Bill Babler

The only problem here is the ned is a soft plastic. Can't use it in the restricted zone where the mop shines, but for sure a nice alternative out of the zone.

Really good info. At times we as fishermen fall into a rut of the same ole same ole. Capt. Duane got us to thinking with his presentations of hard plastics and the different methods of presenting them and the different hard plastics that could be fished for trout. Now, you come on and let us know that one of the best number catching bass baits of the past few years are also good for catching numbers of trout. Lots of out of the box thinking. Simply invaluable info here.

Excellent report and nice pic. Were you letting the ned settle to the bottom prior to working it or were you swimming it off and near the bottom? The shear numbers of trout right now from the Hi Lines above Monkey to Roark is simply staggering. With the current weather predictions thru the first couple of weeks of March, I'm guessing they are going to get to grow a bit. Thanks and Good Luck

State law on any species except (Special Areas,) such as trout parks where each park is regulated. I know Bennett you have to stop after your 4th. fish is in the creel, but if the area does not have (Special Regulations) such as Bennett has then this applies: Any species taken unless Immediately released will count toward or over the daily limit. Immediately Released is the key here and the law allows you to continue fishing the body of water even if you have a limit of one species, knowing that you may continue to fish in securing other species in which you are not limited. Or a mixed bag. The law realizes that in continued fishing you may catch a species in which you already have a legal daily limit but does not restrict you from continued fishing as long as the species in which you are limited is returned immediately to the water.

Here is a couple of other facts. If you and your wife catch a mess of crappie and are legal in the aspect of putting your catches in different live wells as to not combine your catch or party fish that is great. It defines your daily limit. When you remove those fish from the live well most will just throw them into a net and clean them together. Wrong. They need to be cleaned and kept separate even frozen in different bags with name and lic. You can combine them when they are ready to be cooked but they must be stored or frozen separate. This is due to individual possession limits that have to be maintained. Stocked trout is the only fish I clean for my clients with the extreme rare exception of white bass and at time bluegill. I only allow my clients that are keeping fish to catch their limit and not help with any other companion. No party fishing... You get what you catch and it is kept separate from any other fishermans catch. I have 4 compartments in my boat. I also clean each catch separate and package it for the person that catches them. On the trout you are welcome to continue to catch and release after you have your limit in the boat. There is also a no cull law on trout and i give each person the chance to either keep or release. When it goes into the live well you have been designated to use that day it is yours and cannot be exchanged. In Missouri you cannot accept or keep fish that a guide or anyone else for that matter catches if it puts your creel over a daily limit. You may only have a single daily limit

You guys have got me there, I have never seen anything but a total inhale. I don't however fish the trout parks. Watching the fish feed in Taney and at the Hatchery, they totally inhale what they are after. On a live bait rig I have however had them eat the tail off a crawler if it was jerked to soon so you have a total point.

Variations on the mop/mega worm this past week have become just super deadly throughout the entire upper lake system from the dam thru Branson. With the current amount of fish we have 50 plus bites a day on this fly would not be uncommon. Kind of funny as the power worm was kicking its tail. I think I just gave it a better chance and the results really increased for me and mine on this.

I think a lot of those strikes that you may be missing might be the bottom. Trout don't usually feed by nibbling at the tail of a bait. Usually they flair their gills and take in water with the fly or insect, taking in the water and item thru their mouth and expelling the water thru the gills. They can however take a fly in and spit it out in a very rapid succession. In-out-in-out. Saw a video at BP in the fly shop a few years ago of a big rainbow both sucking in a midge and spitting it out 3 times in a mater of just seconds. It was a cool video of both underwater and on top, as the strike indicator really did not move much at all even when the fish had the midge in its mouth. The fish took the midge and spit it back out from a distance of about 2 inches and would expel it the same distance. He would just suck water in and the midge would go right back into its mouth from distance.

