Seth

Thanks. That's the area we will be focusing on when snagging so I might throw in a spinning outfit just incase I snag my limit early and try for some whites.

I snagged a couple of times at Chain of Rocks last year from the bank. Seen tons of asian carp pulled in and I managed to catch four tiny spoonbill one cold day when I was the only person there. They banned snagging there this year though to protect sturgeon or something so the only other place to bank snag is below Alton Dam. Not much as far as spoonbill get caught there, but if you want asian carp then you can catch one every cast almost and they get them up to 40 lbs there. We mostly snag the Mississippi for the asian carp because they fight just as hard if not harder than a spoonbill and you don't have to worry about having a slow day of snagging those crazy things. They taste awesome if prepared right too. Seth

Good to hear that!! I know the side imaging units have extremely good detail, but does is it good enough to actually show the bill of the spoonbill? I know with regular 2d sonar, you are basically just guessing that the fish is a spoonbill based on location and size. I'm heading down to the James River tonight after work and if it's not storming too bad, will be hitting it at midnight tonight.

Glad to hear that Coyote. Small males or big sows I'm ready to yank in some spooners. Good luck everybody. I should be back Saturday evening so I'll post up on how well we did. Coyote, how do you fish for the whites on the James? I've seen some very impressive stringers of whites boated down there, but have never took time away from snagging to try catching any. I plan on trying for them this year though because the few times I did get into them, it was a blast!

Sounds good! We will be around Ashercane Bottoms tomorrow night at 12am. Hopefully the warmer temps this week will have warmed the water up a bit and improve the snagging.

Let's use this post for all of our snagging reports and plans for 2008. Where's is everybody planning on starting this weekend? I'm going to head down to the James River on Tablerock tomorrow after work and start ripping at midnight. I just hope the weather holds out and treats us nicely.

So the spoonbill are up that far then....that's good to hear. I'm surprised they were flopping on top with the water being below 55. Those water temps are still alot better than what I expected them to be and it's supposed to be mild this week so maybe they will get in to the 50's so that should help out the spoonbill opener next weekend.

I just got my graph last summer so I haven't got to try it out at finding spoonbill. We have just snagged down there long enough that we know which holes usually have fish. I'm going to try snagging on Lake of the Ozarks this year in some tournaments so I will have to figure out how to use it to graph spoonbill for that because I have never snagged on there before.

I wish I was taking my boat down next weekend because I've got a pretty decent fish finder on it. There's a lot of holes between Point 15 and Virgin Bluff's that I would like to graph for early season snagging. We always do our snagging just above Point 15 up to the Walnut Springs boat ramp and do pretty good, but a lot of guys target the lower part of the James and do pretty good from the way it sounds.

Well I forgot that I had bought some 5 minute epoxy a while back just for replacing rod tips if I needed too so I will just use the 5 minute epoxy. This is going to be done to a beat up surf rod that I use for snagging so I'm not worried about looks so I'll just leave the thread be then. I was just curious if it served a purpose other than for looks.

Do you have to wrap thread below the rod tip? If so, should I do that before or after I glue in the rod tip? My last question is, will Power Bond work for installing the rod tip? I use Power Bond for installing inserts into my carbon arrows and it seems to hold really well for my arrows. Thanks, Seth

I've never been there myself either, but I've gotten on there webpage, which is http://www.oldoarhouseinn.com/ and read the directions on how to get there and looked it up on Google Earth and I'm pretty sure I have the right place marked. It's around MM 81 so if you know the mile markers well then I'm sure you could find it right away.

I've never seen them post pictures of derby day fish on that website, just the pictures from kids fishing day.

Good luck and I agree with Dano on the having the time and not going makes your crazy. If you can get in around the bathroom hole on the bluff side, you will catch some fish. That spot had the most fish in the whole stream I would guess, as well as the most fisherman. Being that you are going on a Wednesday, it shouldn't be very crowded compared to this past weekend. Good luck and catch a big one.

