Quillback

Little white marabou jig may be worth a shot also. I'm clutching at straws here, these fish have been extremely weird lately.

Speaking of useless information, I just decided to look up the origin of the name Missouri. Missouri gets its name from a tribe of Sioux Indians of the state called the Missouris. The word "Missouri" often has been construed to mean "muddy water" but the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology has stated it means "town of the large canoes," and authorities have said the Indian syllables from which the word comes mean "wooden canoe people" or "he of the big canoe."

Well I didn't see you mention a drop shot or jigging spoon for those deep fish, might be worth a shot. Sometimes when they are busting small shad a 1/4 oz Kastmaster or a Little George type underspin will work.

Thanks for the update, that's not a bad day at all for the way things have been going lately.

I've always given about a 15% tip myself and I think giving $50 to $100 for your trips is a nice tip.

Sorry to heat that Bill, I know you just hate it when you take clients out and the fish are just outright uncooperative. I talked to a very experienced fisherman that fishes the upper end just about every day the weather is decent and he's a fisherman that can catch them deep, shallow and all points in between and knows every rock and brush pile in that area and he was finding it to be extremely tough also.

I have tried it, just not for me. And I acknowledge their effectiveness, I have netted a few of my buddies bigguns they caught on the contraption.

I am planning on making the reservations tomorrow. Combined cost of the River Lodge and Cedar Gables is $1800 for the 3 nights. We have 12 confirmed with another 3 or 4 possible. Being conservative and going with 12, that works out to $150 per person for the 3 nights. If anyone has any objections, now is the time to voice them, otherwise I will assume all is well with everyone and make the reservations.

Pretty much sums up the reason I do not use it. But I can see why tournament anglers throw it, hard to compete against it.

Not a lot to report - I caught 8 bass, spots, one smallmouth and a couple of meanmouth. Had one spot that might have been a keeper, the rest were 12-14" fish. 1/2 oz jig, and a tube internally weighted with a 1/8 oz weight on steep banks caught my fish. Nice day, WT was 66-67.

Good going Dan, glad to see some stripers in the boat!

Fishing is tough, but I'll probably get out there this week just to get out and fish.

According to BassTrakk, only 2 bags over 10 lbs, 11 lbs being the most.

Looking at BassTrakk, if one of the top 5 gets a limit of keeper spots, that may be all they need to win.

Sounds like we'll have plenty of boats and I also will be looking for a seat.

Tough day, best bags were in the 13 lb range.

I did get a spare, but if this one lasts 6 years like the previous one, will I remember where the spare is? Or even if I have one?

Yeah buddy, Mr. Hughes can paint a bait! Tracked down a spring at TH Rogers, got it in, I'm back in business.

Thanks for the 2 foot advice, but my mission today is to find a spring and fix it.

It is kind of weird the fish aren't on top more. When I was out in Indian creek area a couple of days ago, there were plenty of shad on top, when I running down the creek I was spooking a lot of shad. There did seem to be schools of spots chasing shad but it was all sub-surface. Kind of a head scratcher why they aren't busing them on top.

Got on the lake at first light - I motored over to a chunk rock bank that had held some fish last time I was on the Rock a couple of weeks ago. Caught 4 bass on my first 10 casts, one of them was a keeper smallie. It got tougher after that. Didn't help that about into an hour of fishing the little spring that pushes up the button you press with your foot to activate the trolling motor broke in half. TM was now in continuous mode unless I shut it off. Not used to fishing that way, made boat control a bit difficult for me, almost packed it in, but since I was there I decided to stay and fish. Ended up with a dozen bass, all shorts except for the one smallie. Caught 4 LM that were all just short, fun fish to catch but they would not help anyone in a tournament. The rest were spots, had a dozen bass total. 1/2oz Nutech jig in PBJ or Sunfish, with a Rage Craw trailer worked for me. Most fish were on steep chunk rock banks. 2 bass were caught when I was retrieving the jig back to the boat, had another good one get off the hit it on the retrieve. Darn fish only would do that when I wasn't expecting it, wouldn't bite it when I deliberately swam it. Caught a spot on a Lucky Craft US shad that has a Tim Hughes custom paint job of Japan Craw - I think this bait is going to whack them when things are right for it. When I got back to the parking lot there were two identical, brand new Denali 4 door pickup trucks towing identical Ranger trailers (Different color on the trailers). Just kind of funny to see identical rigs parked next to each other, very nice setups, sharp trucks.

I'd say you're bringing the right stuff.

Some big boys there BH. I don't hunt them, but last evening driving out on the road from Indian creek on Beaver, probably saw 20 does and 1 buck, not all in one group, but several groups of them. I've done that drive many a time, usually you'll see one or two, but not that many, so it seems to confirm the cold weather has them moving theory. Saw a doe swim cross a cove also while fishing.

OK, I have 11 confirmed stays now which will about fill the Cedar lodge. Still haven't heard from Les or Brett. Phil is a probable for Thursday and Friday. Dunno if he is dragging Duane and Babbler down. Thinking we're going to need 2 lodges again.

Didn't get to the lake until 11 AM, had some stuff to take care of in the early AM. Still pretty cold when I got there, mid forties and temps increased a bit as the day went on. Water temp was around 67. My plan was to fish the dam area for smallies which is what I started out doing, throwing cranks, jigs and the shaky head worm. 2 hours later all I had was a couple of bumps and no fish in the boat so I headed up Indian to see if I could find some fish up there. Was tossing the jig when I noticed a bunch of fish on the sonar suspended in 30 FOW. Only thing I had available for suspenders was a jerkbait, so started tossing it and working it hard, no pauses like I would use in cold water jerk tossing. Started getting spotted bass on it, very location dependent, when you could find them, they'd bite, but finding them was difficult and when I did find them, they'd usually be moving. Put 10 spots in the boat, no big ones, 12-15" fish. Did manage to catch one smallie on a crank for the last fish of the day. Had a double on the Pointer 95.