Seth

We had a big Siamese tom cat that would do the same thing when I was younger. He'd jump up on the bed and plop down on your chest and wake you from a dead sleep until you pet him for a while.

I love to fish, but my absolute favorite time of the year is when I get to bow hunt between Halloween and rifle season. Watching a buck come cruising past you grunting after a doe and hearing a spring gobbler sound off right on top of you give me more of an adrenaline rush than any fish ever has. Plus, I absolutely LOVE eating wild turkey and deer meat.

I don't think I've seen anybody more mad at groundhogs than my dad. Dad finally got one of those big pumpkins to grow in his garden a few years ago. One day he went out there and a ground hog had destroyed it! From that day forth, Bill Murray in Caddyshack doesn't have much on dad when it comes to groundhogs. They are still around though and really appreciate dad's big turnip food plot that he plants in the bottom for the deer every fall.

I guess I will keep posting pictures of my dog since I'm so ate up with her lol. We are definitely dachshund folk. Darla, the one pictured above, has been with us since the day she was born and she will be 11 this summer. I gave her to my fiance (girlfriend at the time) as a birthday present. We got the original mommy and daddy back when I was still in high school in the early 2000's and now nearly everybody we know has dachshunds. She pretty much rules our world. We have a tendency to doze off while watching TV. She always has to attack my dead critters I bring home from hunting and investigate the fish I catch. She is a die hard squirrel chaser too. This was a few years ago when we had a big old fox squirrel we named Charlie always coming by. He would do circles around the tree and then bail off and run to a different tree and she'd be hot on his heels. It was quite entertaining! This is dad's newest dog. They got him from a lady that my step mom with that had a litter of pups last year. The tip of his tail is broken and is always crooked so he got named Crook. The other dog is a red and his name is Red. Dad doesn't get too creative with his dog naming lol. He likes to sit on dad's shoulder and clean food crumbs from his beard and that's why he was on my shoulder. My facial hair is non existent so he was disappointed.

It's nothing compared to our dachshund. She practically needs her own dresser or closet for all of her outfits. She doesn't mind dressing up though. The only problem with her outfits is that she is getting too fat to wear a lot of them lol.

I've only been down one time when the sows were running well and had an absolute blast. It was like opening day at a trout park except most folks had boats lol. Seems every time I've been down in April, the weather doesn't cooperate and we miss the best part of the run.

I was there hanging out in the back by Scott (smalliebigs) and Pat (Pat Magee). If I lived closer, I'd love to make more of those meetings. It was a good time for sure!

Champ, we have a cat that looks like a twin yours. She definitely isn't the "brightest", but she is a sweety and very entertaining to watch play around. One day out of the blue, she just showed up as a kitten on our back porch so we took her in. I never thought I would see the day that my fiance would become attached to a cat enough to make them a house cat. Yadi (named off the Cardinals catcher of course!) on the left who is an inside/outside cat and Fiona on the right. She is a full time house cat, but we let her out to play around when it's nice out. My fiance likes to dress her up at times and Fiona isn't a fan lol.

Makes sense because I've tried skipping with casting gear a few times for the heck of it and failed miserably! I'm looking in to upgrading my jig/worm setup to something that is much higher quality. Bottom baits are one thing where I have noticed a difference in using higher quality gear. I'm planning on using a 7'1" 13 Fishing Omen Envy MH for the rod, but haven't decided on a reel yet. I've been looking hard at the Lew's line up, but not sure which would be best suited for that purpose. Which reel were you thinking of in particular? For skipping, do you think the MH would be too stiff? I'm guessing you'd need a rod with a little bit of flex in the tip so you can sling the bait and get some speed built up.

I pitched all last year with a PQ and thought it was fine. Maybe I'm not pitching as far or with as light of lures as you guys though? Most of my pitching is in the 20-30' range with 1/4-3/8oz lures.

It was nice to meet several of you guys finally. I'm pretty sure Al is the only one I've spoken with before yesterday, and that was in the dark by a campfire anyways. I'm sure my buddy wished I didn't have such a big mouth because instead of leaving at 9, it was after 10 before I finally shut up so we could hit the road for our hour and a half drive home. Talking about fishing with others who are just as crazy about it is just so much fun though! I can't thank Scott and Mitch enough for hooking me up with some of there lures. Once the water warms up a bit, I'll be ready to put them to work. I'm going to have to invite you guys up for some Gasconade fishing once the water warms up a bit and they start getting hungry again. They have some major lock jaw right now.

