Flysmallie

And I'm eating a big pot of chilli the night before.

Not really anything to add but I will be very interested to see the responses you get. I have also wanted to do the boundary waters but can't get anybody else to commit. I for sure wouldn't be taking my wife there, princess doesn't do so well in the great outdoors. I have been looking at the Devil's River in Texas. It's supposed to be a great smallmouth stream but also pretty challenging.

You mean the Pacer Station Wagon? Oh that would be a treat. I was actually going to call you to see if you wanted to ride down with us. I can cover the fuel charges as always. The only thing is I have to be back in Springfield by 5pm. But that should give us more than enough time to eat, fish, eat, push Dano in the water, and fish some more.

Good deal. I sent you a PM back. You will have a great time.

Hey Chris, I just started a new thread in the Roaring River section. We usually have a small group that gets together and fishes together on the opening day of Catch and Release season. This year it will be on Friday, November 13th. I will be heading down early that morning from Springfield. Let me know if you would like to catch a ride down with me. I'm probably not the best guy to teach you about trout fishing but I bet I could help you get as few hooked. Plus there will be some very good fly fisherman there and they are always willing to lend a hand.

I apologize in advance, but I will be there on the 13th. Hope that doesn't ruin anyone's day. Brian had talked about having a little contest, not sure if anyone is willing to do that, but I would be in. Who else is going?

You guys need to carry more stuff. There is now way I could hit the water with just two rods. I'm constantly changing baits and usually have 5 rods rigged and ready. 2 - Spinning Rods 1 - Baitcaster 2 - Fly rods Of course this is why my "solo" canoe is 17 feet long. Part of this problem comes from all the time that I have spent in a bass boat, where you have more storage. But I'm just as big of a pig in a bass boat as I am in a canoe. Usually ending up with 8-10 rods laying on the deck for my own use. It's amazing that I can be so organized at the beginning of a trip and afterwards it looks like I was part of a river clean-up.

Don't apologize. Even though the numbers don't have much meaning, it has sparked a good conversation.

Catch a nice smallie on a fly rod and you may not need/want any other style. I will say that it's not for everyone. And some days it's not the most productive style, but you can always find another warm water species to play with. But to me it's worth all the extra work. The chances of you landing a 15" smallmouth on conventional tackle are pretty good. The odds are with you. Hooking that same fish on a 3wt. is insane. Now the tables have turned and the fish has the advantage. Rod doubled over, line screaming off the reel, I love it.

How about chasing smallmouth with a fly rod??? Now you know what obsesses me.

If you look at the Board Statistics it shows we only have 4,973 registered users. I think we had the others killed because they were from Minnesota.

So the guy with the best fish is punished? Usually the other way around but I may be in for something like that.

May I go to the restroom?

You guys try to keep up with me and Buckshot. We are going to discuss the origins of the universe next.

Hey you can't prove that.

I think your ramblings are very entertaining most of the time. Sometimes you lose me but my attention level isn't that great. I've thought about dumping her into the water a few times myself! But she is still a good kid, it's the 15 year old that I can't figure out. Good luck with the pond. Sounds like you have probably found what you need in Clever.

Buckshot, I don't know what to say to you anymore. You have got me all wrong that's for sure. I have helped tons of people with fishing. Even the people that you would consider less fortunate. I don't consider them less fortunate, they chose their path in life, I chose mine. If they are happy, then good for them and I'm happy for them. I just wish they would clean up their act a little bit so other families could enjoy a stream access as well. I don't have a problem being around people with less than me, which isn't much by the way, I don't know how I got to be so all mighty in rich in your mind. But I would like these people to be able to talk with out everything being mf'er this and mf'er that. My wife doesn't appreciate it and my kids don't need to hear it all the time either. They hear my bad language enough as it is. I also wish that these folks could learn to go to the bathroom in some kind of privacy, but they would just rather whip it out right in front of everybody. Again something that my kids don't need to be witness to. Wait until summer and get in your yak and you will see the crowd I'm talking about. I saw a grown man take a swing at a lady with a canoe paddle because she squirted him with water. Meanwhile the rest of the group (about 12 people) sat back and laughed. The whole time he was yelling that he was going to f-ing kill her. Let's see you explain that to your kid. Am I better than them? darn right I am. But it's not because I have more money. Are these the people that you are going to look to in helping you fill that pond? To be honest I hope you have success with that pond. When I grew up in Oklahoma there was a small farm pond close to our house. Probably about a 5 acre pond. It had nothing in it but crappie and some very nice ones. So I think your goal is obtainable. I just don't think you will find enough of a population in the James or Finley to make it succesful. I have spent a lot of time on both of these rivers and maybe caught 4 or 5 crappie the whole time. I realize that I'm not fishing for them but I will gaurantee you this, if there were good numbers in these rivers you would see more people out fishing for them. The only crappie that I ever caught out of the Finley came out of the stream just a little below Linden. It was a nice fish at 13 inches, caught the thing on a popper. Probably was an escapee from the little lake above the bridge. The few crappie that I have caught on the James came about 100 yards downstream of the Y bridge in Galena. But that may be a little far for you. I will tell you that is one thing that really pisses me off about you. When you first started in about this pond project several people tried to steer you in the right direction on places to catch crappie. When people in this area talk about crappie they are talking about the crappies in the lakes. Table Rock, Stockton, Pomme de Terre, Lake of the Ozarks, Truman, all great places to catch crappie. There are also good numbers in Fellows and McDaniel as well. But no, that's not good enough for you. You don't want to be put out by having to travel too far. Well if you want to catch them in any numbers you are going to have to get to one of these lakes. That's where they are at. I do know one place that is close that used to have good numbers in it. The little lake on the Finley at Riverdale. We used to catch them there when I was in high school. Now that was 20 years ago and some things might have changed, but it's still a good looking spot. Of course nobody will let you fish there and they will usually run you off if you just stop to look at it. Maybe you should spend your efforts working with the people that control it and convince them that you could help manage it by taking some of the smakller fish out. If you want help on the water or someone to go with you and show you some spots then let me know. I am a helpful guy and not bad company on the river. I have a canoe I can put you in the front of and show you some spots that are deep. I have no idea if there are any crappies there, but you are the crappie expert, not me. I only catch them by accident. And don't worry about my kids, when I take them fishing it's their day to fish. And yes they get free knowledge but that's because they are spending time on the water trying to make themselves better. My oldest is a lost cause however, her life is now consumed by volleyball, band and all the other things that you deal with in high school. My yougest is 5 and she is no fishing star yet, but she loves to spend time on the water. Now my 10 year old daughter is all about it right now. You want somebody to teach you a lesson on the river, then she would be the one. Well she would be if you are looking for 12 to 15 inch spots. Don't be scared, you wouldn't be the first fishing buddy that has lost to her in a friendly battle to see who can catch the most.

