duckydoty

I found that hat up in Alaska this summer and had to have it. It is my warm and fuzzy hat that keeps me in a warm and fuzzy feeling all day long no matter how cold it is outside. You back in the area Eric?

Thanks for sharing John. Good looking birds. I know another guy that hunted K Dock area yesterday. They bagged 9 birds. You guys did better than alot of days I've sat out there ending up with goose eggs.

I was able to spend some time on the water today. It was my first real effort at fishing Taney since coming back from Alaska. I got on the water about 9:30 this morning after taking my wife to work. The roads were not really bad at all except caution had to be used on over passes and bridges. They were holding a little bit of ice this morning. Started off with an 1/8th oz. white jig just above Short Creek and drifted down to Trout Hollow without a bite. Boated back up to above Short Creek and tied on a sculpin flavored 1/8th oz. jig. Started picking up quite a few fish on every drift. Sometimes 10-12 fish per drift. Tried changing things up with a 1/100 oz. jig under a float and only boated one fish on the drift. Changed back to the 1/8th oz jig and fished till 4 p.m. Never saw another boat on the water all day long. Had a great time out there. It was a little cold but not that bad with proper clothing. I did try out some new waterproof gloves today. The are supposed to be fish friendly and I was able to cast fairly easily with them on. Hands stayed warm and dry all day. A few of the fish I caught today Had to deal with a little ice in the eye today Not another soul to be seen

Welcome to the forum.

Great story!

Nathan, It seems you are one of the pioneers for two handers on here. We all have a to learn from you about it and I for one am looking forward to learning more. Over the past couple of years guiding in Alaska, I have seen two handers taking more of a hold in fly fishing bigger water. When Table Rock Dam is generating, Taney can be some big water. I think we will see alot more to the two handers and spey rods showing up in the near future.

Welcome to the forum Nathan. Glad to see you on here.

DaddyO, It was a joke. This is the pine squirrel soft hackle. It is one of my favorite flies to swing and strip on Taney. Size 10, 3x long streamer hook. 1/8th inch bead and palmered pine squirrel.

I love swinging a size 10 bead headed pine squirrel soft hackle on Taney. size 14 and 16 olive soft hackles have worked well for me too.

Funny!

Great video!

So sorry for your loss Eric

I do not know anything about trolling salt for kings other than I have heard of a few doing it and catching some. I have never fished the salt. The outfitters on the Nush set up out camps. Most of them tent camps. You can do daily flyouts to the Nush like my lodge does, or you can be flown out to one of the camps and stay a week. Only one fishing lodge with actual buildings on the Nush and it is right outside the village of Portage Creek. Bristol Bay Adventures is thier name. I guided for them about 6 years ago. You can fly into the town of Dillingham and then take a float plane air taxi service to any of the camps you are staying at on the river. Fresh Water Air Taxi would be the ones that would do that. I enjoy the king fishing. Some days can be long and slow but other days can be complete and utter chaos. Most places fish 4 people per boat and when you get more than one fish on at a time, it really gets fun. The kings started running the end of May this year and ran good till the middle of July. During that time frame you can also get into Chums and Sockeye salmon. I have always wanted to try the halibut fishing and my brothers have gone up there while I was working in Bristol Bay. They have done good fishing for the Halibut and catching salmon in the salt. They mostly caught silvers by jigging in really deap water, but they did catch one king. I think the scenery is better in the areas you have to go for the halibut due to the water needing to be deep. Chances of seeing whales, bears, calving glaciers and so on. If i were going up there just to play, salt is the way I would go. Been wanting to see that part of the country for a while now.

6 years ago I guided the head of Alaska Department of Fish and Game of the Kenia division on the Nushigak River. We talked alot about the kings in the Kenia and the Nush. All major king run rivers in Alaska get escapement allotments (the number of kings they allow into the river for #1. subsistence netting, #2. reproduction, #3. sport fishing). After escapement is reached, commercial fishing is fully opened and very few fish will make it to the river after that. The escapement allotment for the Kenia is 7000 fish. If escapement goals are not met, Fish and Game will close the river to sport fishing. This happens alot on the Kenia. There are probably well over 100,000 people fishing for those 7000 kings and studies have shown that it takes an average of 68 man hours of fishing per king caught on the Kenia without a guide. Studies have shown that with a guide the average man hour of fishing was reduced to 38 per king caught. The Kenia is famous for size of fish that can be caught. Definately not for numbers. If 4 people went and fished the Kenia for the whole weekend, landed one fish between them, it would be considered a great weekend. The Nush is the largest wild king salmon run in the world. The escapement allotment for the Nush is 177,000 fish. Only about 20,000 people fish for kings on the Nush. The kings do not get as big on the Nush as the Kenia, but you can expect them to get into and above the 40 pound range. We have had 2 boats fishing on the Nush and boated 103 fish in one day. Now it is fishing just like any other river because we have had days where only 1 or 2 kings were boated.

With my humminbird unit, I went to MDC website and downloaded the zip file for Table Rock Lake. I then extracted the files from the zip file on my computer. Then in Humminbird PC I opened the Table Rock GPS folder under downloads and uploaded them to the sd card that I plug in the the Humminbird unit.

I do alot of hunting up the James. Can have some really good days up there and there are a few well dressed resident geese that sport a little bling every now and then that hang out in that area. Counted 67 in one group a couple days ago. Sent you a PM

Check out some of the archived posts in Migratory Bird Hunting forums. Your getting alot of visitors on your profile. My guess everyone is trying to get a better idea of where you are located so they might be able to help you out. If you are close to the Branson area, I'd be more than happy to help you out with everything I know about duck hunting down here. I'd even be happy to take you out and show you some spots I like to hunt.

Way to go Marty!

I caught 3 small mouth in about an hour with only one being a short playing around with the new side imaging graph. Caught them trolling a number 5 flicker shad about 2.1 miles per hour in 17 to 50 feet of water. Like I said, I was just playing around reading and tuning in the graph and decided I might as well have a line out too. All three were caught in that area skipping across main points.

I caught these out of the James River Arm a few years ago in the spring. The big one was right around 8 pounds. They are in there, but the crappie fishing might be more fun in a week or two.

Thanks for all the input guys. Its great to get the info straight from the horse's mouth too. Thanks for chiming in Hughesy!

This is what they look like now

Thanks again for the names and pictures are definitely worth a thousand words. Those look great!

Thanks for the lead. I will look him up also.

Thanks. I will check him out