Seth

I tied up a half dozen tan, grey and orange scuds as well as some brown and red san juans. All I had was some #14 tmc200 hooks so hopefully that is big enough. If not, I will have to come raid your shop for some bigger hooks when I get down there.

I love hearing this since I am coming down for a quick trip this weekend with my parents. They are going to be staying at Lazy Valley for their annual June trip. I'll have to swing by and pick up some 1/8oz jigs so I'll try to run down to the dock and say hello if you're around.

I've always had better luck on a 5" hula grub for whatever reason. PBJ and green pumpkin are pretty well the only colors I throw.

He must of been reading some smallmouth reports. There's always a little smallmouth related drama going on somewhere. Don't pay too much attention to it. Arguing on a forum happens all the time. Heck, there are a few guys on here that I thought hated my guts a few years ago for something I posted. They turned out to be awesome guys and I'd consider them friends and fish with them anytime. I'd bet most bickering and arguments that take place on hunting/fishing forums would probably end up the same way since we all share a common interest. It's kind of like when you have two friends and one leans way left and the other leans way right when it comes to politics.

At the trout parks, I can sight fish and do the dame as you mention. What I was referring to is when I am on Taney and fishing a lot deeper where I can't see the bait as well or at all.

Do you guys lose sensitivity going from 4# to 2# line? I feel like I have a much harder time detecting bites with 2# than 4# so I usually just stick with 4# and tie on a leader of 2# fluorocarbon if need be.

I agree with running a new harness as well. I've never seen a trailer that didn't use green/yellow/brown/white. It will simplify things.

I still haven't noticed any here around home yet. Looking forward to some pond fishing when they do show up.

I prefer early afternoon. There have been several occassions where I didn't catch much early in an area and then hit it later between noon and two and just smoke them. This seems to be a smallmouth thing and not so mich for laregmouth and spots.

I prefer a 6'6"-7' light or medium-light action rod for throwing 3/32-1/8oz jigs that are most commonly used on Taneycomo. Ultralight is too whippy for my tastes. I've got two setups that I use. BPS Microlite Graphite 7' light action spinning rod Pflueger President 6925 spinning reel 4# Pline Fluoroclear clear Shakespeare Micro Series 7' light action spinning rod Abu Garcia Cardinal 101 spinning reel 4# Trilene XL clear

fluke buzzbait baby brush hog Eakins Jig 1.5 square bill bandit 200 crankbait green pumpkin or white for clearer water and dark colors for dingy water

Winner had 14 pounds of nothing but smallmouth. Second had 12 something with only three fish. They also took big LMB and SMB with a 5 something LMB and a 3.80 SMB. We ended up getting 5th with 10.43 with a 4.86 kicker LMB. Tenth place was in the mid 8's. The guys that put in way up river got flooded out. Fishing wasn't great. but a few figured them out and there were some toads caught.

This only my second year fishing it. All I can say is I had a fun time last year, even with the raging mud we had to fish in. Aside from this tournament, I don't fish the Meramec so I am really looking forward to trying some different waters.

The Osage has some big fish. We won a tourney last fall below Bagnell with 15 something and lost a couple of fish that would have probably put us around 17. One boat weighed in one just under 6#. The Gasconade doesn't produce near the fish that the Osage does. Even if you can't get the largemouth bite on the Osage, you can pretty much always have a ball catching kentuckies. They just don't do much for you on tournament days. My buddy took 2nd last year with 21 something. The guys that beat him edged him out by a few ounces. Conditions were much better fishing last year though.

A buddy that fished it said it was tough. I think he said the winner had 13 or 14 pounds and then most were under 10 pounds.

He just caught another good one too. Man, this sure makes it hard to get anything done at work.

My mistake. When I read Boiling Spring, I was thinking he was staying at the Gasconade campground, which is in the stretch of water I mentioned. I wasn't even aware that Boiling Spring had a location up the Piney. You learn something new everyday.

I guess I just wasn't holding my jaw right during the trip that led me to post this. This past Saturday was a complete 180. Largemouth were my target in the area I was fishing and all that seemed to be biting was smallmouth!

I've taken a few spills. The worst was when I had just got a new pair of waders and the water was dingy. Literally my first step in was right on a slick piece of wood that I couldn't see due to low visibility and I went down and put a rip in the knee.

Well something came up. My partner had a relative pass away recently and the funeral is Sunday. I don't guess we'll be making it after all. Good luck to the rest of the anglers though.

I got the tilled garden area planted last night. We ended up doing two hills of zucchini, two hills of yellow squash, nine okra, 5' of slicing cucumbers, 5' of pickling cucumbers, four jalapeno transplants, one cherry tomato transplant and 15' of contender bush beans. Next thing on the gardening agenda is get a few more soaker hoses for the tilled rows and get some newspaper and hay put down over everything so I don't have to fight the weeds. For you other guys that do bush beans, how long do they usually produce for you before you yank them up and do a new crop?

Trollling crankbaits in 25-30' of water has been hot.

Not sure what it is, but it seems like I just have a hard time catching smallmouth in the month of May. I hit the Gasconade Saturday and caught some nice largemouth and kentuckies, but never did get a smallmouth. Last year was the same way. As summer got closer, I started catching less largemouth and more smallmouth again. Are they just hanging out deeper than I think?

LOL....well that is embarrassing ! That should have been DINKS. I really need to proofread my posts before I hit add reply.

Dad and I ran down for a few hours this afternoon. Water was up a bit and dingy. We fished by the second cleaning station. I landed five trout and dad caught five or six. Caught fish on a chartreuse trout magnet, white tread jig, DoubleD 007 bait and yellow powerbait all drifted below an indicator. They didn't want anything to do with a trout worm or a jig today. Lots of short striking made them very hard to keep hooked. They must of stocked a bunch of dinks for the kids day. There is still a lot of very nice fish (biggest today was 16") but also many that arent worth cleaning. There was a pair of lunkers, each about 4#, hanging out in that area as well. One is very unique looking. His front half is very dark, but the back half is very light colored.