wily

I can't go either but maybe in the coming years. I checked travelocity to see how much it would cost, and out of KCI to King Salmon...airfare would be approx. $1250

Has anyone used the ramp at Ventris? How is it? is there a courtesy dock?

http://www.buffalopoint.com/ I hear ya on the 5 miles...we'd probably just try for rush. thanks

I have never been to the Buffalo River. Has anyone ever stayed in the cabins at the old state park? I am considering a summer vacation for my family but the website pictures aren't very good, so i wanted some advice whether or not the kids will have anything to do...The lady said it was a mile from the river. While we're there I'd like to take an easy float but mostly the boys will want to catch crawdads and play in the river. thanks

Burrr...My family and I just returned from our annual trip to taney. We didn't fish in the restricted area. We fished mostly from fall creek to cooper creek. We found the fishing to be slower than in years past. I fished a rapala along the bluff banks Thursday and didn't have much luck. I had a couple chasers but no biters. Thru-out the weekend I picked a couple up on an olive jig, and I also tried a zebra midge under a float with marginal success. I should say that i have two boys who are under 5 and we mostly fished with blown-up nightcrawlers. We caught quite a few on the worms, including a couple 3 pounders...suckers that is. The suckers had eggs in them. We also caught a handful of pumpkin seed perch directly across the dock from Lilley's. All told, we limited out each day except the first and that was because i tried the rapala most of the day. The biggest brown was a 16 incher...we also had two rainbows that pushed 15. But on average the fish were fewer and smaller.

We were fishing just up from the Lilley's dock saturday evening (10/21) about 6 and we saw a boat going back and forth, from one bank to the other about every 30 yards or so and i asked him what he was doing...he said he worked for navionics and he was plotting a new map. He would take his boat right to the edge of the lake and turn straight for the other bank. He had a computer screen next to his steering wheel and he'd punch buttons each time he turned...i guessed it was coordinates or something.

FIL and I tried them again first thing sunday morning. The weather made the fish tougher to catch. Water was real choppy until about a half hour before the rain started. Rain started about 9 and never really stopped. I never saw them busting on the surface. all of our fish came on the spoon including a nice largemouth straight-out from the lighthouse at patricia island. All told 21 keepers and a handful of smaller ones. Luckily, we were off the water by 10.

We slept-in saturday so the white's were pretty much finished by the time we got to the lake (9 o'clock). we managed to catch a couple on a spoon in the first 30 minutes we were there, but there was no wind and bright sun. i think that kept the fish deeper than they had been the last couple weeks. We decided to black bass fish for a couple hours before heading back. I caught 2 nice keepers and about 10 other non-keepers cranking main lake points. My brother caught a couple smaller fish on a white/chart 1/4 oz spinnerbait. it seemed most of the bass fisherman were flipping docks. Water temp has fallen to about 77 degrees in the monkey island area.

I was able to go twice over Labor Day weekend. Both times I went early and used Martin’s Landing to launch the boat. I was on the water by 630 both days. That was about as early as you could comfortably start without lights. The topwater bite lasted til about 10 both days. I imagine you could stay later and catch fish on the spoons or trolling shad raps or something similar thru the same areas and catch fish but by that time your live wells are practically over-flowing so there really isn’t a need. There are two kinds of birds…the egrets which fly low to the water and the seagulls…only the seagulls help you locate the fish. The seagulls fly higher in the sky and circle above the fish and swoop down and eat the shad being pushed to the top by the white bass. The birds do not have to be present to catch fish but it makes locating the fish easier. We fished flats close to the channel around the islands just west of Sailboat Bridge. Saturday morning there were 8 or 10 boats but Monday morning there had to be 20 or more. We had better luck Saturday than Monday but that was just because we zigged when we should have zagged. The fish seem to move around a lot over these big flats that are near the river channel. It’s a lot of fun but it’s also a trolling motor drag race, so make sure your batteries are charged. I fished a baby torpedo exclusively and caught a lot of fish on top, albeit maybe smaller than some of the fish my buddy caught on his spoon. He fished with a ¾ ounce jigging spoon. He would drop it to the bottom and jig it up a couple times. If no bites he would reel in a few feet and stop and jig. He used this technique both days and caught a lot of fish. He liked a gold spoon better than the silver. I’d say Saturday we caught at least sixty and Monday we caught 30 or 35. It’s hard to tell how many you catch because you catch them so fast. You just want to get them off the hook as soon as possible so that you can throw back in the melee. We kept and cleaned pretty close to forty on Saturday and only had about 25 Monday to clean. I deep fried a bunch of them up Sunday in lard and they were delicious. We’ve never been checked but I’d suggest buying a counter of some sort if you plan to keep what you catch because you can forget how many you have easily. Words of caution...watch-out for flying fish. The spoonbill in this area jump like the dolphins at sea world. You’ll be running down the lake and all of a sudden a giant fish will jump and pirouette like flipper going after a smelt. I’m not sure what they’re doing but it’s a common sight.

