Seth

Does this mean we no longer have to worry about CWD then? 😁

I just remember walking in to the locker room and one of my classmates mentioning something about it and turning on the radio so we could listen to the broadcast. We were all huddled around listening and thought "holy crap!". That's all I really remember from that day. It would have been my sophomore year so I was 15 at the time.

It may different on LoZ, but I can typically go behind the people that can't cast worth a flip and still catch fish on the rivers. There are certain guys that I don't bother fishing behind because they can put a bait where the sun doesn't shine and will have all of the good stuff picked apart.

@Al Agnew do you experience a lot of blow ups on topwater from smallmouth that don't hook up? I love seeing them explode on a topwater, but it seems like I miss the majority of them. They will knock the bait plum out of the water like a shark attacking a seal, but never get stuck. It's like they are bum rushing it with their mouth closed instead of actually trying to eat it. I don't really have that issue with spots and largemouths. **edit** I just finished reading the rest of your post and saw where you said they would miss it several times before getting hooked up so I guess that answers my question.

I have avoided golf my entire life because I know I'd enjoy it and I don't need another expensive addiction to go along with hunting and fishing. 😆

I never gripe about too many fishermen. I guess all those openers at Maramec Springs and fishing around Short Creek on Taneycomo over the years have made me numb to crowds. Most really aren't that good at fishing anyways so they aren't hurting much.😁

I hope they show their buddies and it gets more of them interested in fishing. That’s the goal anyways.

I took a couple middle schoolers fishing in a youth bass tournament on the Gasconade this past weekend. They both popped their smallmouth cherries. The one had only caught 4 fish in his entire life (four trout that he caught with me on a youth day at Maramec Springs a few years ago). All of the untangling and retying was worth it to see these boys getting pumped up after catching those smallies.

The best Wheeler posts are over on Bass Boat Central. People REALLY hate winners over there. 🤣

You couldn’t ignore this one so what makes you think you can refrain from future posts?

You pretty well summed up tournament river fishing. Once you learn the water and where the good spots are, it then turns in to knowing how to manage water while you have a bunch of other boats fighting for the same areas. That's what separates the better tournament guys. There are several guys who do well fishing with certain people, but struggle on their own. They already know the right areas to fish, but they lack the decision making skills. Catching a good limit of fish when you have the whole river to yourself is easy. Doing it when you have 20-40 other boats trying to do the same thing is a whole different deal. You have a fantastic ability to understand things so it's not surprising that you get it even though you don't fish any tournaments.

That may be true if you take it away from him and let everybody else have it lol. He didn't add FFS to his setup until 2020 and he was already dominating before that point. The dude purposely did not take an electronics sponsor so that he could run Lowrance, Bird and Garmin Livescope on the front of his rig. It seems to have definitely paid off.

Aren't you being hypocritical by calling the pro mask/vaccine crowd sheep? You're looking down on them for something you don't agree with, but turn around and gripe about them doing the same thing to you.

It's a good thing dachshunds and chihuahuas aren't the size of pitbulls. They are more ornery than any pit bull I've ever met. I've seen some of those little turds that were meaner than a junkyard dog!

I guess I look at things differently. We've had plenty of time to decide whether we want the vaccine at this point. If you got it, great, you're at a much lower risk of having a severe reaction to Covid if catch it. If you haven't got it and want to take your chances being around others then that is your choice, but the vaccinated shouldn't have to continue masking up to protect the ones that aren't.

That's seems unlikely when the data at pretty much every hospital is saying 95% or more of their Covid patients are unvaccinated. If hospitals are lying about this, then they are lying to the people who take care of the patients because those are the same numbers my fiance is seeing at her hospital as well.

That's the same thing my fiance is seeing at her hospital in Rolla. It led me to go ahead and get signed up for the shot. My first one was last Friday. I was waiting for some form of data to show me that there was a real difference between being vaccinated versus unvaccinated and this did it for me.