Dude I said it was someone I considered a friend. Now how could that be you . Besides, when you told me that I needed to bring a banjo and go by the name of Ned I was a little afraid.

Nice report and pictures.

None of you are going anywhere without me, period.

First of all I never said that I am better than them. Yes I make sure my kids are dressed before I spend all my money on a carton of cigs, a case of beer and a bag of weed. But they have just as much right to fish these streams as I do. I just prefer to get away from them so I can find the fish I'm looking for. If you want to go talk to them then go ahead, I doubt you will find what you are looking for from this crowd. Not even sure how to respond to all this but if this group wants to feel a little less left out then maybe they should start following the laws that the rest of us follow. You have to give a little respect to get some. These locals that you feel so compelled to back are the exact ones that are destroying our streams with their trash, empty beer cans littering the stream and disregard for all game and fish laws. You go ahead and talk to the guy with the stinger full of 10 inch bass, but again I don't think these are the guys you want to be talking to. Honestly, good luck on the cats, walleye and crappie. I'm not your guy for them. But I rarely find a smallmouth in any of the deepest holes, even in the dead of winter. I would say that my best luck comes from fishing water less than 5ft deep. That's probably more of a product of my fishing style. I don't like to fish deep slow pools. So since I spent all of my time and money finding the fish I like to catch I should just turn that info over to the whole world to see so that everyone can have the same success? I guess I don't see the logic in that, but, so you understand my reasoning, I have been burned by that in the past by someone I considered a friend. So I think I will save that information for the the folks that I fish with and myself. I fish because I love it. Not because I want to get on a public forum and share all the things that I do to catch fish. I enjoy this forum and have learned a lot from it. However I have never asked anyone to give up one of their spots to improve my results. Well except for Eric, but that was done in a pm so the whole world didn't see it. I also think that most everyone is willing to share knowledge on this forum. Yeah you probably won't get the gps coordinates to the exact spot but they usually give up the section of river that they fished along with what was working well for them on that day. Sometimes you have to take the information that you have and put a little work into it. It seems that more and more folks are joing this forum these days just so they can gain the knowledge that they are unwilling to put in some hard work to gain on their own. We have great fishing opportunities in the area we live in, why don't you get out there and search some of them out. Then when you have some succes you can start to contribute more to us than how you think we are all a bunch of jackasses since we won't share everything with you and how fishing in Missouri sucks.

Drive to any of our local stream accesses on a nice summer day and you will see how unethical the people I call river trash really are. And if you get bored with that you can jump in a canoe and join the group that can afford a canoe and have enough left over to buy their kids some clothes, but most of it's the same old trash. However I do meet some great people on the river. To get to the good fishing you are going to have to get in a canoe and go find it. Where's it at? Hell I don't know, most of these rivers were just flooded. I'm sure some spots have changed. I mainly fish the James. And if you really want to know, mostly between Kerr and Galena. And traffic has really increased over the last couple of years. Hard stretch to have a good time on a weekend in the summer. Several years ago there was a huge tree laying the river just down from a nice riffle. Over time the water had washed a nice deep hole under that tree and that deep ditch ran about 20 yards downstream. It was exactly 1.1 miles below Kerr access. I know because I carried a gps down there once. I spent a lot of time wading to and from that tree over a couple of years and always caught a lot of fish. One year it was gone, just not there anymore. Plus the deepest part is maybe waist deep, probably less now. What I'm trying to tell you is that there are plenty of spots to find fish between the accesses. They are not hard to find, a good fisherman knows what a good section of water looks like. All some are trying to say is go look, you will find what you are looking for, we just don't want to broadcast the spots that we have, because you never know when they will be gone. Do other people find them? Hell yeah they do, seen lots of people fishing that old tree many times. And it never quit producing until it was gone. Another thing is that it would be tough for most to give you some specific areas when we don't know what you are after. In one of these posts you talk about a trot line, then say you would rather have a limb line and then say you just want to fish in an area that would be good for a limb line. For what? I know some great places to run a limb line for catfish on the James, but that's all there is there is catfish. Tell us what you want and maybe somebody will help you with what you want. And if you are looking for crappies for that darn pond, I have no idea. I'm no crappie fisherman but I would bet that Stockton or Table Rock would be the place to go.

Mark that was a very entertaining report. Thanks for sharing.

Hello ChadO! Welcome to the forum/insanity. Lots of great people and information here,

That's why you take a gun. I'm not talking about shooting anyone, but just a show that you have one. That would probably do the trick. I've never had to test my theory, but I'll keep that option open just in case. Drunk punks are dangerous to themselves and everyone around them.