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I wondered how you verified that people weren't cheating for that tournament. I missed the part about the lie detector. Makes sense to me.

http://Watch "New Missouri state record yellow perch" on YouTube https://youtu.be/dbEpL2Bz4SY We were fortunate enough to be nearby when Steve Mullen caught the new state record yellow perch. Steve asked if anybody had a scale. I told him that I do, bring it over and we'll weigh it. Steve just wanted a weight and a picture so he could release it. It weighed 2lb 2oz on my scale! What a fish! She was so full of eggs she looked like she was gonna pop. Steve and my buddy Bryan tried to revive the fish for release but it was unsuccessful. Steve was pretty bummed. He really wanted to let her go. Since he was unable to release her he took the fish to a bait shop to get an official weight of 2.216 lbs. Even bigger than we thought. He called MDC but since it was President's day they were closed or understaffed and could come out to check it. He left the fish in the stores bait tank in hopes of reviving it but it didn't look like she was gonna make it last I spoke with him. It was really cool seeing a state record fish and meeting a guy like Steve that wanted to get a picture and let her go.

The yellow perch state record was just recently broken. 1lb 14oz is the new state record. That's a monster perch!

I got to take 2 of my sons with me today. We had a ball. It took about 45 min to find the fish but once we found them it was on. The schools were constantly moving around so trying to stay on top of them was a bit of a challenge. You had to be moving through them in order to get bit. They weren't keen on just jigging while sitting still. Live scope would sure be nice to be able to see which direction they moving. We all got a limit. Drop shotting minnows in 35 fow. One of my boys got a 14 ½" crappie and the other landed a 12 ¼" perch. I'm gonna send in for a Master Angler certificate for my son's perch. It was a dandy. Good times with the boys!

Brine 8 crappie fillets in 1C water 1tbs brown sugar and 1 tbs salt for about an hour. Rinse and drain the fish, dry on a rack overnight in the fridge if you have the time. (If you just wanna get on with it smoke it when you can) Smoke at 175° for about 2 hours or until the thickest part of the fish is 150°. Throw the fish, 2 blocks of cream cheese, black pepper to taste, juice from 1/2 a lemon, and a cup of ranch dressing in the food processor and blend till it's creamy. Adjust the ingredients to your liking. Green onions would be good in it. Serve with Ritz crackers or the cracker or chip of your choice and enjoy. You could probably bake or grill the fish instead of smoking it. But the smoked fish is really tasty.

I kept 4 of them to make smoked fish dip and gave the rest of them to a friend. The fish dip was tasty.

Found small schools of fish in 35-38' of water. I caught all crappie and 1 yellow perch, no white bass this time. The water was moving so I drifted through the schools with the current at about .4 mph with minnows. Ended up with a limit and left them biting. It was one of those awesome days that I don't get very often. They wanted the bait about 5' off of the bottom. I didn't try jigs this time but I did last Saturday and they weren't having it. The pics are some of the highlights.

Launched at Shadow rock. Found isolated schools of fish in about 30' of water. The fish hugging the bottom were usually small white bass, the fish that were 5 to 10 feet off the bottom were usually crappie. Better the 2 of us ended up with 28 keeper crappie, a 20" walleye, and to many 9"-13" white bass to count (we weren't keeping the whites). We were fishing a drop shot rig with live minnows and a 1/2 oz weight drifting with the current. It was video game fishing. Drop your rig down through the fish on the screen and jig it up through them, slowly lifting it up till you could get one to follow, wait a second then jig it slowly about a 3" hop, it was a very light bite we missed a bunch. If they didn't hit the rig drop it back down through the fish and repeat.

Great article, you put me right there with ya. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Thanks for the report.

Sounds like a perfect day.

Nice fish. Did you catch any crappie with that technique? I've caught fish trolling the flicker shad but have never had much luck casting it.

Wondering if anyone has an idea what the water level is like around Swan and the pothole. Can you still launch from Shadowrock? Thanks.

Thanks for the update Paco.

I think it was 2017 same week.

I fished yesterday and it was pretty slow. I and ended up with 1 keeper walleye. I talked to 4 other boats that had 2 keepers between them all.

They were really packed in there. That helix does a great job of sperating them from the trees. Did you catch any? That panoptix is very tempting. I've watched allot of videos about it. It's pretty amazing.

I just saw these replies, thanks. I know what you mean about the horizontal lines when sitting still, but it did look the same even when I was moving faster. I was cruising around the area with my trolling motor trying to find fish. I never did find any, maybe they were hiding in the bottom "noise".

Thanks for the reply Dan. It does look like that. I would've thought that the CV sonar would have been able to pick out the individual trees. The band of "noise" from the bottom appeared as soon as I crept into water that was over 70' no matter where I was. Kinda strange.

Any ideas what this might be at the bottom of the screen? It starts at about 70' and stayed at that depth to the bottom even when I was in 100'+ feet off water. Thermocline? This is on a Garmin 73cv.

Thanks for the info. I was looking for deep fish at Indian point on Saturday (65'-90') thanks to a tip from a guy taking his boat out as I was launching. I don't doubt that he found and caught fish, but I didn't find any. I did find several boats doing the same though. I couldn't tell if they found fish or not. I'm a terrible fish catcher so I wasn't too surprised that I didn't find or catch any. Maybe I should have looked shallower. It was an amazing January day to be on the water though!

Good fish. How deep were you fishing and catching?

TPW has stocked Florida strain large mouth bass, which are large mouth bass. https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/action/stock_bywater.php?WB_code=0640

So now it's an artificial reef? Should be a fish magnet.

Sounds like a good trip. Pretty fish too. I only live 30 minutes away and can't seem to be able to make the time to get down there. Thanks for the report.