areas between the humps and the shore where there were huge fish on the graph just sitting on the bottom in twenty-five to thirty feet. Those I can promise you are the muskie, which is very typical for this time of year. They seem to be on track for a normal pattern. Look for them to start tailing the surface in mid May to early June like they do every year. It is a matter of time for sure. When those deep fish start moving they will have a lot of missed time to catch up on. Usually by the end of March they have already started spreading out, but not this year. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if all of the fish at Pomme bust loose all at once. It very well could be a good May this year. A hyper multispecies rampage is quite likely. This is bad news for the LM spawn though. Just as those big females go to the beds they will be bum rushed by the competitive species when usually they do a better job of spreading out the season. I am not concerned with it however, Pomme had an exceptional spawn the last couple years. I would say their numbers are probably twice what they were five years ago. A little competition will probably make the population stronger in the long run. Do expect a lot more from Trav on Pomme in the next couple months. I will be watching it very close.

haha....we alll have those days!!

hmmmm....let us not do this

Nothing wrong with being NICE and asking for something. You just have to keep in mind people have the option to say NO. And if you are asking as a professional you should be willing to accept a negative answer. I personally have asked if I can "slip in" ahead of someone during a tourney, there is "No Harm" in asking. It is the gratitude given and taken which makes people courteous.

I am curious about that as well.............

If you think when every time you’re on the water it is about your reputation, like a pro, everyone will know it is about knowledge. Where you come from or what you’re used to is not an excuse for the ignorance of being disrespectful. I am not going to forgive outsiders for not knowing what is proper here in the Ozarks. Down south in the Carolina’s I observed a lot more respect than what is tolerated here. And in Georgia or Florida I viewed the opposite. Florida is similar as you seen in your California experiences. I have fished Texas waters where there are 500 boats on a single lake. Lakes half the size of Table Rock and I never observed anybody down there jumping the way it is done here unless everyone was floating wind drifts. When you are fighting wind in Texas it makes fishing difficult and people are more tolerant. I guess that is why people are so tolerant in the upper Taney. There are way too many boats drifting up there for such a small body of water. Pickwick is very similar to Taney as well. Crazy busy. Either way, you made my point. There is no reason to be rude on Table Rock when there is so much water to fish. Maybe the fact of it is that most people down here are not locals and have no clue how to fish?

I found beds up in the James on Friday. The females wouldn't bite but had the same mossy stuff. I assumed the spawn was in process. Only caught a couple out of a dozen skittish fat girls. Went back on Monday and the bank was stripped clean. Go figure.

Not sure what money has to do with general respect. As a man who has been a guide, in his share of tourneys, and an avid follower of the B.A.S.S., I have never known a pro angler to move in on people without asking if it was OK first. I have myself have asked if it was going to be offensive if I worked an area somebody else was in while I was guiding or doing a tourney. I have found most bass guys will be more than welcome to accommodate if you stated your reasoning behind it. For example, saying you’re a guide or in a tourney and was hoping to check out the area, especially if you mention you only wanted to revisit a spot you have worked previously. In the past, if a guy was nice enough to not protest my request I would even tell them what I was catching them on. That is called being courteous. What I have detest for is those who think they own the lake and think they can just weasel in without even recognizing what they are doing. Those people are usually out there fishing for the sport of it like the rest of us and not for a living. Those are the greater offenders of impropriety. And nine times out of ten they don’t know it is rude. They are mostly tourists, guys who only fish a few times a year, or those who have been burned by this rude behavior themselves and have a bad attitude from those experiences. Giving them the dog eats dog mentality that is so prevalent. To me, it is just ignorance and my intentions behind these comments are solely to explain there is etiquette while on the water. Much like there is etiquette while at the bowling alley. You respect those who are bowling next to you. We all can relate to this type of ignorance being displayed, especially if you fish heavily pressured water. I gripe about certain actions here on OAF in hopes people will recognize this in themselves. Use my statements and educate yourselves and others on how to properly behave when forced to deal with it. If KVD can catch a bag of winning bass with a hundred spectators and helicopters over his head then pressure can be tolerated. Pro anglers know when to back off and not give their trades a bad name. Sure, you will have some over zealous types in some hillbilly local tourney with the wrong idea but if we can learn how it is done and carry the same ethics as the real pros then things will be less frustrating. And if you’re a hillbilly with no respect, don’t be surprised if some crazy guy shoots paintballs all over your rig...…Haha. …Might serve you right and teach you a lesson! I am teasing...…be careful guys...…those hillbillies might have a real gun.…

