Seth

Cut 8-10" and attach tag line to main line with triple surgeons. Some people just do a loop knot in the main line and cut it to create a tag but that setup has cost me way too many fish.

Creek mouths and current seams should be your friend for smallies. Any slower pockets with wood as well. Spinnerbait, crankbait and some sort of plastic or finesse jig for dragging bottom. Water may not be high enough to put them in creeks, but they should be near mouth or along structure just below creek mouths with water dropping hard.

6-8# if using fly rod and 10# if tying to 10# braid on spinning gear for main line leader. Reason for bumping up to 10# on spinning is the leader knot for main line to braid is large enough to stop the bead. Fly will work with smaller line due to being so much thicker thant he braid. Use a tiny spro swivel between main line and leader. The leader is always 4#.

Tie the FG at home and if I break that leader off during a day of fishing then I'll retie with the Alberto knot. If I'm really being lazy or in a hurry I will go with a uni to uni.

That was definitely one of the best bites I've ever experienced. It's up there close to the bit we had on January 2016 shad kill on Taneycomo. Watching @gotmuddy trying to boat flip a 24" brown was the cherry on top for that day. I'll never dare him to do anything stupid again because chances are he'll probably send it! LOL

I'm with Swift on the Trav sounding awfully "windy" to me. There are a lot of folks that fish Taneycomo and I've never heard of much for big browns coming from way down lake. Heck I don't hear about much of anything being caught down lake at all, not even stockers. The winter trout tourneys used to be dominated by down lakers when I first started fishing them in 2017. Those guys don't even bother fishing down lake anymore because it's a waste of time.

Congrats! I love hunting those last few days of season. It seems that the gobblers finally get those hens bread and start moving around again looking for the remaining unbred hens and actually work again. That second week seems to be fairly tough for us most years. My cams had a couple toms show back up last weekend on different farms after not getting anything for nearly two weeks. It didn't matter though since we were already tagged out. With the crop of jakes that we have running around again this year, I'm hopeful that next year is another good one.

The last few years have been decent around here. It was a rough 5 years before that though. Looks like another good crop of jakes hatched again this year so I'm expecting at least one more decent spring season. All of this rain we've gotten this year have me concerned about the success of this years hatch though.

Finished up my 2025 MO turkey season this morning. (24.2lbs, 11.5” beard, 1.25” spurs). Had to move on him four times before I got him to come in and offer a shot. First run and gun bird in several years. It’s so much more fun than blind hunting, but the opportunities to do it haven’t been there.

Congrats! I ended up filling my second tag on a nice tom this morning as well.

He's got a heck of an eye if he knew without a doubt that it was going to be 1oz bigger thant he previous state record. 😁

Looks like my spring aside from the mushroom pic. Finding morels would be at the top of the list of outdoorsy things that I'm garbage at. 😁

Yep. I cleaned 15 females and only two had eggs that looked like they were ready to be dropped. The rest did not look ready.

Put in at Ravae's at the 55mm and stayed with in a mile. Caught a few males up shallow, but ended up finding the better quality females under docks near points and on brush near docks in 12-20' of water. Kept a limit of 11-13.75" fish with 10 of them being 12"+. Color didn't matter, just had to put it in there face. Water only had about 6" of visibility.

I love the competition factor. Anybody can go catch em when conditions are perfect during the week. When you go out and fish the same day and conditions and whoop everybody else, you've proven that you were the better angler that day. Do it over and over and you'll know that you're a better angler overall. It's not for everybody, but some of us love it. Heck, I won't hardly fish for bass unless it's a tournament. If I'm just out fishing for fun, I'm probably going after something I enjoy eating more than a bass. To be honest, I'm not sure how people do nothing but bass fish when there are so many other types of fish to be caught.

It wouldn't bother me. The last time I purposely went after bass in the spring was in 2020. I'd rather spend my time chasing whites or crappie this time of year. I get my fill of bass in the summer and fall.

Do you just now have an issue with it because an "influencer" told you to have a problem with it? Tournaments have been fished in the spring for decades.....

Didn't have anybody to take a pic of me with the bird so the photo kind of sucks. (10" beard with two other baby beards, 21.8# and 1" spurs) on opening day.

@BilletHead I think my bird was a in the upper 25 lbs range. That hoss you got beats that by quite a bit! It was a good opening day all around it sounds like. The wind made it hard to hear the birds, but I knew there were a few in the area so I just stayed put and called in between the wind gusts. I'd hear a gobble once in a while so I knew it was just a matter of time before something showed up. @Ryan Miloshewski texted me sometime around 8:30 I believe with a pic of his beard and it wasn't long after that I peaked up and saw a fan and then a couple big white noggins headed towards me. A few moments later I had a bird flopping myself. It actually ended up being a triple bearded bird which was a first for me, and weighed 21.8lbs and had 1" spurs. My dad and father in law both tagged birds on opener day as well. Only one other time can I recall dad and I both harvesting birds together on opening day.

It was a good weekend for thunderchicken chasing. My dad helped my youngest nephew tag a jake. The nephew I took botched an opportunity Saturday morning, but we made up for it when he tagged a 23.5lbs tom with a 10" beard and 1 1/2 and 1 5/8" spurs on Sunday morning.

I've definitely chucked reels for less! Would have been nice to at least get some eyes that monster!

I didn't go opening weekend, but went this past Sunday afternoon. Tons of small fish in the stream that escaped during the winter flood so you had to weed through them to get to the decent ones. They were all over the green/white rubber leg, white trout magnet and orange trout worm. My father in law fished velveeta under a float and couldn't keep the little guys away. He caught plenty of fish, but nothing worth keeping. My best four were all 14-16".

If you want to know the next day predictions, you use the link https://www.energy.gov/swpa/generation-schedules. The USACE app was just redirecting to that page anyways. I'm hoping the CFS app will update with that information as well. I'll know if it does later today.

Does it update in the evening with the predicted flow for the following day like the USAC Little app did?

Auto renewal is where it's at! I think the ONLY things I don't have on auto renew/pay at this point in my life is the trash bill and the electric bill. The only reason they aren't on there is because they don't offer the option yet.