A friend of mine and I were lucky enough to fish with Ivan Martin last weekend. Well, I wouldn’t really call it fishing, it was more like catching. Ivan always says that grand lake has more white bass in it than any other lake in the country, and after friday, I tend to agree. As we arrived the weather was unpredictable with the possibility of storms, the wind was up and that made the fishing uncertain, at least during the boat ride. As soon as the big motor was shut-off we jumped up and dropped the spoon and each of us caught a fish in the first two minutes. After that I’d say any doubt was gone. I’m certain in the four hour trip we caught over a 100 fish between the three of us. The places we fished were within 5 or 10 minutes of Martin’s Landing. Martin’s Landing has a lot to offer as a home base on grand lake. It has a convenient location, a good ramp, and courtesy docks and it only costs $3 to launch your boat. Ivan, and my friend used structure spoons. They’d make a short cast, and let the spoon go to the bottom and then jig it up about 18”. I used a white Baby Torpedo mostly and caught a ton of fish on top. My fish on average were not as large as the spoon fish but they were plenty fun. I also used the spoon and a swimming minnow. I caught a couple on each but I preferred fishing with the top-water plug. One place the water was twelve foot, another was twenty-two and another was thirty. The fish in thirty foot water were larger but they were suspended which made spooning more difficult because they had to gauge the depth w/o the bottom, but the top-water worked at each spot. The thing about where we fished was funny, We weren’t fishing spots, we were just fishing general areas. I’ve driven my boat past these areas many times, albeit about 50 mph. We were fishing out in the middle of the lake about 200 – 600 yards from any visible structure. Basically just fishing flats near the river channel in the main lake. You kind of had to keep an eye to the sky and watch the birds. If you go, go early or late. We started about 630am and the best fishing happened before 10.

http://ozarkanglers.com/trmaps/indian.php

Mine's sent

I may have misread the article because it seems to put minimum flow in a negative light, but isn't minimum flow good for taneycomo?

You might try holiday island. they've got a lot of rentals, and it's semi-close to the dam.

I'm coming down in the morning to pick-up my boat and figure i'll try it for a couple hours. What do you think? would it be best to try catch a couple bass down deep around the Big M area? Or has anybody catching any whites around Holiday island or Beavertown? Thanks for your help.

We had a club tourney Friday night at Eucha. The best bite was on Plastics worms/brush hogs, but my keepers came on the spinnerbait. It took 14 lbs to win and big bass was 4 lbs and 9 oz. If you’re looking for a place to fish away from the jet skis and recreational boaters, Eucha Lake is the place. It is a beautiful lake. It reminds you of a major creek arm on Table Rock. It is a Tulsa Water supply lake so there are restrictions on swimming but the fishing is great. It’s a good Crappie Lake, White Bass and Black Bass lake.

Ollie, where'd you guys put-in? My wife and kids went to the undercliff campground Saturday morning and caught crawdads, and used a minnow trap and caught some decent fish. If you have your own canoe they'll take you upstream about 4 miles for $10. It's a pretty good float. In the past we've been in situations like you described with the log jams but since they do quite a few floats they keep the river in good shape.

Look on the manufacturers web-site. They have many of the product manuals in pdf files. I checked humminbird this morning to make sure, and i know a couple years ago i got info off the eagle site for mine. On the humminbird site look in the bottom right corner and it says product manuals...just follow the link and look for your model.

