esox niger

local guys fishing thought it was a blue. i thought the anal fin seemed rounded, but looking at it in the picture it looks pretty straight. can you tell? got im on a nymph 7 ft under a strike indicator fished up tight to a submerged tree. Thanks

local guys fishing thought it was a blue. i thought the anal fin seemed rounded, but looking at it in the picture it looks pretty straight. can you tell? got im on a nymph 7 ft under a strike indicator fished up tight to a submerged tree. Thanks

im hoping it works on some catfish....hopefuly blue or flathead. its just so hard to fish DEEP in current, feels like i need a 10weight with some t-17 or whatever the fastest of the fast sinking is. I cant cast that stuff with my 8. . Thanks everyone for the input, very helpful.

I remember reading about this years ago. Ive been trying to think of rigs for fishing deep in snagg infested waters, and i think a floating fly on a sinking line with perhaps a split shot or dropper arm with a splitshot just up from the fly, or short short leader might do the trick. consider that the shot should always be below the fly in the water column unless your stripping really fast. therefore as you drag the sinker along bottom and reach a submerged tree limb/snag the sinker will hit the limb but the fly should ride up and stay above the sinker and not touch anything. what better way to contol depth and stay 1-2 ft off botom. detecting a strike and setting the hook may be an issue... anyone do this or heard of it being done? id be interested in any information regarding the topic.

Ive read alot of trophy catfish are taken on frogs. Im going to tie a couple up and see what the verdict is.

No power dishcarge. when the river is down...the creek gets warm fast with any warm rain/weather at all. its back down to 50. the temps spiked up real fast and dropped, im guessing the majority of the fish are just getting to the mouth. or will be there when the missouri hits 50? i dont know. but im sure ill have to post about it when i catch a fish! got the first "fish" of the year on the 13th. 13 inch largemouth in meramec feeder. couple more weeks. i was startled two years ago by two beavers while in my kayak near the missouri river. the banks were about 12 ft up from the water and i hear something large runing, breaking branches. I look up and behind me to try and figure out what the f is going on and i see this huge (like the size of my akita/lab) animal come tubling over the edge and crash into water. Im freaked! trying to figure out what the heck that thing was. then another one come tumbling over the edge and crashing into the water. beavers! wtf. never ever seen beavers so big in my life. First thing i thought was I hope those things arent agressive! then i hightailed it to get some separation. youd think they could find a better way of getting to the water. near weldon spring, maybe they were being hunted? or theyre just reckless beavers.

well, no luck up at the headwaters. temp has droped down to 52 in the upper creek. Im assuming the fish are still low in the system...staging at the mouth. might get my kayak down there today or tomorow to check the situation. id realy like to catch a fish...its been a long winter. Only note...lots and lots of beavers and muskrats in the creek. some minimal fish activity with lots of beaver activity. do the beavers come upstream to feed? hmm?

Keith sutton says," Fortunately, it's easy to time the run by tracking water temperature in the stream you plan to fish. When it hits 50 degrees, you'll find schools of white bass gathering near the mouths of feeder streams." "At 58 degrees, the upstream surge begins" i believe the missouri river is right around 44 deg F +/- and my feeder creek was at 57F the other night. so am i right to assume the fish have already gathered at the mouth and may be heading up soon? or is the main water body temp the critical temp. rising water affect them. Follow this logic....the mouth of the feeder was warm while the missouri river was low. all the creek all the way to the missouri was minimaly influenced by the missouri river itself. now with the large surge of water the river goes up the creek and cools everything down. so the bass head up in search of where the true creek(warm rain water) meets the cold river back up . and thats probably were they spawn on the receding waters. babies hatch in the creek which holds few predators and a nice bottom. with lots of oxygen. the rivers gone from 12 to 22ft in 2 or 3 days but is peaking out now. might fish the head waters tonight. just about 2 miles from the main river. not far to swim. had a great white bass day there last spring...(later in the season)...was catching the whites to my right and a couple of drum to my left...then i cast my small estez fly further left by the bank rocks and i thought id snagged so i got a week hookup on a massive fish that just took me like i was nothin! here's the thing i just realized last night. it took me on a long run then it started shaking its head, (then of course the fly pulled out!). i thought it was maybe a big grass carp, but they dont shake their heads. or channel catfish really . or common carp. stripper/blue cat?/flathead? it was huge. keeps me fishin the muddy waters.