Put in again at Cape Fair today. The fishing was a bit tougher today but caught them regular enough to keep it interesting. I did twice as much better on Friday so I assume the weekend was full of pressure. Today the ramp was pretty full. I found fish but I had to focus exclusively where I saw bait surfacing or there was a big nothing. Three of the fish I caught had fresh hook marks in their jaws so I guess some of my day I owe to those who practiced Catch and Release over the weekend. For the record, they fought like they had never been hooked recently. Kudos to that! A little remark….. I would like to think I go out of my way to give other fisherman their space. With that said, why do people think it is OK to run wide open only to stop suddenly fifty yards in front of me? Three times I had positioned my boat for a drift with the wind so I can use a little stealth with my approach onto a point only for somebody to run right up in front of me. How rude! Usually I don’t get fed up by the rude fisherman on Table Rock until late May. Maybe I am getting old. Haha….Is it already time to find water away from the tourists? In April? I mean, I know us local guys wouldn’t be so self centered to be this obvious to get a jump on a spot. I know the shores are being fished like a line at an amusement park but seriously…cutting in line with blatant lack of respect for the other guys who are sharing the water with you? Tsk Tsk…I guess scruples are quickly lost these days.

No offense..but I have never had any luck above K docks on the weekend. Of course swapping gestures as I fish has never been a good thing either..

The true fighters used to be in the Lower out of 30 feet. Big Browns are my passion. Fishing them like bass behind river current cover. I Love those babies. And plenty of winter bass were caught the same way. I have caught more browns between 5 and 8 pounds than anyone I know this way. Not to knock your skinny water fly fishing but that was the game for over a decade. What has it been? Three years since the flood? Last year really sucked down in the Lower. Maybe with the gates opening this spring we will see if the food is back. I doubt it though. I will try it this fall but I am not seeing the nutrients for trout being there. One good thing though, the natural fish have thrived. A buddy of mine says the white bass are running the show in the shallows, big time right now. Little ones in the 5 to 6 inch range are more prevalent than trout or large mouths. The carp and gizzard shad might have hurt the largemouth though. White/sucker carp used to be the dominant carp species in the Lower but we now have a similar population of the buffalo. Oh, and the gizzard shad have schools of close to a hundred in a group now. I used to complain a lot about the coontail but now I hate them. They keep the water warm and help these guys thrive. As I reported a year ago...the gills are plentiful and big. We need more guys fishing for those this year. It is lopsided how the bait is over running the bass. The Gills are so aggressive they are eating the bass fry. They run the lake with the little white bass. I am sure someone will confirm this but I will state that when it comes to a cold water fishery and keeping the balance of native fish it is next to impossible. The trout did a great job of keeping the gills in check but since the crash and the change of food the little fish have run amuck. I used to advocate other species in Taney, such as channel cats and muskie but seeing the decline of food for the Brownies I have to say I might want to take it all back. Or should I? Can they be the key equal balance? I would rather see the Browns hiding as the dominant species. Too bad there is something missing. Too bad the Lower has a problem holding them. You would think the Browns would eat the natives but they don’t like them. They want farm raised rainbows and for that they go to the hatchery. My guess is they are not willing to venture into warm water to find those sunfish/baitfish/shad/carp.. Maybe another species will help?.. A warm water species that will eat the carp, shad, and gills, something that will hunt the coontail and help the bass survive? The trout never messed with the bass population but what we have now is hurting both the trout and the bass. Is it possible the trout and the bass in this lake are closer than we think? Is there another species that might cut the butter in the middle? Muskie works in Pomme…but I see that as a problem in Taney. Like the Channel Cat, we don’t need another species that has very little spawning area. Maybe instead of a new species, we need an introduction on food, something that will thrive in cold water. I am not a biologist…I am just brainstorming. Anyone have any thoughts?