I happened across this and i'll offer some advice based on my experience at stockton/grand/TR. I hope it helps. The bass will be up on the banks feeding so find a nice main lake cut or creek and go to work with a 1/2 spinnerbait w/ a single colorado blade. Position the boat close to the bank and cast out front at about a 60 degree angle. My favorite spinnerbait is a war eagle black and chartreuse w/ a chart blade and a blue zoom super chunk trailer. It has two little rattles on it, and I think you want to use contrasting colors for the trl. A white/green spinner bait w/ a pork frog is also good, but most spinnerbait combos will work well. Plus they're easy to cast and snag resistant. A jig w/a craw trl is also good. We typically cast them and hop them along the bottom back to the boat. I like black/blue. For plastics i'd use a big worm in red shad or purple. Deep diving cranks also work, but the spinnerbait is the best.

There's more flooded timber the further south you go, so i'd say yes. Son's creek to the right and further up the sac river in the timber is good for largemouth, but it's a pretty good run from Orleans trail to the upper part of the lake. Find the creek channels, put the boat in the shallows and throw into the channel and bring the worm up the bank. I'm not an expert but I think Price Branch will give you a lot of largemouth action. Give the wife a crappie rig and a minnow and she'll catch her share of crappies and walleye too. Plus it's a lot closer to home. The water gets pretty rough so you might want to stay close.

I'd say if you want to fish timber try the creek channel in Price Branch. If you'd prefer to fish more open water try the old state park cove (point#4 on most maps). Both locations are within 5 minutes of Orleans Trail.

I just spoke to a friend of mine that camped in the sailboat bridge area last weekend. He said they caught quite a few whites, but that there were some really large whites that kept breaking them off. You might assume that they were hybrids because they catch a lot of white bass so their tackle is in pretty good shape. He said that they got a couple to the surface before they broke off and they looked to be 4 or 5 pounds.

My wife, two boys (4 and 2), and I went to Grand on Memorial Day (Monday). We launched the boat at the state park ramp in honey creek about 1130 and left about 3. We never left the cove where the launch ramp is located. The White Bass were pretty easy pickings. I caught two casting but trolling natural colored shad raps w/in 100 feet of the bluff bank worked the best. The shad were thick all thru the cove. The sun was hot so we anchored in the shade and fished with worms and bobbers for bluegill. The bluegill were small but numerous. My wife and boys got a lot of practice casting and setting the hook, so all in all we had a good time. If you want to catch white bass then go to honey creek. I'm sure that if you spent some time in there you could load the boat.

Thanks for the heads-up about kid's day this past weekend. My wife and I took our two sons, both are preschoolers, and we had a great time. We didn't get to the park until about noon but we were still able to catch a few fish, and attend a couple of the programs. We spent some time on the jungle gym. Our oldest boy is budding naturalist, so we went wading and caught small minnows and frogs. The 2 year old fell into the water. He bent down to pick something up off the creek bottom and lost his balance. He fell forward and was completely under water. He wasn't in any danger but he sure got a cold suprise. We had a great time. Thanks again.

I mostly fish for them in the winter and early spring in the river. Small Shad and small Minnows are their main prey, so I like anything small that imitates bait fish. I usually only use two colors…white or chartreuse. Two categories of baits, search lures and jigging lures. Search baits: My favorites are a silver Rapala Countdown Minnow, White bucktail jig, Roadrunners, and Roostertails. For jigging baits the #1 has to be the jigging spoon, but I also like to tip a Roadrunner or a plain jig-head with a minnow. Drop the jig to the bottom and rip it up a couple feet, then let it flutter back to the bottom. I generally use 1/16 or 1/8 oz lures when searching, and up to a half ounce jig when they’re concentrated in the deep water pools. They're bottom oriented fish but they generally don’t go deeper than 20 feet. They’ll stage in the deepwater and on warm days they’ll branch out and search for spawning areas. I think they spawn in the wood either immediately above or below a shallow riffle. The eggs stick to the wood and the running water oxygenates them. I usually don't fish for them in the summer and fall, but when i have it's been in the main lake. We follow the birds...then throw countdown minnows, small shad raps or leadhead jigs and grubs past the breaking fish. I hope this helps.