I'm hoping and praying for some warmer weather. Last year we had very mild weather for the two weeks before snagging season and the fishing was awesome that first night. The following weekend it was cold as heck though and my buddy and his dad snagged for 8 hours on the James River and the only fish they hit was 10 minutes after they started right underneath the bridge by Bridgeport LOL.

That's kind of what I figured, but it might be worth it to try some day just to save a little fuel and explore a new area. Thanks for the info.

I've never snagged on lake of the Ozarks and everybody I know that does snags up the Osage arm of the lake. I read that there is some good paddlefishing from Highway 54 down to the big/little Niangua confluence. This is also a lot closer to me that the Warsaw area so I'd be interested in fishing this. Let me know if anybody knows this area and has caught paddlefish there.

Man I have said it the past two years about coming up there and I just haven't done it yet. I always end up heading down to the Tablerock to snag. A buddy of mine and I are going to try fishing those spoonbill tourneys on Lake of the Ozarks held by The Old Oar House Inn and Snagmasters this year. We've never snagged up on LoZ before so it will be a new experience for us. We tear the paddlefish up down on Tablerock so maybe we can do the same on LoZ. Well time to get back to wrapping the new rod guides on my surf rod....

Good luck! I wish I could be snagging right now so bad. It's all that I can think about lately. This past weekend I respooled all of my reels with some new 80# Power Pro and putting some new rod guides on one of my snagging rigs. I think my girlfriend is getting tired of me talking about paddlefish and season hasn't even opened yet.

Shawncat, I seen two big ones on stringers about 5 pounds a piece. We fished on the bluff side of the Lacy Hole Sunday and caught several in a couple hours. It wasn't nearly as bad as Saturday and I think the fish bit even better too. My girlfriend caught 6 or 7 and I brought in atleast a dozen. Several nice ones around 15 too and thick. I'm going to eat some of my catch tonight when I get home. YUM YUM!!!

Well you can't really compare a little trout park to big ol Taneycomo now can you? It sure beats sitting inside due to ice/snow storms whether it's crowded or not and the temps are in near 70.

I caught about 20-25 fish. My buddy and his dad probably caught more then that. Started out fishing right above the log just below the second cleaning station with a white rooster tail and caught about a dozen I'd guess. Not many people were catching fish at a fast pace around me, but those trout sure liked the rooster tail. Fish bit good there for a couple hours and then slowed down. We also fished at the bridge for a while and caught several trout on powerbait, trout worms, and jigs. It was a bit chilly this morning because I didn't bring a coat, just a polypropylene thermal shirt. Once the sun got up above the trees, it was awesome out there. I'm going back down tomorrow during the day and bring my girlfriend and maybe one of my little brothers friends who wants to try trout fishing. Hopefully it's not QUITE as packed tomorrow. We shall see. Seth

You don't have to have an extremely heavy setup to catch paddlefish like most thing. Last year I broke out my 10' medium action surf that was spooled with 20 lbs test for the heck of it and landed a 50 pounder. It was like ultralight snagging for paddlefish LOL. The only problem with lighter setups is hook penetration sometimes isn't as good as you would like. Glad to see you back in business on here Duckman. I figured you would be showing up shortly with paddlefish season on the horizon.

I'm not sure what it will be like up at Ashercane bottoms, but I know down at the mouth of flat creek it looks like christmas time. With it opening on the weekend this year, it will probably be worse unless the weather is really crappy. I don't know if you will have to worry much about running into the stumps at Ashercane Bottoms this year as the water is pretty high. You have to hang pretty close to the banks to worry about hitting the stumps anyhow. We like to go right up a long the tree line snagging because the spoonbill use them as cover just like any other fish I think. That's our most productive technique.

I usually snag on Tablerock, but will probably come up there this spring for the Snagmasters tournament. If you want to tag along, I'm sure I will have some room. It's on April 19.