Dustin Gossett with a nice Table Rock Smallmouth caught on a Megabass 110 plus 2 Couple of really good friends down to fish the AIA that got cancelled practiced in the KC area on Friday, reported really good success fishing to staging fish that seem to have been moving up in the water column on the transitions near the major spawning coves. Don reported surface temps at 42 degree with clear water. They started on bluff ends and transitions with the A-rig and just could not get bit. Said they saw cruising fish in the water column in the 15' to 30' range on the locations but just could not get bit on the A-rig. Switched to a 1/4 oz. underspin with a 2.8" Keitech in various colors and the bite started with an extremely slow retrieve, on the locations that they were not getting bit on the rig. Don said the bite was just mush or the bait would stop coming back or you would feel the blade stop thumping or the tail on the Keitech stop vibrating and that was the bite. They were counting down the underspin and also letting it walk the bottom at times. Just really, really slow. Also had fish on a 110 plus 2 in Table Rock color on the same locations, letting the bait set for 30 seconds between jerks. The fish just hit the bait while it was sitting there, not being moved. Don said it was just super hard to fish slow enough but if you would force yourself to do so you would get bit. They also spoke to another team that was practicing that told them they were fishing the long gravel point same lake location and reeling a hard head and catching some excellent SM and LM. They had come over and asked if he was practicing for the AIA and told him it had been cancelled and they were going home. Don had not heard, so he was glad they motored over to inform him. Don said the guys he spoke with had on it looked like 5/8 or 3/4 hard heads and Smallie Beavers as trailers. They also said they had to move the bottom bait in 18' to 30' extremely slow just letting it sit or crawling it along the bottom. Not going to open a can of crayfish here, but I'm guessing they were dragging it. Don was pretty excited about the bite and really happy with his quality and it sounded like the other dudes were doing good as well. Good Luck This post has been promoted to an article

I don't question a guy that fishes a jerk bait from November to May and has fished it as his major bait for 30 years, easily catching well over 10,000 bass and walleye on it and winning 10's of thousands of dollars fishing it in both walleye and bass tournaments. And I disagree on the fact that you cannot obtain greater depth by forcing a billed bait deeper by putting forced additional downward pressure on it even after it has reached the depth that the buoyancy of the bait is built for. Weighted baits even after reaching that depth or a continuation of falling can be forced even further by jerking or reeling at speed. This is far different than fishing the bait or head turning or working the bait thru a distinct level in the water column. Speed and inertia are at play here. Everyone believes in their method and has a reason. Folks, stick to your guns and weight it and fish it as you please. Good Luck

Fished a pink Mop from Fall Creek thru Lilleys on the East side gravel for about an hour yesterday. Mop was tied on a 80th. oz. jig head with a black dubbed collar. Fished it on a spinning rod like you would a power worm and it was insane. about 7' below the indicator. I'm kind of going to go back to what Phil explained about the flow. I just think the fish are more available and we are able to currently make a way better presentation to them. I will say they are very actively midging from the landing up and if you can see these active fish, matching the hatch really means nothing. They are eating and don't seem to care what you present to them. The midging activity just helps you find actively feeding fish in numbers. How you catch them has not been an issue once you find them on the feed. I had a great day just fishing yesterday. and caught them on everything from a 1/2 oz. Fat Free Shad to a size 22 midge I was swinging it under a crackleback and they ate the Back about 1/2 the time. I caught 28 in that many casts at one point Man it was fun.

Point well taken, it is amazing how much difference water temps make as far as how a bait will suspend. Probably not so much how level it sits. Good point however. Point 2 is I don't believe Champ was thinking the knot was sinking the head of the bait but the weight and the sink ability of the carbon line was pulling the nose down as the line tends to sink. That's what the big boys think for what its worth. Bill Beck was also a Maxi clone and fished it on 8 lb. Maxi till April 1st. and then went to 10 lb. Maxi. As I said Buster uses carbon and I would hazard to say he has caught more or as many as anyone alive on a jerk bait. I have watched dying shad probably in my career for hours and the one thing is constant, they always sink tail down, always. Then they somewhat sputter back to life and swim head up ward and then just lay there and again start to sink tail down. I hate suspend dots and use weighted hooks on mine. I tie them on my fly tying vice and blend the lead with black thread. Very clean look. I have an entire box or weighted hooks using different size wire and can adjust the sink rate on the water in seconds. Beck loved this system and I made him lots of them. Prior he would just wrap weight on the hook shank but mine are so clean you have to look close to even know they are weighted. Bill told me it was the only good idea I ever had 😊 This time of the year to get the initial depth most all now are using the 110 plus 1 in either a knock off that is painted or the real deal. Hughes Custom Baits paints mine and Busters and I know he uses both bodies. Tim says they are the same including the weighting chamber. Tim, please correct me If I'm wrong on that. To get the starting depth Buster makes as long a cast as possible. I mean LONG. He then reels the 7.1 to 1 really fast and jerks the bait down with violence and malice. After that he pretty much goes to sleep until he says, "Got another one." Just a slight head turn here and a little triple tap there. Very nice thread guys.

Top Jerk bait guys including Mike and KVD both throw it on mono. Don't want the line to sink or drag down the nose of the bait. Buster throws in on carbon and he is as good as those guys. Believe it. Ideal attitude is slightly tail down. Shad sink tail down and then swim up. As Champ said, I fish it on 8 lb. Maxi until they start getting to feisty and then I move up to 10 pound.