Let us not forget...It is Table Rock. Baits without lips get hung up a bunch here. It doesn't mean they are not productive. If you are smart you use what fits the environment. You need to work around the timber. I do well with them in the summer as I have described and use them often. You work the baits for the area you want to work. Lipless cranks work great if you know how to use them. My fishing partner was using them yesterday and did well. For the record..it was a Red Eye in lavender.

James River Arm is primed for the races…. Launched at Cape Fair a little after 2pm. I saw the water temps were in the mid 60s and was thrilled to see they had risen almost 5 degrees since Monday. However, I started off cranking and only caught one spot in the first hour. I was looking around at all the traffic and noticed most of those guys were still working deeper water. I watched one area get fished like a conveyer belt as boat after boat took their turns at it. And no one seemed to be doing anything real spectacular. Two weeks ago that area was a good producer. From what I could tell most were dragging slow presentations or crank baiting. I mumbled under my breath and decided I wasn’t going to do what everyone else was doing. I was itching to cover a lot of water very fast, even if the commitment was going to fail. I had to work it. So, out came the blades and I ran the trolling motor hard. I ran those blades as quick as I could with my boat in constant motion. I covered a lot of lake, managing two or three casts every 20 to 30 yards of shoreline. I focused on small chunk rock and every pea gravel beach between Woolly and the Virgin bluff island. It turned out to be a pretty good tactic. I wasn’t pulling in the bass by the truckload but I did manage a dozen. Ten to fifteen fish seems to be my average these days anyway. The majority of what I caught was sporty spots but I did pick up a couple females this time around. There was a lot of baitfish running and leaping in the shallow water. I was pretty sure they were dodging whites. I did catch one decent female but whites aren’t too aggressive when running a ½ ounce blade. Not to mention, whites don’t impress me much. So I don’t really pursue them. This is food for thought for those of you who do though. Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is the James area is over the hump and the bass have started to move shallower. I was positioning my boat in 5 feet of water and casting out into 10 to 15 feet of water and reeling toward the bank where I found gravel. I did the opposite wherever I found the smaller chunk rock. Whenever the channel switched to the shore I would cross the lake and fish away from the deep water. I basically avoided bluffs. I stayed committed to the blade and worked it like it was the only bait in the boat. Right at sunset the water was glass and I was tempted to go with a topwater but by then the lake was a highway as everyone was running in to call it a day. If there isn’t any wind in the morning, I would suggest you try that. I would be curious as to whether my instincts are correct. Every time a boat went by the baitfish quit running the surface but in the morning they might be less skittish. Good luck this weekend. I predict there will be a lot of pressure. There were a lot of boats today and it was a work day. I don’t fish weekends so look for me on the water again sometime next week. I am tempted to head north and do Pomme…. …..but if you guys start doing any good on the early morning topwater I will probably go back to the James.