so the water temps have gone up over the last week from around 40f to 47f . ive seen little fish activity until today. minnows and suckers and...some other stuff were around today. anyone catch walleye in the st. louis region, meramec river around castlewood . ? whats the lowdown? i think night fishing might be the ticket with the water down low.... cant decide....long rocky rip rap bank in 6-7 ft of water, or long slab rock and boulder flats 3-7 ft deep, or gravely flats, or just deep with rocky bottom. any help much appreciated

some others

couple new flies for this year. post yours if u want. il add more later... this first one is the latest. just learned how to make furled chenille worms, and thought i should apply to a rabbit strip fly. this thing has a very cylindrical "squirrel tail" appearance and feel. Should breath great in the water, and its fun to play with too. good cat toy! 3/0 saltwater hook magnum strip tail and body yellow estez head lead eyes mono weedguards tie the magnum strip in at the back. make it more than twice the desired length tail you want. now attach hackle pliers and dubbing spinner if you have one. twist the strip until it begins to kink up in the center when you release pressure on the twisted strip. you can help it by placing another dubbing spinner at the point on the rope where u want the tail to end. get the kink to form at that point...once the twist starts wrap the remainder of the tail back in the same direction as the initial kink was going. and tie down at the rear. now use the leftover piece if long enough to palmer the rest of the shank, or tie in new peice. wrap forward and tie off. add eyes and estez and weedguard if desired. this one may be a little long and could be more reasonable tied with thinner strips.this thing has alot of fur on im.

right good point, generaly speaking...i dont think they will go through double 35lb test.... Im just saying generaly speaking I think the selection i laid out is about the right size, for me. .. perhaps throw in the same patterns unweighted and foambodied.

this is what im thinking i will throw. ive tied the big pike flies before and i didnt like casting them with my 8.

i love those hooks. I bought a couple packs of em over the holidays... sexy hooks. lol flies look good man. not good to cast...but good in theory.

Channel cat over 30" on fly rod..blue cat of any size on a fly. 6' gar or better. hybrid over 20" . a flathead (never caught one). id also like to find a grass carp over 3ft. maybe a musky, and some more common carp too. aside from personal bests, id like to put friends on fish, take my dad and brother out more often, and meet people with similar interests. Oh yeah...another goal of mine is to hopefuly...bring attention to the carp fishing in the river des peres. if 2010 is anything like 2009, its going to be a good year.

i did see some fresh tire tracks on the dam. I didnt realize they stocked lunkers but perhaps they do. i fished catch and release looking for a holdover lunker...id like to think of him as that...either way, quite a surprise.

Ha Ha! it was!!. id seen a lake open yesterday near home, it was the rain maybe? there was some ice but 50-70% open water. not for long though. I thought "aha a break in the ice! maybe ill get a bite!" if u guessed it was a catch and release lake youd be right. you got a 50% chance gettin it right. or maybe pm me.