I figured it would help quit a bit. I've noticed a big difference with how snag proof my hair jigs are when using jig heads with and without a wire weed guard.

That's a steal. I'll definitely be replacing a few reels with them. I bought a 7.1:1 for $80 last year and it has treated me well.

You'd think a pearl NED rig would work wonders on bedded fish. Do you guys feel that the mushroom heads with a wire guard are a necessity when fishing in area's with a little bit of wood on the bottom? I'm a river guy and it seems every place I fish has a little bit of wood on the bottom.

Your trip produced more than my last three outings on the Gasconade have produced. I've managed one 14" kentucky, a goggle eye and several missed fish on my hair jigs.The fishing went from great when it was 42-43 degrees to down right tough now that it's 38 degrees. Makes me wish I still had one of those underwater cameras to drop down and just see what the heck those fish are doing because I know they are there. I need to get some craft hair ordered and whip up some float n fly jigs and give that a try. Maybe that will coax them in to biting. Al, do you add scent to your baits during the winter? I'd like to try some, but I've read that you shouldn't add it to hair due to it messing with the action of the jig.

Hope it helps. I'm no master when it comes to sonar, but I do a lot of Google and YouTube research and then try to apply it n the water the next time I get the chance. It definitely helped me put more crappie in the boat last spring!

I need to come down and gig Taneycomo one of these days. If you guys like fried fish, it is hard to beat a fresh sucker! Scale, filet, rib, score the fillet as thin as you can, roll in corn meal and fry for 6-7 minutes at 350 so it get's good and crispy and dig in! The biggest white sucker I've caught down there was 18 inches if I remember right. It was a long time ago. I would walk around Lazy Valleys dock sight fishing for them and have a ball!

You were wearing them trout out! Where was your four legged fish inspector? I'm not sure I've seen you in a boat without the fish inspector before.

1) Fish more tournaments and try to get at least two wins. 2) Do more fishing with dad. We crappie fished LoZ and trout fished Taneycomo a few times last year and had a great time. I'm really hoping to get him on the river to chase some bass with me, but he is more of a throw the bait out and wait for the fish to come to it type of angler. 3) Put a few people on their first paddlefish. 4) Catch another 20" smallmouth.

I swapped my Revo S over to an old 6'6" Cherrywood and tried jerkbaiting the last time I was out. The 6'6" is much more comfortable to me than the 7 footer I had been using. Casting distance wasn't much different that I could tell. With the 7 footer, I would hit the water a lot when jerking straight down so I usually would jerk to the side. Losing 6" and being able to work the bait with the rod straight down was much more comfortable. Btw, I'm 6' tall.

Obviously not in the right spot. Nothing but browns and baitfish there right now.

Checking for crappie I presume?

Good question because I was wondering the same thing myself. When we came down this past summer, we caught a lot of trout down by Monkey Island that were the same way. A few had good color, but the flesh was still very light in color where as some of the "silver bullets" had very orange/pink meat. Now as to whether one tasted better than the other, I never paid much attention. They all taste pretty good to me when they are fresh.

I match my baits to the water conditions. Stained leaves the door wide open and makes it tougher to dial in on what they want. If it's really clear or really dirty, then lure selection gets simpler. Clear means green pumpkin/brown bottom baits, soft jerkbaits, white topwater and white/crawfish crankbaits. Dirty means upsized bottom baits in black something, black or chartreuse chatterbait/spinnerbait and chartreuse crankbaits. It's all about what I have confidence in for me. After fishing tournaments for a couple of years, I've come to realize that guys rarely catch fish on the same type of baits. I fished a high muddy water tournament last year and did well on a blue/black chatterbait. I'd never had luck with that bait before, but I decided to tie it on and not put it down all day due to the conditions. There were other anglers who threw the exact same bait (some with WAY more years of experience than me) who never caught a fish on it. The only difference was I was fishing mine a lot slower. I think presentation has as much or more of an impact on putting fish in the boat than color.

You want to use 2d in max mode. Max mode will clutter up the screen more, but it also shows a lot more detail than clear mode and that is what you want. After you use it a bit, you will figure out what is noise and what is important feedback. The clear and max mode setting only pertains to 2d, not down imaging if I remember correctly. Down imaging is meant for when you are moving and want to get a better detailed view of something. The beam for down imaging is wide and very narrow, like a slice. The 2D is cone shaped and used for vertical fishing. You may not even not need the 83khz beam if you stick with 2d in max mode.