charliehorsejigs

Nice looking rig, Dutch. Hope you have many enjoyable years with it.

I checked the water discharge from Table Rock yesterday. They were running FOUR turbines. It may have been warm yesterday, but there was not that much power needed to supply Branson. Silver Dollar City was closed and the main tourist attractions were also. This is nothing but greed by the power companies.

I have heard they have an agreement with a company that regulates the discharge through the turbines at the dam. This provides really cheap electricity for the power companies. They don't care about the water level in the lake. They just want to make money off of it. It's the same situation at Table Rock. They keep running turbines there and mess up the fishing on Taneycomo.

Here are some of the heated docks on Grand Lake: Ponderosa, Blue Bluff, which has a cafe and cabins that are open in winter,Indian Hills,Long's,Lee's Grand Lake Resort, Twin Bridges. Just google the name and you should get a phone number you can call to get directions and hours of operation. But beware of the license fees. It is around 60 bucks for a nonresident license. To me, fees this high are borderline extortion. They would sell a lot more licenses if they would lower the price. Then more people would fish there and increase revenues for the local businesses. I grew up fishing a lot of these docks since the mid sixties and have a lot of great memories fishing with my dad and uncles there.

Walcrabass, I think that fishing partner of yours is a good luck charm for you. He probably deserves a steak dinner or better yet a Walleye dinner.

The crappie were biting good on Grand Lake at the heated docks last weekend. A coworker of mine went and they got their limits of slab crappie fishing in 25 feet of water. The funny thing was the fish were suspended at 8 feet down. Kind of odd for this time of year. They were using plastic jigs that were hot pink and purple. For some reason the crappie love those colors on Grand in the winter.

The dock at mutton creek closed for several reasons. People were trashing the place and breaking windows. Also, they were not paying to use the dock. It had a drop box and was mainly on an honor system. Too bad a bunch of tightwad jerks had to ruin it for everyone else. They talked about putting in a new fishing dock for awhile but never did follow through with it. It is very expensive to build a new dock and they would probably have to charge a lot to ever get their money back.

Do you still have the fishpond chest pack? I may be interested in it. Thanks.

Just a reminder. The season on inconsiderate jet skiers and pleasure boaters is still open through Labor Day. And the great thing is there is no limit. All you have to do when they get too close is to cast your biggest plug or a very large lead sinker right at them.

One thing to remember is that JERK SEASON is open year round. The best way to take care of this behavior is to have a spare heavy rig with at least 1 to 2 ounces of lead tied to the end of the line. If you start casting this back at them or where they are fishing they will usually leave. Hate to retaliate like this, but they have no right to be this inconsiderate of other sportsmen. I would hate to see what would happen if they behaved this way when they were hunting.

Alright, JMBC, where do you work at fdc and what shift? I work in processing as a G/B/C on B shift. I am on the top of the list on the daily work schedule.

Nice mess of fish. Who caught the bigger stringer, you or your son?

I heard that the wait to load or unload at CC last Saturday was at least an hour to hour and a half. Parking lot was half full of vehicles from mushroom hunters. Also heard that the crappie bite should be best on Son's Creek by this week. I'd try to put in at Three Hills ramp, north of Greenfield. It's usually not as crowded. I work at Schreiber's also, at the Fairview facility.

If they won't bite when they are spawning, use a heavy rod and a very sharp, large treble hook and snag them. When you hook one in the tail or side you will be in for one heck of a fight. Especially if you hook a large one. We used to go to a dock on Grand Lake named Shadow Rock when i was a kid that they had hung bait bags around. We just lowered weighted treble hooks near the bait bags and raised and lowered them until we felt the hooks connect to a fish. We caught a lot of carp and buffalo. We also broke several rods that weren't heavy enough to fight them. After you clean your carp, cut into chunks, put in jars and can them in a pressure cooker. They make a great substitute for salmon patties.