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Not much of a pattern but at least they are moving up. I launched this afternoon at Cape Fair and headed downstream. The temp in the lake dropped from 60 to 57 in less than two miles. At the ramp I got a momentary 62. In the back of Piney I did get into 60 degree water again. As I worked my way out the average was about 58 though. Keep in mind, these are all surface temps. We did manage to pick up about a dozen sports in three hours. Most were Largemouth and there wasn’t a female in the bunch. And they were skinny. They looked thin and hungry. The first five fish were caught on five different baits. Stick, swim tail, crank, blade, grub. In that order and the colors were just as diverse, chartreuse, purple, yellow, blue, and white. There really wasn’t any rhyme to it all. No single approach was really nailing them but it was quite obvious they were on the verge. The ones which were hitting didn’t really care what you threw at them. I will say this time next week is going to be the start of the good stuff for this end of the James. They are beginning to shake off the cold winter. It wasn’t a crazy day but it was so nice to finally catch active fish in the 10 to 16 feet range instead of the slow tedious work of the 20 to 30 range. There was only one consistent thing I realized. The majority of what we caught seemed to be down wind of these pockets of stagnate stained water. The best way to describe the color of the patches is rusty. It had an orange hue. I assumed it was minerals being wave washed off the rocks from the shore. I may be wrong though. It was quite evident the fish were staging outside of it though. There was no action inside these areas and the shores which were void of it had little to no activity. That is as close to a pattern that I could muster. I am going to try and go back on Tuesday. I will try to narrow things down more.

Taney Browns have improved in the Upper since the Lower was skimmed and polluted in 2008. I think the rainbows have less to eat these past couple years in the Lower. The area smells different, less fishy and reeks of an aquatic vegetation thing. I have seen similar changes in Iowa when they started dredging after the floods of 1993. Of course now the fishing is better than ever there. So, I guess the Lower has a ten year window of improvement. It is obvious the browns eat bows so they go where the food is. I am still convinced every time they open the gates the upper gets better nutrients. Maybe they should open one or two gates for a month out of every year while the water in Table Rock is still at 45 degrees or so? Let some of the top water hit the ecosystem instead of a constant deluge of bottom fed lake water through the generators. I am just thinking here. I am not a biologist. I have read many articles of the various effects river systems go through. Some described by Mr. Agnew as well as others who take streams and their ecosystems seriously. I would love to hear some input on this. It makes sense to saturate a stream with as much natural stimuli as possible. And there is nothing natural about water running through a generator from hundreds of feet below a water table and injecting it with oxygen. You have to admit the stigma given to those farm raised trout has taken a curve. The Rainbows have better color and the Browns are more prevalent. I suspect more Lower fish have given up on the big water. The fight given by fish in the Lower has always been better than the upper prior to its stir fry in 08. The upper has benefited from it. Is it because of management or environment? I think fresh water off the top of Table Rock has something to do with it. Am I wrong? I am interested to hear some facts from those who might know better than my own 30 years of experience with trout and this lake. I didn’t even buy a trout stamp this year. I don’t fish for trout unless I am fishing deep water for big long term residents of a lake. It breaks my heart to think I have to float some skinny water under a dam with twenty or thirty other boats to be successful. I am just saying it could be a good idea to pump the lake with some surface water when the temp is appropriate to reestablish the deep water quicker. I want to think deep water trout fishing isn’t lost to me. I love it. Do I have to wait ten years until the nutrients on the Lower can sustain them? Let’s be honest here. It is the Ozarks. Outside of the Lower Taney, where can you find big browns who act like hardcore cover addicts? Floating feather jigs in 10 feet of water isn’t me. I prefer a soft plastic trailer behind modified spinner baits. I think plastics give the most natural profile and feathers get dirty. I think watching a graph and bouncing lay down timber in thirty feet of water is what guarantees a fish bigger than 20 inches. This is what I am good at. It is what I prefer. Oh well. It doesn’t matter I guess. Time is on my side. The Lower is pretty dead. I did notice that soft plastics were taken away as a tourney option on the Lilley tourneys. I do commend the catch and release though. Not that I will do a catch and release tourney for trout. By the time I trekked 8 miles to the weigh-in my fish would be dead. And I won’t kill a fish over 20 inches. Maybe I can get photo proof with a ride along observer? Too much trouble, even if I was allowed to fish my favorite plastics. My gram does keep asking for more fresh trout for her dinner though..so…maybe. I am just playing.....…wink. But I am serious about the idea of fresh nutrients......…it might do wonders for the dead end of the lake.