What he just said

Bobby the noise question is a good one. On trout it does not seem to matter much on Taney as there is constant boat traffic. You can however in some instances watch the trout move away from the boat and then after it has passed they seem to curl back into their previous location and will bite. On bass, Bill Beck would never either run or idle down a shoreline and then fish it. He always wanted to come in at the start or the finish without cruising it. I asked him about it several times and he always said it was just more of a feeling to him that running down a bank with the motor on was not as good as fishing from a straight in approach on point A to point B without disturbing the water. As far as deep fishing in the Summer I have had ladies swimming around the boat and their husbands catching fish up and down in 22' to 30' so splashing around in the water over deep fish does not seem to be a real problem. I would however think if your fishing up a small river the wake alone not to mention the noise of that rig would be a factor. I would probably want to fish the tail of the pool up rather than run over the area watering the entire bank with a wave headed up hill Very interesting

They could also be fishing with Asellus Aquaticus. Most of the over 2000 fly fishermen I've taken during the past 30 years in no way are either litigious or stupidest. To put it in an Ozark vernacular, "They just want to have fun." I have also been informed by this unambiguous bunch that the price of a fly has nothing to do with anything as far as catching fish is concerned.😄 When asking the Oncorhynchus, Salmo and Salvelinus, they seem to have a very unmistakable opinion that if it looks like food and taste like food it is food, regardless of the phylum or the endeavor to create or imitate such a yum yum. Have a great day.

If you want, you can call an egg a pellet. Under pictures of a pellet it shows an egg shaped as one. Pellet is also usually wrapped with low nap chenille to give the smooth appearance of a pellet, a lot of the time using a small cylindrical block to give it the appearance of a pellet, and is not tapered at the end. If your using a shrimp or a scud hook here and using a real leggy dubbing we have used it as a scud imitation forever. It's not designed to imitate hatchery food but if it does, that probably is a plus. Every fly shop on Taney will have this fly in their SCUD BIN and sell them 100 to one over conventional hard back scud imitations.

What ever it is, they think its food. You can drift a conventional hard or soft back here and the above tie will for the most part in a vernacular eat it up.

Got out on the upper lake at 0900 yesterday morning and boated to the dam. Air temps at 26 water was 44.9 I boated up from Branson and did not see a single boat all the way to the cable. Wanted to just use a fly rod and drifted from the cable to clay banks 2 times. Started using a white/grey jig under a float about 12' and nothing the first 2 drifts. Switched to a size 8 weighted shad fly and stripped and drifted it on a straight line again 2 times from the cable to clay banks and had zero. Gave up the long stick for a drift and jerked a 110 plus one in french pearl thru the same water. Again nothing to report. That was 5 drifts on White and not even a bite. I was not fishing a jig like the boys in the video. I saw no shad and the fish I caught were spitting either grey or copper scuds. Seems to be a right place right time deal. Had noticed quite a bit of midging below the Brown Trout raceway so I tied a big dry on with a size 18 black midge about 2 ft. under it. Made 2 passes over that flat and caught one 12" brown on the dry. I had just about had a dose at this point, so I dragged out the spinning rod and bottom bounded a egg and scud from the cable to the conservation ramp.twice. Caught 4 really nice bow's on the size 14 copper/orange scud and lost one that was big, wide and silver. Fish jumped right at the boat and put a nice show on. Moved out of the restricted zone and caught about 1/2 dozen on a pink power worm from Fall Creek thru Trout Hollow on the flat side. Lots and lots of midging going on between the docks on the slacker water. Visited with Phil a bit and did whine some as I really expected the upper end to be a bit better. Moved down town and the fish really bit on just about anything you wanted to throw, from the power worm to a midge to a spoon to a small crank bait. Caught about 30 in a couple of hours. Funnest deal was stripping a size 10 wooley below the walk out just above the fish house. You would get a bite on just about every throw. Best bite was at the end of the drift after the swing, just holding it in the current. They would just thump it. I missed more than I caught. On a side note, folks fishing the docks below Scotty's were catching really nice fish on Power Bait. Looked to me to be very nice fresh Big stockers. Here is a bit of a pictorial of the copper/orange scud that I have had really good success with the past week. Good Luck out there. This post has been promoted to an article

God Bless. Makes both my lower back and shoulder hurt just thinking about it.😂

Beautiful fish and the smile is worth a 1000 words.

Yes it does, you will need a border permit.

Have recently tried both a Mop and a Mega below the restricted zone as trout are hitting Egg patterns pretty well clear down to Lilleys. Egg is out preforming either with the power worm still way better than anything at this point