After a long cold snap, then a week or more of a warm spell, things are going to cool off once again. The last 5 or 6 trips ive taken over the last two weeks have resulted in no fish and no bites. Clearly time for a change. after noticing some posts about busch wildlife, i decided id give it a try. Number one, its close. Number two, no kayaking involved, three, Ice free water for the last couple days, 4, the trout out at bush might be hungry in light of the fact its going to get might chilly again. In all honesty, one day is probably as good as another, I actually wouldn't know because the last time i fished trout there was like 10 years ago, one time! The wind was blowing feirce...up to 30mph and the temp was below freezing causing my guides to build up a layer of line grabing crust. I started with an 8wt shooting head i just rigged up last night until one of my connectin loops pulled free and i almost lost my sinking head. I headed back to the car to get another rod. I decided to go witht the 7'9" 3wt. I made it back around the lake just as some other fishermen were ariving. I started to fish, and to my surprise, It seemed like there were plenty of fish biting. The action wasn't scorching but it was consistant. 8-15 casts per fish. I will take that any day! The fish were all what id expect of them. around 13-14 inches mostly. As i fished i had a yellow estez egg fly bust off on the strike. My hooks were old and a bit rusted. so i took my tippet up from the 6x to the 5x section and tied on a little beadhead estez bugger . Of everything I used this little guy seemed to be the best. I just cast to the wind side of the little jetty and almost let it dead drit toward me, but I did stip some action to the fly. On one such cast, i detected a strike and set the hook. tug. flash. "Holy Shoot, what is that, Is that a carp? that cant be a rainbow! wtf is that!" about this time im realizing one way or the other Carp or Trout ive got a big fish, and oh yeah is that my line around my leg? shoot! acrobatics to get my leg out...Ive got my leg out..now the fish is making burst and my drags too loose! oh shoot, im gunna lose em! I make some feeble attemts to reach around to the drag knob with my line hand but all i can do is loosen it further. Ok, swithch hands tighten drag. now, wheres the fish? oh no! am i snagged. i tug and tug and motion! ive gotem still, hes not snagged up. he makes a couple good runs, screeming out line. ive almost got em licked, if i can just beach im" and slowly I do." holy cow!!!! masive!" i bend over and lip him like a big ol bass and lay him on some grass. i secretly hope my fellow anglers at the lake are aware of my predicament. after all, shouldnt the dancing and running around and screeming drag have gotten their attention? oK focus....how big is e? ok . i hold him up to my rod mouth open tail flaired and hes 1/2 inch shy of my fisrt guide. that guide is 24 inches from the but. almost certainly 24 on a measuring board, good enough for me to claim 24 I think?. i lift the fish by its mouth and put my other hand under its belly so the guy across the way can get a good look. he's not paying any attention! ... and then quikly resusitate and release. Im not sure anyone whitnessed it and i left the camera in the car. too cold to take pictures i guess. ? i need to start keeping a camera on me at all times. helmet cam or somesuch. long story short, Im going back first chance i get. good times.

your right it was. ... he sorta thrashed his head around reel good and went deep while i tried to get my leg out of my line....then he kept spinning my drag which i didnt have set appropriatly...then after some fumbling and cursing i finaly got my stuff in order....only to find he was sitting on the bottom Kinda like hed transfered me to a snag but to my relief he was still there and free...then he gave one good run followed by a couple short runs. and that was all i remember. sort of a blurr. the old slightly rusty fly snapped off from abraision two fish later.

just curious to see what other people are catching out there. I was out today, probably my second time every fishing trout out there, and definitely not my last. today my big fish was a 24 inch slab-sided rainbow. right after hook up i seen'm flash....my first thought... "holly McShiznit ! I hooked a carp! " ill admit i was pretty much shaking after i let im go. 3 wt with some micro tippet and a beadhead yellow sparkle bugger. biggest trout ive ever caught period. I had about 10 other regular fish, a nice 18 incher that got off, and a couple of break offs. I was very surprised to see that fish, i thought sure there might be some holdovers but dang!

I was up fishing the lock and dam and on the way home i wanted to check the dresser island water to see if it was iced over or clear. on satalite it looked like the discharge was connected to the slough and it is. i think thats why its ice free...anyhow i just paddled my kayak up the slough a little more than a mile and portaged the dyke, then i put my outriggers on so i could fish . had a hell of a time getting back with the wind blowing down the chute in my face. i might wait a while for i head back out there. I cant handle too many more skunkings.

spring 08 blind fishing for carp upper simpson lake/grand glaze creek. small crawdad fly fished on the bottom very slow retreve. when i hooked em I though for sure it was a carp 5-8 lb. largemouth.

seen some posts on discharges...made it out to labadie couple days ago and portage des sioux today. portage had alot of asian carp activity which later became a frenzy, when i got there all i could tell was lots of surface boils and i was excited, but i didnt get a bite at all either discharge. i fished both from top to bottom and even out into the main channel. water on both systems has been rising...other than that I dont know. anyone else fish these areas have any advice, been skunked, or slammed em? id be interested to hear about it. Thanks

I will try and do that. let me warn you that i usualy fish alone, am quite impulsive and never know what im going to do from moment to moment, and spend plenty of time stressing over it, checking weather, river levels etc. lol all that said I will try and give you the 411 sometime this spring or summer and we can cast to some carp in the rdp or my other "spot"

im in dog! every once in a while i think about going out there. I think i will dedicate some of 2010 to the missouri musky. just got hooked up with a trolling motor for christmas so no more renting a boat and getting to the lake and finding all the paddles gone or broken and having to row like im in a cannoe. anyone know what im talkin about ? those flatheads were rad! i hear theyre hard to hook with a fly, but it has been done