Here's a couple shots of mine that Phil's crew got during his trout tournaments.

I wish I knew more about him, but I only know him as oneshot from here and Missouri Whitetails. All the jack legs from MWT eventually ran him off. I've never personally met him or got a real name before. Hopefully the old turd is alright! He's full of hot air, but it just wouldn't be the same without his presence.

Oh come on! Give us that overly aggressive smalliebigs response that we all know and cherish. 😆

I'd like to try and make this. Browns should be starting to move on Taney around that time as well. I just need to check and make sure I don't have some other fishing tournament interfering. I've only bass fished TRL a few times and it was always a lot of fun.

You're right. I've just never done much float fishing. What little I have done was within 45 minutes of the house on the Bourbeuse and while it was easy and the fish were surprisingly nice quality, I doubt it holds a candle to some of the areas you are familiar with. Personally, I don't/wouldn't film videos on these types of waters. The same goes for winter bass fishing on the Gasconade.

You're right. It doesn't take talent to do that. I'll give Tyler credit though. He has shown up to a couple of Koch's evening tournaments this summer and held his own on pressured water. Most anglers I know that strictly fish those "easy mode" areas get a wild hair to show up and fish our tournaments in pressured waters usually end up getting a rude awakening. We both know a few of those types. I'm pretty sure you guys have been griping about people fishing and ruining streams for as long as I've been here and yet they are still producing plenty of stupid fish that anybody can catch. Unless those waters are easily accessible by jet boats, I don't think they are going to be ruined by fishermen. Heck I've got some good ponds and stream fishing within 20 minutes of the house and I never hit them. I'd rather hook up the boat and go fish stuff that is actually challenging. Figuring out how to catch em is more fun to me than just beating on dumb fish. Basically it sounds like you old guys with money would just like to have all of these little streams loaded with dumb fish for yourselves. That's pretty well the vibes I'm getting here.

Tyler obviously doesn't seem to have any problems catching plenty of big smallies. Maybe other guys just need to get out there and figure em out. If he's figuring this stuff out on his own and wants to post videos, that's on him. He seems to be fishing the same stretches of water quite a bit so he's not messing up everything. I enjoy making videos of my fishing escapades myself, but they are always on highly pressured waters anyways so I don't feel like it really matters. Everything I'm catching fish on is nothing secret. I'm not one to ask for advice from another person either and would rather figure things out on my own. If somebody feeds me info or shows me something, I don't post any video of it because it's not mine to share. That seems like the fair thing to do IMO. I only really fish the Gasconade so that's all I can really comment on. The fishing pressure from tournaments and pleasure anglers has gotten worse every year since I started fishing in 2012. The smallmouth fishing has been better the past two years than it had been the years prior since I started fishing it. Most tournaments are dominated by smallmouth instead of the largemouth like they had been in years past. I've seen more 3.5lbs+ smallmouth brought to the scales in the past two years than I can recall in the previous 7-8 years that I've been fishing for them. Is this due to higher water levels or something else? I know it takes smallmouth a lot longer than 2 years to grow to 3-4 pounds, but they sure seem to be more abundant than they used to be. The opposite seems to hold true when it comes to largemouth though. It seems more difficult to find a 3+ pound greenie now than it used to be. Many of you have a lot more years of service chasing bass on these bodies of water than I do so this is just based on my decade of experience. I don't do much floating on the smaller streams so I have no say on those, but I do feel like I have pretty good tabs on everything below Big Piney through all of the different bass clubs that fish it. I've only fished way up the Gasconade once and it was like a completely different body of water. No tournaments and little jet boat access made for a lot easier fishing. The biggest fish still seem to come from way down river even though it gets a lot more pressure. Could just be more places for them to hide I guess since it's quite a bit bigger water.

You'll know if there is a crappie tourney going on because 90% of the boats will be in either Rainy or Proctor...... Lots of slabs in those areas.