Seth

You definitely don’t save any money but acquiring the groceries is a lot more fun.

That’s odd. That place used to be loaded up during the catch and release season. There were quite a few fish near the end of the keep season too so that makes the lack of fish even more puzzling.

We were supposed to head down to Lilleys Landing this weekend for the Masters trout tournament, but had to cancel due to the incoming weather. Since my buddy and I were already off work and it was nice, we decided to go hit LoZ and see if we could get some fresh crappie fillets to enjoy while being snowed in this weekend. Two limits of crappie and a couple mutts (white bass) provided us with a gallon of fresh fillets. Ended up finding them on secondary points about half way back in a creek arm. Left the long poles at home so we were forced to cast and cork for them. That's always more fun anyways.

I haven't been down for catch and release season in a few years, but I don't recall them ever charging for parking during that time. Maybe I just went on nasty days when nobody wanted to come in take money for parking.

I'll hop on the 3# for jigs train too. I use 3# Maxima Ultragreen for all of my jig fishing. You can save a few bucks and get the Pline Floroclear in 3# as well. I can think Mike Riffel for that tip.

I will bring the fryer and whip up some fried crappie and wild turkey boob again.

This is why I need variety when I fish. I rotate between white/hybrids, black bass, crappie and trout throughout the winter. I enjoy fishing the Osage the most in the winter because you can catch such a variety of fish. It's not uncommong to catch all three species of black bass, whites, hybrids, sauger, walleye, crappie and drum in a single trip.

Rub some dirt on it and go fishing

This has been the best rifle season in a long time for us. Dad and I harvested the two bucks we were hoping to see opening weekend. I took off work Tuesday and Wednesday to hunt with a buddy up north and took another large doe a good sized button head. He ended up shooting two does and a nice 8 pointer himself. We even worked in a couple limits of crappie Wednesday morning.

Congrats on the deer and all the good eating. I've only taken one large doe so far. I processed it and ground everything except the backstraps and tenderloins for an older lady that my fiancee works with. She was tickled to death to get a deer this early. I've seen a few of my shooters, but they didn't come in to range for a shot with the bow. First year I didn't have a youth hunter to take out so I went bow hunting that weekend. As luck would have it, my #1 shooter showed up 20 minutes before dark and ate clover the rest of the evening at 70 yards. Would have been such a perfect shot for a kiddo.

We finally got a couple nice showers recently. I'm hoping it aint' done though and we can get at least one more good shower this week. My food plots need it.

I don't have any obnoxiously bright shirts to wear these days. Got too chubby to wear the one you are referring to. May need to try and find a nice chartreuse sun hoody and get back to my roots!

I'm helping disabled hunters try to kill antlerless deer that weekend so ya'll have fun without me like always.

I'm shocked the state record is less than 2 lbs. It's hard to catch a white sucker that small on Taneycomo! I just assumed they were similar in size throughout the white river system.

Cut 8-10" and attach tag line to main line with triple surgeons. Some people just do a loop knot in the main line and cut it to create a tag but that setup has cost me way too many fish.

Creek mouths and current seams should be your friend for smallies. Any slower pockets with wood as well. Spinnerbait, crankbait and some sort of plastic or finesse jig for dragging bottom. Water may not be high enough to put them in creeks, but they should be near mouth or along structure just below creek mouths with water dropping hard.

6-8# if using fly rod and 10# if tying to 10# braid on spinning gear for main line leader. Reason for bumping up to 10# on spinning is the leader knot for main line to braid is large enough to stop the bead. Fly will work with smaller line due to being so much thicker thant he braid. Use a tiny spro swivel between main line and leader. The leader is always 4#.

Tie the FG at home and if I break that leader off during a day of fishing then I'll retie with the Alberto knot. If I'm really being lazy or in a hurry I will go with a uni to uni.

That was definitely one of the best bites I've ever experienced. It's up there close to the bit we had on January 2016 shad kill on Taneycomo. Watching @gotmuddy trying to boat flip a 24" brown was the cherry on top for that day. I'll never dare him to do anything stupid again because chances are he'll probably send it! LOL

I'm with Swift on the Trav sounding awfully "windy" to me. There are a lot of folks that fish Taneycomo and I've never heard of much for big browns coming from way down lake. Heck I don't hear about much of anything being caught down lake at all, not even stockers. The winter trout tourneys used to be dominated by down lakers when I first started fishing them in 2017. Those guys don't even bother fishing down lake anymore because it's a waste of time.

Congrats! I love hunting those last few days of season. It seems that the gobblers finally get those hens bread and start moving around again looking for the remaining unbred hens and actually work again. That second week seems to be fairly tough for us most years. My cams had a couple toms show back up last weekend on different farms after not getting anything for nearly two weeks. It didn't matter though since we were already tagged out. With the crop of jakes that we have running around again this year, I'm hopeful that next year is another good one.

The last few years have been decent around here. It was a rough 5 years before that though. Looks like another good crop of jakes hatched again this year so I'm expecting at least one more decent spring season. All of this rain we've gotten this year have me concerned about the success of this years hatch though.

Finished up my 2025 MO turkey season this morning. (24.2lbs, 11.5” beard, 1.25” spurs). Had to move on him four times before I got him to come in and offer a shot. First run and gun bird in several years. It’s so much more fun than blind hunting, but the opportunities to do it haven’t been there.

Congrats! I ended up filling my second tag on a nice tom this morning as well.