I have seen this before. In Lower Taney during the floods. I assumed it was sewage shock. In Taney it was not crappie but bass coming out of bull creek. Lathargic and half dead but still aware of risk. I don't think any of them survived. It is the toxic side of Missouri allowing septic tanks to go unmonitored in my opinion. There should be regulations. I also noticed after the floods the foam under my dock turned jet black. So did every hull of every boat in the area. It is scary people still eat the fish.

I use lipless cranks different than some. In the summer I like to skirt the deep side of sunken timber and drag them parallel to the shoreline, maybe pause every six feet or so if the water is still cold. Here in the Ozarks, I tend to avoid running them away from the shore or pausing at all if I choose to run through timber. I don't like digging out the lure retriever. I save my baits. There are a lot of snags and with sinking lures such as lipless cranks, containing double trebles to jam up my retrieve, it is a hassle. Although, it is well worth the risk to snug your boat close to shore and cast out to deeper water and run them toward the shore through timber. Pause while it is still in deep water. Just avoid a long count. If I am working deeper water for pre-spawn bass, they are killer. If you give a 10 count before your retrieve and pause like I mentioned. Six feet of line is like 6 to 8 reels? A two second pause will drop a foot or so. I use spinning rigs so you may have to adapt if you use bait casters. Also, if you have fish on your graph and don’t get any reaction then try a longer count and avoid long pauses. Sometimes you have to bring the bait upwards through them. They don’t always come up to the bait. I have learned though…they rarely go down for it so if you run too deep it seems pointless. Just for a side note…I am skittish when it comes to running expensive baits through obvious cover so I am not as aggressive as I know I should be. When I want to run through heavy timber I tend to use grubs. They are usually as responsive and much cheaper to cut off. I tend to be quite frugal with my approach. Good luck

Another way to tell is to look at the whiskers. Channels will have two dark ones like a horn stache. Blues are usually grey or white and the longer horn whiskers are the same color as the others.

Very nice channel cat....be proud of that one. You see how the anal fin curves back and doesn't come to a point?

It very well could be a blue then...cold dirty water in both the Missouri and the Sippi tends to tint blue cats a bit of a tan after a long cold winter. I may be wrong but if you caught it shallow my guess is still leaning toward a channel cat. They are usually quick to move when the water starts to warm because they chase more live bait than any other species of cat. I have caught channels off of spinnerbaits and roostertails often this time of year in Iowa. Did it bark? Channels tend to growl also...

I bet if you slap it on someplace it will be seen...wink

Expect prespawn conditions. My guess the temps will be mid fiftys for the most part by the 11th. If we get plenty of sun that is. I will be thinking about gravel beds off twenty to thirty feet of water around then myself. The bass will be staged right off those areas waiting for the water to prime. I think if you stock up on some 3 to 4 inch grubs and hope for some lipless crankbait action you will be setting yourself up OK. Right know we are looking at some tough cold water but I am expecting better reports after the weekend. The key right now is "methodical". I call it "slow and boring". But I am a man of little patience. Good luck

..I am throwing in two trolling motors...heck..I even have a battery if it will get it out of my driveway.... If you plan on using it at Lake Springfield, I will love to make aquaintence with you. I would keep it myself for use there alone if I had room for two boats..I find lake Springfield to be a forgotten jewel since my bigger boat has too many horses. Leave a message on my profile or hit me up on my facebook link

http://mdc.mo.gov/fish/fishid/catfishid.htm I would say by the brown tint on its back, it is a trophy sized channel. A real nice one. The big ones lose their spots. Also...the anal fin looks to have dark to black tips, another indication it is a channel. Although in this pic it looks straight but it is deceptive. Like a blue, it is fact both can have a major slope from the nose to the dorsal. It varies due to current and habitat. My opinion is against it being a blue from this pic. I might be able confirm it if I knew where it was caught.