My problem is crappie jigs. I tie and sell jigs in about any color imaginable. There is always a new color combination someone wants me to make. I tie them and I make a few for my own use because they look so good. I have about 60 color combinations in my tackle boxes. I don't know if it ever will end. At least I have some that i know the fish have never seen before. One guy came in from break at work with a cheetos package that was orange, yellow and red. Wanted some tied with that combination. He never caught a fish on them but his stepdaughter slayed the crappie with them.

Got back last night from fishing heated docks on Lake of the Ozarks. Between four of us we didn't get one bite in two days. The docks are nice, but the water is not deep enough where they are located for the fish to come to when the water is this cold. It was thawed out all day friday and then froze over again by saturday morning. We headed home and fished a private lake about 3 miles from my son's house. We really got into the crappie there. The second one I caught was 2 pounds. Nothing on jigs, but they were hammering the minnows.

A friend of mine at work got a phone call today and was told that the bass tournament on Lake of the Ozarks for this weekend was cancelled. They told him it was iced up from one dam to the other and some of the ice was measured at 11 inches thick. I'm still going up there tomorrow with my son and his friends to try the heated docks. Will post when we get home saturday. Tight lines everyone and be safe out there.

Four of us are headed up to Lake of the Ozarks on Thursday afternoon. My son has a friend that fishes the heated docks up there around Camdenton. He says the crappie have been biting pretty good. I'll post when I get back on Saturday and let you all know how we did and where to go. I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I'm about to go nuts because of this long, cold winter. Tired of being stuck inside.

We need to find a way to make these stupid geese stay way south in the winter and up north in the summer where they belong! They have ruined Kellogg Lake in Carthage and several other private lakes as well. All you can see on top of the ice is goose poop. Then when the ice melts all of it goes to the bottom and silts in the lake. There are hundreds of them on the lake year round and there seems to be no way of getting rid of them. Well there is one way, but the peta people wouldn't approve and they always get their way. Maybe if we get rid of the peta people first we could have some regulated hunts and thin out the geese without being stopped by a bunch of wackos.

There are still some heated docks on Lake of the Ozarks. I'm going up to try them in a couple of weeks. It's about three hours from my house, but I'd rather pay for the gas than pay the out of state license fees to Oklahoma. It's nothing short of extortion for sportsmen. Don't get me wrong, I grew up fishing Grand Lake. We had a cabin there for several years and fished the heated docks every winter. When the licenses went up the way they did we just decided to stay in Missouri.

Too bad we don't have any heated docks on Stockton anymore. I sure do miss the one at Mutton Creek.

Totally agree Haulin Bass. It's not just their own kind either. I caught a 21 incher a few years back and it had a 10 inch crappie in it's belly. My fishing partner couldn't believe it. I had said for a long time that this was happening, but he wouldn't believe me. We've seen walleye numerous times raiding the crappie beds early in the day before the sun gets too high and makes them go back to deeper water.

Sounds like some great fishing. Were they feather jigs or plastic?

Programs like this will work if you can find people that WILL WORK. I have worked for the same company for the last 35 years and the labor pool of people that will work has been steadily declining for the last 20 years. My company pays a good wage with great benefits and the jobs are not that difficult. You just have to be able to think on your feet, pay attention to what you are doing, and do some manual labor,all inside in a heated and air conditioned building. But people are getting too picky about what job they will take. They don't want to start out working evenings or graveyard shift. They won't work weekends. They want a job where they can sit at a computer all day and not do any manual work. They have been brought up with no work ethic. All the schools want to teach them is to learn everything electronically instead of using the brain that the good Lord gave all of us. Then they come home from school and it's back to the computer to play games instead of playing and doing things outside. Heck, parents are afraid to give their kids chores to do anymore for fear they might hurt their feelings or be labeled as bad parents. My company is about to add on 150 new jobs in the next year in our plant and it is going to be a challenge to find enough people that want to work to fill them.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The Good Lord has given us all the great outdoors to fish, hunt, and enjoy. Let's all continue to be good conservationists of this precious resource. Remember the reason for this holiday season, God's precious gift of his Son. Be safe out there fishing and tight lines everybody.