Troy Gregg

Well theTeam series of the Heartland Tourney took place today and we saw some pretty hefty bags cross the scales.... Top 25 places got a check today and you had to have around 16 lbs to get paid. Dave Barker and Billy Bird led the pack with 19.76 lbs Tim Sainato and ? Redford placed second with 18.85 lbs Sean Kowal and his partner finished third with 18.76 lbs 4th and 5th were both over 18lbs and the weights only dropped by ounces through the entire top 25. What a day to be on the Rock !!! Big Bass today was 7.24 lbs and the top three big bass recieved a check, but it had to be over 6.49lbs to get one of those. 103 boats turned out today... It was tough for some and others continued to find that good bite from the Blacks; one or two mixed bags in the top as well. I will post info on the Pro/Am tomorrow... as I will be fishing it so I will maybe see some of you out there.

Glad to see I am not alone when it comes to bleeding black and gold... Win or lose, I wear my shirt with Pride

Looks Like I get to sport a Mizzou shirt for tomorrow's heartland Derby

I am not sure if its to late to cast my guess... but I am with Jeremy... I am guessing 45lbs 13 oz.

Doug, I havn't been out on Taney lately, so I can't give you a for sure pointer... Depends on where you are wanting to put in and where you fish really. I would throw a jerkbait and a 3/8oz jig at the rock banks on the lower end. A 4 1/2" rogue would be by lure of choice, I wouldn't go any bigger than that though, the fish are finicky enough about that big of a rogue. If you're lucky maybe trav will offer his two pennies, he is pretty much the authority of the lower end

I pretty much grew up fishing taney and the biggest smallie I have seen to date was in Taney, and its been about 10 years ago ... I never got her into the boat but she sure gave me a clean look at her before she was gone... She was every bit of 24" and 7+ lbs; she made a couple of acrobatic aeriel displays before spitting the hook back in my face.. I have a real hard time believing that she is the only one swimmin around out there, and when we seine for bait up in the creeks its not unusual to seine a few smallie fingerlings in with the chubs and minnows so I know there is some reproduction going on.

Gotta snag 'em and there is a season which starts the 15th... paddlefish have to be 34" to keep and can reach weights up to 138lbs (atleast thats the current record)

To be quite frank, I think it would be interesting if MDC did a electrofishing survey on smallmouth and walleye in Taney.... There isn't really alot of information on taneycomo smallmouth... none of us can seem to catch more than half a dozen a so on the main lake throughout the year, yet up certain areas you can catch a dozen or more in a day...( I am not naming any spots). However I have a sneaking suspicion that they are a different kind of animal and their numbers are better than we think them to be, Same thing for 'eyes on the lower end... I know there are some in there I have personally seen them, I realize they probably don't have the strongest population, but they are in there. As far as the water temps this last year nearing and exceeding 60 degrees on upper taney I am not so sure some of those smallies, eyes, and everything else we all caught didn't migrate upstream. I know tailrace areas on multiple other lakes have that effect on fish.. when they are running water, fish will migrate for miles until the temps cool off, or the generation slows. When Powersite runs water nonstop, concetrations of 'eyes, stripers, trout, and bass all go up below the dam. Why wouldn't the same thing happen on taney? Its a cold water fishery but why wouldn't some of those fish come out of the woodwork, especially with a 15-20 degree spike in water temp? now as far as the lake is concerned under normal conditions I find it hard to believe there is much of a thermocline for any prolonged period of time... I would think this would mean the fish could be anywhere in the water column. all we know about taneys topographics is what we have mapped out on our electronics.... we don't really have a map of all the humps, channels, flats, or anything else for that matter, just what we have maybe looked hours and days for or maybe lucked across in the process. When we are concerned with C&R or C&K that is an anglers option... growing up we all kept our fair share as we grow we tend to keep only what we want for ourselves, as we mature more we begin to be selective about the types and numbers of the fish we keep and eat... MDC put up regulations based on what populations of fish can sustain, I don't second guess what MDC has done for our state as we have one of the best conservation programs in the nation.

its a little early to call.... but it looks like we could get some storms this weekend

Eric is right... apparently you can eat em... just don't do anything else with em here is an excerpt from the wildlife code pertaining to paddlefish (5) Extracted paddlefish eggs may not be possessed while on waters of the state or adjacent banks, and may not be transported. Paddlefish eggs may not be bought, sold, or offered for sale.

