Seth

I'll have to remember to try that.

Very good point! If you've been dragging them around in the heat all day, you can forget about cleaning them this way. The head will pop off and you will have to use pliars or just fillet and remove the skin afterwards.

I run the knife up the belly, cut the gills, run my finger along the back bone to bust the blood line and pull out the guts, grab the head and bend it back and peel it and the skin off all at once. I'll fillet the meat off after that. I've tried filleting with the skin still on and then skimming it afterwards but I can't get the hang of it. I've been doing it this way for years and I can fillet them as faster or faster than people who do it with the skin on and then skim it off after removing the fillet.

Caught my best two smallmouth and best river largemouth on the Gasconade this year. We always camp at Truman State Park and fish for catfish and crappie at the end of May. Truman Dam was running water this year and we wore the 2-7# blue cats out all weekend. We probably caught 100 fish between four of us. In April, we were up at Warsaw fishing for crappie and white bass. A gully washer came through and we found a bunch of buffalo piled in to a spillway. We took our crappie gear and caught a bunch of buffalo up to 20#. It's a wonder we didn't burn our reels up! That was a hoot! Accidentally snagged an asian carp on a crankbait while fishing for bass on the Osage. It was fun fighting that on a medium action bass setup.

Got the crosscut rabbit and zonker strips ordered. I forgot I bought several packs of Green and Black Spot Removers in 1/8 and 1/4 oz on sale at Walmart a while back. I am going to snip the plastic holder and tie some stand up rabbit jigs as we'll and some regular round ball jigs and give them a whirl.

We went to Bagnell yesterday. One guy in a small jon said they had caught 21 walleye over the past few days. Only six were keepers and the biggest was a 6.5 pounder. He was anchored up at the head of the island closest to the dam vertically fishing a minnow lip hooked with a jighead with a small treble stinger. We did okay on white bass early. Black bass sucked. We caught two on jerkbaits and two on jigs. All were dinks.

We were fishing at Bagnell yesterday and it was running minimum generation. By the way, the white bass were hungry the first few hours of daylight. After that you were wasting your time. Black bass were slow as well. The Missouri River is actually below average right now.

These aren't the bite me jigs but I know Walmart carries them so they are readily available. Would these work for tying rabbit hair jigs? I'm going to order some zonker strips (regular and crosscut) and tie up some hair jigs to try on the Gasconade. My buddy is a die hard Eakins jig user so it will be a good test to see if the hair jigs out produce the silicone jigs.

I've never seen many bass in that area. I'd recommend hitting Belle Chutes and working your way up or head down stream and fish the area around Rollins Ferry. I'm going to try and go out later this week after Xmas and it warms up so hopefully I will have a report.

Nice feesh! Hopefully I will get the chance to tangle with a few of those over the next week and a half of xmas break.

Has anybody had luck hammering smallies when the water rises in the winter time? I've heard from several people that said it's a killer time to catch big smallmouth if you can hit the river when it first comes up. Anybody else experience this? I do know that this summer when the water was high they caught some of the biggest bass of the season but the water was a lot warmer then also.

I did really well last year using a $60 Pflueger Pink Lady Trion combo last year during our bass club tournaments. In fact I wont a tournament where I never put that rod down all day. There wasn't any need.Just goes to show you that it really doesn't take much for a spinning setup to get the job done. Spending more money on a good bait caster is a lot more bang for your buck than when it comes to spinning gear. The girlfriend has banned me from using her rod though I guess I have to buck up and buy my own spinning setup for this year. She couldn't understand why I kept user her rod instead of my casting rods. I had to explain to her that is was all about the baits I was throwing and a spinning rod did a better job than my casting gear.

Is this the same thing? Ike designed this head for VMC. It sure does look it would be an awesome head and I plan to try some this year. http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/VMC_Ike_Approved_Rugby_Jig/descpage-VMCRJ.html

I was just about to ask if anybody had been down there recently and seen any smallies in the spring yet. I've got my ultralight ready to go and some sculpin jigs to go try and catch a few. I've never targeted them down there in the past but plan on doing it this winter. The biggest I've seen caught out of there was a 19 incher towards the end of C&R season. Are jerkbaits with treble hooks and spinnerbaits with plastic skirts allowed in the park during c&r season? If I read right, I would technically have to remove the trebles and put on a single J-hook on jerkbaits and the spinnerbait would need hair/fur for the skirt?

Thanks. I'll save the money and go with the President then.

Have you used braid on the President? I'm looking at getting a new setup for weight less plastics and shakey heads and am trying to decide on a reel. I've heard a lot of people gripe about braid getting stuck between the bail when using braid and that higher end reels usually have better machining to prevent this. I'll be running 15# power pro on it. I was looking at the Abu Garcia Revo S/SX. They run 2-2.5 times as much as the President but had awesome reviews when used with braid.

I'll die a happy man if I can ever catch a smallie like that off the Gasconade! That sure makes me want to get out on the river!

You are like my buddy who lives up north. He kills around a dozen deer each year. All but a few are bow kills.

If I could find somebody to clean the deer for me I would glady go shoot some more. Cleaning five or six is about my limit for the year. I'm at five right now. I've got the same mentality with gigging suckers this year. Only went a few times because I got stuck cleaning all the fish each time and I got my fill of cleaning fish real quick! I used to not mind it when I was younger.

I'm ready to hit the water now! I've got a freezer full of big fat does already so the urge to kill deer isn't there right now. Usually don't hit me again till muzzleloader season starts up again. Keep hoping Bagnell will run some water so I can go chase hybrids but they aren't running anything on the weekends when I can go.

Very slow for us. I seen does and fawns almost every time out but the bucks never showed up. The week before rifle season was full of chasing though. Got three does with the bow and one with the rifle so freezer is full of delicious venison but I am still hoping to tag a nice buck before January 15. I put the rifle away after tonight's hunt so I will have to get it done with the bow or smoke pole.

No matter what you do, idiots will be idiots regardless if it's fishing, hunting, or pretty well anything in life.

pline floroclear 2# and 4# for me

Beast!

He is still upset that him and his wife "unfortunately" make too much money and will get taxed higher if they sold their home. Poor guy can barely make it on their 250k+ combined income. The higher tax rate is for earners over the 250k mark. He is good at grouping the good guys in with the bad and crying when something doesn't fit his agenda. He would fit in well as a politician. You are a fed worker, therefore you must be as bad as the idiots in Congress. I am a legal and ethical gigger but since a few bad eggs like to poach smallmouth I am considered just as bad. I guess all well off people are selfish whiners like smalliebigs since that seems to be the theme to a lot of his posts on here. Btw, here is the post I am referring to.