Bird Watcher

Oh yeah. Neon orange-pink trout meat rules. Sorry to the C&R crowd, but it does.

I like talking about them since they are basically all I think about from March to November anyway, at least as far as fishing is concerned. I don't know if any of this will help you or not, but I know when I started out chasing them, it was very hard to find good information about them. There's a lot of information on the net about Stripers, and there is some information about Hybrids in large reservoirs, but you'll find out that most of the information about catching them in rivers and tributaries is hard to come by. I don't know if they aren't targeted as much in rivers and creeks or if people who do are just close mouthed about it. Probably a litle of both. I know I usually try to stay pretty tight lipped about it just because in that small water, I think too many boats banging around up in there will ruin it. They are usually near where the white bass are and sometimes they are mixed right in with them, but not always. There doesn't necessarily need to be white bass around for you to know you are near the hybrids and just because the white bass are around doesn't necessarily mean there are hybrids around. It's suprising some of the baits that people will catch them on. I've heard of liver, worms, shad guts, shiners and then all the assortment of artificials, but they really like shad. They get so keyed in on shad sometimes that you can't even get them to look at anything else. Don't get me wrong, when they are actively feeding you can catch them on a lot of different baits. I like spook jrs, chug bugs, and soft plastic swim baits. When they are keyed in on the shad though, especially in clear water, in can be really frustrating trying to get them to look at anything else, although I will say this. The only thing I've seen work close to as good as live shad is the flies that my buddy throws at them. You could probably PM Bill Butts on this forum for a recipe as he is an accomplished temperate bass fly fisher who is good friends with the guy I'm talking about. He also knows a lot about temperate bass. I would call him an expert on them actually. He may chime in if he sees this. They use them in a lot of waters as a management tool for the shad population. They can't really get the extremely large baitfish, say >9" or so, in their mouth real well, unlike the stripers that will eat the 10-12"ers. I have caught them before on some 10+" shad though. They will get so aggressive that they will choke down those big shad and you won't even have a hook in them. The bait is just lodged in their mouth. Not for very long though. They'll make a run and it will pull out. To me, the perfect size shad is 5-8" That size bait will prevent the white bass from attacking it as much but is easily eaten by a 5+ pound hybrid. I would guess that your fish are either on their way back out of that watershed after a spring run or are pulled up into it seeking the cooler water if the big river is getting warm. The place you described is textbook habitiat though. The first big riffle and shoal up from the main body of water with current present. If you can find that on other smaller tribs in your area, you should find more of them, especially if they are cooler water. good luck with them. They are an awesome fish. Especially up in the creeks like that. Don't get discouraged if it takes awhile to get back on them. You will figure their movements out if you stick with it. I once went 37 times in a row without a bite! Crazy huh? But now I rarely get skunked. It just takes figuring out the spots they like to congregate and then figuring out what makes them go there. You gotta remember, there are not near as many of those fish in the water as any other type of fish. There can't be, they are man made. No way their numbers are ever going to compare to the numbers produced by mother nature in other species so you are looking for the needle in a haystack of fish.

pretty fish. Congrats.

Welcome to the dark side. I quit fishing for all other fish after my first 5#er. Btw, my favorite fish to catch was the smallmouth at one time too. Remember, they can and will travel up tributaries up to 100 miles without flinching. Nothing is ever too far up river for a Hybrid. "They quit swimming when their back comes out of the water" is what an old timer told me one time and it's true. Nice fish btw.

This is the only post I have read in this entire thread that really disturbs me. What guy drinks Mojitos? Were they out of frozen strawberry margaritas at the liqour store?

I couldn't care less about the politics of this issue, but that made me laugh.

