duckydoty

And you could wade from the rock pile the rest of the way across and barely get your knees wet.

I've always wanted to hit the opener with a 70's theme. Big afro wig on, some Elvis sun glasses, bell bottom cordaroys in purple, flowered shirts with the fluff around the sleeves and collar and a giant boom box strapped to my back playing a good recording of "Play that funky music white boy" blaring.

Who you callin a hillbilly.....hillbilly LOL! I aint never seen a brown trout bigger than 38 inches long caught in these parts. Sure is a shame they come so small around here. Every now and then, a blind hog can log 1300 -1400 lunkers in this state. With them lousy numbers, they ought to just shut down the trout fishing in the state of Missouri and chalk it up as a loss. Hope your having a good day Rick. Ran over and visited with Tim. Did not do any fishing due to being out till midnight chasing them slicks on an overcrowded Taney last night. One other car in the parking lot.

Did not make it to the opener at any of the trout parks yesterday, but I was able to go down to Taney for a little night fishing last night. It was snowing, the temp was right around 30 degrees and the wind was blowing just a little. When I pulled in the parking lot about 8:30 pm, I could not believe the crowds. You sure could tell it was opening day trout season in Missouri. My buddy and I had to really search just to find the right parking spot. The one other car that was down there was parked where I like to park. After dealing with that mess of trying to find a place to park and getting geared up, we finally got on the water around 8:45. We started just above the Rebar Hole with white mink sculpins, and on my 1st cast I landed a spunky 12 inch silver bullet. Thoughts ran through my head about a fish on the first cast is usually a bad sign. Took several more casts varying my drift angle and strip speed with out another bite. Changed it up to black pine squirrel and picked up one more fish. Again several more cast changing up drift angles and stripping speeds from a complete dead drift to stripping short little strips as fast as I could and nothing. Changed to olive pine squirrel and nothing. We decided after 30- 45 minutes of that, to move to the flats between outlets 1 and 2. We picked up 4 or 5 fish each up there on black pine squirrels and white minks then decided to go down to the old KOA area. Fishing was pretty slow down there last night too. Iced up eyes on the fly rod was a major problem last night. With the wind blowing, after a cast and a few strips, if I let the line sit for more than 10 seconds, it would freeze in place to the eyes of the rod or actually freeze to the ice build up on the rod itself. I believe I missed many fish due to that problem. I might have caught 10 more fish by midnight down in that area before deciding to head home to a warm bed. No lunkers caught, had to deal with adverse weather and crowds, but like always, enjoyed the company I was with and the time on the water.

I wanted to invite anyone and everyone to the up coming Tri-Lakes Ducks Unlimited Banquet. Come out and join us for an evening of fun and all the while supporting your local Ducks Unlimited Chapter. If it wasn't for your support, Ducks Unlimited would not be where it is today! Come out and support "The Ducks!" This Event supports waterfowl and wetlands conservation. With your help, DU can realize it's vision of wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever. Date: Saturday, March 30th, 2013 starting at 5:30 p.m. Location: Big Cedar Lodge, Grandview Conference Center (Ballrooms C & D) 612 Devil's Pool Road, Ridgedale, Mo. 65739 Silent Auction: Begins at 5:30 Dinner: 7:00 Live Auction: Following dinner Adults-$35/ Couple-$60/ Greenwings- $15/ Reserved Table for 8 - $250 Non-members are welcome, and a DU membership is included with admission. For more information or advanced tickets you can contact me at 417-294-8672 or Ryan Zeller at 417-335-4835/417-294-4164 Hope to see you all there!

We got down there at 8 and went straight to the old KOA area to start. It was cold. It was windy. It was dark and the fish were hungry. We fished down there till about 11 and easily landed 35+ fish each. Bites on white mink sculpins on every drift. Did I mention it was cold. Needed a finger warm up break so we jumped in the truck and headed up to fish the rebar hole around 11. Both my buddy and caught several more in that area on white mink and black pine squirrel. It just so happened to be cold there too. About midnight we took another warm up and snack break then headed to the flats between outlets one and two. We finished the night there with another dozen or so fish each. Most fish all night were in the 10-13 inch range. A few in the 15-17 inch range and one nice one pushing 19 inches

Stockton is the Best Crappie lake in SW MO. Now where would you get an idea like that. There are no, and I mean absolutely ZERO, crappie in Stockton...........LOL!

Welcome to the forum. Not many clear creeks real close to the St. Louis area, but if you head south on 21 down towards Potosi and past Potosi you will cross the Big River a couple of times. Nice clear wading water there especially the Boot Leg access 3 or so miles south of Potosi, or maybe its 3 miles north of Caledonia??? Keep going south past Pilot Knob and you'll come across Marble Creek. That's another gem.

Im headed down there shortly. Should be on the water around 8 pm

I like the name of that one....Blue Thunder! I threw some blue grass but not the thunder today.

We put in at Bridge Port today and had no issues at all. Actually, down by the lake there was no snow at all. All roads were good that we drove on.

I fished Flat Creek today from 11 till 3 and we caught 3 keepers. Cold windy day to be out there. Caught them on black and silver, and pearl swimming minnows up above the bridge almost directly under the power lines in 7 - 10 FOW. Fished all the flats all the way out to the James River Arm and around point 15 with nothing else biting.

We used a Cabelas version of Rhino lining in our boats in Alaska last year. We sanded, but did not prime as directions said, due to not having any primer. On most boats, it lasted all season. My boat, it did not last too long at all, but while it lasted, it provided a nice none slip surface.

I live just a couple miles east of Kimberling City on Coney Island. We got about 1 1/2 inches of wet snow. Road has not been plowed but its not bad. Pretty slushy.

Bwaaaaahahahahahaha!

Nice job Scott!

Cool Pictures.

Fished my first trout tournament yesterday. The Vince Elfrink Memorial Tournament put on by our very own Phil Lilley at Lilleys Landing. It was a great tournament with what I thought was a pretty good turn out. I chose to fish below Fall creek and used.......a spinning rod! Now, I fished mainly flies on the spinning rod using a chuck and duck rig that I sometimes throw with the fly rod. My partner and I caught several fish, most coming from the 300 yard stretch just below Fall Creek. We caught 6 and 8 fish on some drifts dragging non weighted white mink sculpins, white chammey worms, and white mega worms. Now at that rate, you'd think we did pretty well in the tournament, but no.....all fish were stockers in the 10-11 inch range. We just could not find one bigger than 12 inches all day. It was fun to fish a part of Taney that I have only fished one or two other times and I think we ended up landing 25-30 fish each during the course of the day. Thanks Phil for hosting the tournament. Enjoyed it.

Kinda the same only different. Here is a link to the step-by-step http://www.hatchesmagazine.com/page/april2006/158

Good looking caddis LB. Phil and I caught the hatch just right last year. It was a great day and look forward to trying it again this year.

I was working on the hill up on Indian Point and it was blowing pretty hard up there.

That is one awesome walleye.

I imagine, it's the dinner plate sized red ear Tim is interested in.

Absolutely. Will give you a holler when we figure out what time.