Phil, thanks for the feed as it was excellent... almost as good as the tourney you put on . Unfortunatly, I got to hear Frenzel's reel singing as the fish took off for the dam... this is after the fish saw the boat of course... maybe it was his captors face that scared him... not sure what it saw but it didn't like it. We won't mention the other two that came up for a look before fadeing back to the depths of taneycomo.... I guess we now know that there are about 70 people from around missouri who are certifiably crazy for being out yesterday... myself and Frenzel included Phil... I am already looking forward to next years tourneys... you do a fantastic job.. keep it up

as far as Blue cats are concerned... there are not any in any of our ozark lakes..( taneycomo, tablerock, or Bull shoals) Truman and Grand lakes are your best bets for Blues... and Big blues at that. Table Rock, Taneycomo, and Bull Shoals all have channel cats and those can get quite sizeable and confused with the blues. The best way to tell the difference is by the anal fin. blues have a square fin, channels have a rounded fin. Please excuse these pics as they are a couple of years old but you can see the difference in the two.... as far as tactics I am probably not much help The blues we caught on a trip to truman and they all came on jugs baited with cut shad set in 10 - 30 feet of water The largest weighed 27lbs and some ounces... the channel (pictured right) weighed 16lbs 5 ounces and I caught it on a grub, bass fishing. Trotlines and juglines are the most productive for me when catfishing and can produce some very nice fish... depending on the lake really depends on what you get.

My fault.. they are a 2/0 hook in 1/8 oz heads and 3/0 in the 1/4 oz.... I don't notice much difference between them and the 1/0 hooks used in the bullet head. so that may not be what your looking for... in which case I would suggest the same thing as Dutch... get a mold and select the hooks and style head you want

Firstly if you are looking for a premium hook you must be willing to pay the price... Owner hooks makes two styles of jigheads that I really like (unpainted). One is a round head and the other is called a bullet type. Both have 1/0 owner super needle point hooks. They still grab the tail of the grubs occasionally... I think this is a problem that is hard to avoid with any style hook. With any 4" grub you have about 2" of body and 2" of tail so the hook comes out near the end of the body of the grub. I prefer the round head when fishing deep open water as the fall seems to be a little bit slower and those suspended fish see it longer. The bullet type can be rigged weedless much easier than the round head. It also slides through brush a little better, so naturally I use this one when flipping a grub into cover of any kind.

Finished 5th in todays tourney... 9.04lbs... thank you Phil for a great tourney, I would have stuck around for food, but my partner had to get going. we caught a total of 68 fish today.. we were just missing some of those larger fish. we had three pretty good ones( biggest 1.80) all but two of the fish came on cranks we had two on the 1/8oz jig. Most of the fish we were catching were between 13" and 16". we had 0 fish in the livewells at around 10:00 in the morning, and we made the move to the landing. Once we found fish the action was non stop. we had a two limits in less than 10 minutes and managed to cull up before the bite slowed for us at around 10:30. we stayed in that area chasing those trout and thats how we ended up with 68 fish in the boat. Today they were eating gold cranks and like phil said, darker color jigs. we were getting good hits on the cranks so it was difficult to switch over to the jigs. We had made a bad judgement on some fish otherwise things could have been a lil better. In all the action between 10 and 10:30 we placed a 12"bow in the livewell and it ended up staying in there. It got to a point if the trout were 13" or shorter we were throwing them back. with the crankbaits we were chucking and winding... with a pause in the retrieve and on the pause we would usually get hammered. Again Thank you Phil, we had a blast today and look forward to Feb. 28th.

Phil, I am assuming this is from the Ice/snow? Anything I can do to help out, just let me know. Also how is this going to affect the Tourney this weekend?

Dwiebenga, I can say that I have acquired a small collection of lucky craft lures and I am not completely sure what you mean by universal... but I will add my two cents and see if I can help. Firstly anytime you go with quality... you can almost be sure that it will catch fish, Lucky craft run true right out of the package and have a realistic finish on them... my complaint with the company is the paint.. after lots of use the paint chips away after regular use and a few heavy hits. My number one choice for universal use would be the BEVY SHAD 75sp, I have caught more varieties of fish with this one lure, it has a sharply designed bill for getting deep (7-9 ft) in a hurry. I have caught trout, walleye, black bass ( all three), and white bass. All of these with consistency. Next would be the RC series.. this is my newest addition and I absolutley love them for summer through fall, like Eric stated. (his post is dead on as always) The slender pointer and pointer 78, though I have them, I don't use them much... its hard to put down that bevy shad, these are jerkbait/twitchbait that is effective on bass and the occasional trout... I also have the FlatCB i think... Its the 20 ft diver. This one is good for hitting those deep fish on main lake points throughought the summer months, I have found better luck on truman or grand with this style of crank. universal colors would be Aurora black for me, and then I pick a TR shad or Chartruese shad for dirtier water. Whack'em is exactly right though I don't think budget and LC can effectively go in the same sentence

