Seth

A guy who fishes our bass club caught two giant smallmouth last year during high water during late winter if I remember correctly. One was in the 5 range and the other broke the 6 pound mark. This was on the Gasconade near a feeder creek. There are some guys who love fishing high water but I haven't done it enough to figure it out yet.

I wonder what this will do for the fishing at the dam? We had plans to go fishing somewhere this weekend but everything is all jacked up from all of this rain. I've only fished with the gates open one time and we caught a few blues but nothing special.

I guess that part of the problem is that most of the areas I fish are loaded with wood cover so I am constantly getting hung up. The Osage is mainly chunk rock so I don't get hung up very often with crankbaits. I've tried the KVD 1.5 squarebills and it doesn't take long before it gets hung up and I get frustrated and cut it off. I'll just have to save them for areas without so much timber and try them again. There are a few spots I have in mind where a deep diving crank SHOULD work but who knows. With Gasconade flirting with record flood levels it is going to be a while before I get the chance to find out.

I can catch bass on the river fine using trigged soft plastics, jigs, trick worms, spinnerbaits, and topwater but I haven't had hardly any luck throwing crankbaits. The main river that I fish is the gasconade. Now on the Osage I throw them and do pretty well but it's a lot deeper than what I fish on the Gasconade most of the time. I'm always looking for more ways to make myself a more versatile angler so I can adapt to as many conditions as possible so I was wondering if you guys had any tips for crankbaits on a river? I've tried square bills around brush and plowing the bottow with deeper diving crawfish patterns and still don't seem to catch much.

Smally of a lifetime for Missouri!

I'm in the same boat. I used to be big in to trout fishing (especially fly fishing) and then migrated to catfishing for a spell and now I"m in to bass fishing streams and river. Smallmouths are the main reason I'm hooked on bass fishing at the moment. I still trout fish and enjoy it but smallmouth are my favorite fish to catch right now.

1. trigged craw or yum dinger for pitching up stream of brush 2. pink trick worm 3. black/red buzzbait

Let me start off by saying that it's been three years since I've really been down there to fish on Taneycomo. I sure did miss it and was glad to finally make it back down. Here's my report for our trip. July 8 - Fishing the trophy area in the evening. Threw white and orange/sculpin 1/8oz jigs in the trophy area. I caught 7 rainbows and the girlfriend caught 1. A guide had some client drifting what appeared to be orange san juan worms on a drift rig on bottom and they were catching a bunch. July 9 - Got up early, went up to Short Creek and caught two rainbows on night crawlers. Forgot my worm blower so couldn't inject air in to worms. Couple boats nearby were doing much better by injecting their worms with air. It made a big difference. Went back to the trophy area that evening and caught a couple more drifting a pink san juan worm on a drift rig on the bottom. Girlfriend also caught another one on a white 1/8oz jig. July 10 - Fished the last couple hours of before dark down near Monkey Island. Caught 15-20 fish on sculpin 3/32oz jigs and also drifting a pink trout magnet about 9' below an indicator. By far the best fishing of the trip. July 11- Got out at daylight for a few hours. Started throwing a sculpin 3/32oz jig just above Monkey Island but only caught one. With no current, I guess the fish weren't stacked in there real thick like the night before. Ran up in to the trophy area and threw the sculpin jig around for an hour and caught five scrappy rainbows before pulling the boat out, packing up and heading home. Right before I left, a guy fly fishing from a boat near me hooked a good one that jumped a few times and ended up breaking him off by running under the boat. Judging by what it looked like when it jumped, I'd say it would have easily beat the 20" mark. The guy who hooked it swore it was a 6-7 pounder.

No it didn't! Now I need to crack that 20" mark! That one may take a while!

I caught my new personal best today on the Gasconade. It was right at 18". I thought I had something other than a bass because it fought so hard!

If you run up to Scott's slough from Rollins Ferry there is usually some up there. I've never seen any very big though and most of the time they don't even jump, just cruise under the surface feeding.