I hear ya Chief. I think I would take prairie winter and spring and Ozarks summer and fall, but that's just a rough draft. There's still variants between the two.

you got it. find a good wind and troll a contour. that bite should be getting good right now. They usually move out there as the surface temps rise. Look in 20-35 fow water and drift a contour with your gps if you have one. If you don't have one, use your lake map and depth finder. bottom bouncers and pony heads with a half night crawler have always worked best for me. there's about 4-6troughs or ditches that come up on that flat and i've always had my best luck somewhere around the head or top of those ditches. try to keep your speed down below 2 mph if you have a way of measuring that. If you don't, try to stay slow enough that you can drop your rod tip and contact bottom.

paging Paul Dallas.

Actually there can be some closer to Springfield than you think, but I can't give any spots away as they aren't mine to divulge. I can give you this hint though. Take what you know about hybrid behavior, apply that to the fisheries you know they are in and start cross referencing. You should eventually end up in the right spot.

nice job oneshot. Will you sharpen my knives?

Good job oneshot. I always look forward to reading your posts.

Love that stuff. I used to get some by a "Danny ____" something or other in a white plastic jar with a weird lid. It was my favorite for catfishing smaller creeks and rivers.

From what I understand, that is a mysterious stocking that produced that year class of fish. I may be wrong, but I don't think AR or MO claimed to have stocked those fish 12 or 14 years ago, but somehow they are in there. I think the Last Missouri record came from Bull Shoals waters as well didn't it? Maybe 3 years ago below Taneycomo or was it Forsyth? I know a google search would turn it up, but my point is, they have been in there awhile, they get really big in there. It's exciting to think what type of striper fishery it will be in 5-7 years with the stocking plan they have for that place.

The freezing process will dehydrate the item (ever wonder where the ice crystals inside the bag come from? or the term freeze dried?) it will also lose more weight when thawed due to ruptured cells from the freezing process.

Chief, There was a member here named 'moduck38834' that was posting items for sale at a place called Sportsmans Factory Outlet, 2333 E Bennett, Springfield, MO 65802....417-881-1635 I haven't seen him on here in awhile though. I looked this up and he hadn't posted since Aug. 2011

I was talking to an old man at the new GRDA ramp up in Elk River across from June's about two years ago. His family spends a lot of time gigging that stretch from June's up to the tennis court early in the year. I asked him if they ever see any walleye early in the year when gigging. He said that there are very few of them, but there is a time for about a week or so in March when they see 3 or 4 a night coming up in the river.

In the picture the angler is standing in front of Littlefield's. That is a long way from either the Spring or Elk Rivers. I would bet a random Northern smallmouth fry made it into the basket when they were stocking paddlefish or Hybrids. It would be interesting to know if they are going to do genetic analysis on it. Probably not since it's not a paddlefish.

In the picture, he's standing in front of Littlefield's. That is a long way from the Elk or Spring rivers. Here's another fun fact. About an hour later, the same buddy caught a 5# walleye from the same riffle. I couldn't decide which one was the bigger suprise.

Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver in the color of California on a brown Chomper stand up jig head in 3/8 oz for me.

My fishing partner caught a really nice one, about 3-3.5#s way up Spring River last year while we were hybrid fishing. I'm pretty sure that one had to be a Neosho strain. I'd be interested to know where he caught that fish. I have heard of one down around Sailboat bridge about 3 years ago in March, but other than that I've only seen them up the rivers.

On a side note, I only wish I had a private pond full of red ear. You're a lucky man.

They weren't posted here. No copyright infringement, unless I comitted that by typing the title. On this site I only saw a link to your site and that's where I saw them. Some of your underwater photos of fish I think are pretty cool, but some of the blended photos remind me a little of the postcards that you would see on the rack by the register at some of the hillbilly junction type rest areas. To each their own though and ulitmately it only matters what your customers think of them. If they buy them, then I guess you are going in the right direction.

so you are saying that your pictures from your website that Chief posted "coyote hunting at dusk" or "bass with jitterbug" or "velvet swamp buck" were not photoshopped, but rather created through your mastery of lenses, light quality, and focal length?