ok I know exactly what your talking about.... thanks for settin my straight on that... cause I would have kept calling it grass. But anyway you look at it... its all salad that ends up in the boat

Trav... this Coontail is probably what I am thinking off as the grass.... its thick stuff thats not real easy to penetrate and just when you think you hit all the holes you see one more and thats where it is quite a bit of it around empire park if its the stuff I am thinking of? Trav set me straight here.... would that be the coontail you speak of?

Buzz... your right taney isnt real well known for its bass and I am sure some locals could give me the stink eye.. but oh well... Taney fishes alot different than any lake in the area, as you know its a cold water fishery. The Bass on this lake are not your typical fish... they like mini versions of bass lures. When punching the grass mats on the lower end; smaller frogs tend to work better as well as dead sticked plastic worms. in the summer when the mats are at there thickest... working the outside edges with a spook jr. can be really productive. Trav, would be the go to source and maybe he will add his two cents as well. I have been fishing the lake for 15 years... but thats only a fraction compared to the time he has invested.

Here is a link to the Missouri dept of conservations booklet on hellbenders... http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/170.pdf Probably have to copy and paste DD'sMC, no the names are right on your images... the number one difference between the two are the external gills on the mudpuppy. otherwise they are similar

Whack' em - 1.) what Bill Babler or Don House do anytime they go fishing 2.) what some of us can occasionally pull off in a day of fishing 3.) what all of us dream about in a days outing Bird nest - See jdmidwests defintition of CLUSTER @!$%. usually postpones fishing for 5 minutes and in most cases occurs at the worst possible moment. ( I.E. whites have surfaced, or you found a school of biting fish) The robber - the fish that trys to steal your lure while you remove the bird nest Hand Reeling - The art of reeling in the robber Net- that thing that sits in the bottom of the boat that gets in the way 90% of the time, also notorious for knocking fish off the line. The wind - any unseen force that messes up your cast or leads to the bird nest. Also forces you away from the sweet spots. Also known to pick up during the bird nest Bull Creek Shuffle - also apparently known as the PIROUETTE, but when performed on large slabs of ledge rock commonly found while wading bull creek. Kerplunk - the sound your fishing pole makes upon launching from the boat The big one - any fish that comes off the hook or takes the hook with it. Leads to what many of us know as "fish stories" The hook and grab - an instinct that all fisherman have while fishing from an aluminum boat. Usually occurs upon losing balance and on the way overboard. Almost always gracefully performed at the last minute.

Flippin, I am not sure how Fireline interacts with a jerkbait... but I do know that the thinner line diameter cuts through the water faster and is not usually a good choice for topwater as the line itself sinks and interferes with the action. I would guess that you could get a little more depth (at most another 6" for casting) out of the suspending jerkbaits... but after a point bouyancy is still going to take over.

I am a big fan of the shimano Crucial series rods... the 6'6 med Hvy with an X-tra fast action (CRCX66MH) handles the 1/2 oz jigs really well and no problem with anything up to 1 oz. They also carry a limited lifetime over the counter replacement warranty. They are made with IM-9 Graphite and as sensitive as any loomis or other high end rod.

With Central (and I believe Jim is going to keep it this way) if you pay the security deposit for all of the tournaments you will be guaranteed a spot. With Heartland, Ralph uses a guarantee program, to be guaranteed a spot you must have a guaranteed Pro and each pro must have a guaranteed Am in order for a guaranteed spot. Bill is absolutly right about Ralph and the Heartland Circuit... He does not put up with borish behavior at all, and it makes for a smooth running competition and about as friendly as you can get for competitive fishing. I do know that Heartland sometimes does have a surplus of amateurs but do everything they can to put you in a boat. CPA had a sever shortage of amateurs at the kick off this season, as a matter of fact there was a shortage of 17 amateurs.