I caught my biggest trout down there (27" rainbow that weighed around 10#") jigging a white trout magnet. Somebody else had recently lost the fish on a white power egg as it had about a foot of line with the hook and power egg still in its mouth. I've not used the much down there though mainly becuase we usually fish the trophy area. I've always fished them by jigging and never with a float. I did watch a kid do well on trout by drifting a rootbeer colored trout magnet below a float at Meramec Springs a few months ago though so I need to give that method a try sometime.

I caught my best a few weeks ago on a jitterbug on the Bourbeuse River next to a root wad. Of course I didn't have a tape measure on hand but it was a 15-16" fish. I've gotten a bit more serious about stream bassin in the past year so hopefully that mark will be bested sooner than later.

Buddy and I got down there and started fishing around 11:30. Didn't take very long and I had a nice 16" bow on the stringer. Ended up finishing my limit with another rainbow about 16" and two of the typical 10-12" bows. My buddy has only trout fished a few times in his life caught a limit as well. He landed three on a white trout worm and one on powerbait drifted along the bottom. My fish came on orange trout worms and white marabou jigs. The water was dingy and sight fishin is tough but the fish were biting better than they have been any other time I've been down this year. Lots of very nice fish in the stream and also a ton of 6" dinks that I guess came up from the river during the high water.

We fished Pointers Creek which is down river from 89 yesterday for Bass and didn't do worth a crap. The water was still really dingy and pretty swift. We hit a few sloughs and creeks flipping dark craws and throwing black buzzbaits and chatterbaits and never got a nibble. I should of got some worms and went catfishing. The channels usually bite pretty well when conditions are like this.

The Osage is still a pretty darn goog bass fishery so I don't think they have affected the bass fishery much. I think the spoonbill are hit the hardest due to the competition for plankton.

We usually gig a few asian carp early in the season when it first opens near Vienna. Most sloughs on the Gasconade will have a few small asian carp in it from the MO on up near Jerome now.

I bought my girlfriend a 6'6" M/F pink Plueger setup a few years ago and I always find myself using that that setup for shakey heads, trick worms, and small cranks.

We fished Thursday-Saturday back bouncing cut shad below the buoys to the swinging bridge and caught 80-100 blues and two channel cats. The biggest one was only 6-10 though. The bigger fish just wouldn't bite for us but we had a good time catching what we did. It was hit or miss finding the shad. On Thursday it was tough, Friday was really easy, and then Saturday was tough again. Luckily Friday we found a big school feeding on the surface and netted enough in a couple throws for the rest of the weekend. Anywhere there was a cut that made a current seam would hold a few it seemed.

We've ran from Delaware Town to to the golf course but the water was up quite a bit. There's no way I'd try it unless the water was up quite a bit. My buddy already wrecked one boat a few years ago trying to get to some holes below Delaware Town after the water had dropped down to a bit over normal.

I love snagging paddlefish and asian but can't stand to see people purposely snag game fish like what goes on at the outlets on Taneycomo. Since paddlefish and asian carp feed on plankton, it's the only feasible way to catch to catch them. It is a lot of work and definitely not for everybody but it is all worth it when you tie into the biggest fish of your life and it nearly yanks you out of the freakin boat! I enjoy those lazy and relaxing days of fishing as well.

My buddy fished between PB#1 and PB#2 yesterday and they brought back two limits. He said they caught a lot of small fish up shallow and then finally found some nicer fish hanging out a little ways from the bank.

Nice fish! There was a pretty good thread about this type of thing in the Tablerock section I believe. Most everybody feels the same way that you do. Oklahoma has paddlefish cleaning stations setup where people bring in fish and they clean them and then process the eggs and make money which goes back in to the paddlefish program. I don't see why MDC couldn't do something that here in Missouri near Warsaw. LoZ is by far the most pressured snagging fishery in this state.

Did you see any paddlefish on your float? I know they started catching them pretty good right as season ended up the river.

Ive never really targeted whites up at Bagnell. Ive caught a few by accident while crappie fishing but thats about it. The only time Ive seen big hybrids caught were by guys throwing live shad up towards the dam from the bank with a lot of generation.