Seth

The red line is the normal way I run this spot. I took the yellow route like a doofus. Even if I had just stayed left (pink line) I think I could have made it through without any issues. It was literally the worst path I could have taken. Definitely one of the dumbest calls I've made while driving a jet boat.

There are some tournaments held down river, but this is the only one I know of that allows you to trailer back to a weigh in. Most just start from one access and then guys run from there. Yes you are moving fish around, but not nearly like what is done during the UMBC Invitational.

Nope. It looked fine to me. I knew it got shallow there, but I thought the water was still high enough to get over it. The "right" way to run that spot is to head down river for a 100 yards, swing left and run up the right side and then cut over to the middle and go through a gap in a rock dike. It was just a bad decision when I knew better.

The issue you bring up about spots is related to the Upper Meramec Invitational. People can put in way down river at Hwy 30 or Sand Ford where spots are more abundant and then they are hauled up to the Rafting Co for weigh in. In the past I believe spots were set aside and not released back in to the rivers, but I'm not sure that's still being done. There usually aren't many spots brought in from what I've seen though as the smallies and largies tend to be bigger on the Meramec. Spots can swim freely on the Gasconade and Osage are already full of spots everywhere you go so you're not hurting anything on those bodies of water. The biggest downfall of river tournaments otherwise is that a lot of fish get dumped in at one location. I'm sure a lot of them get caught by anglers looking for a meal from the bank on bait a few days after the tournament is done. Weights have been up in recent years so either we're all getting better at catching bass or the rivers aren't be destroyed by the evil tournament angler. There have been 16-18# bags of smallmouth weighed in over the past two weekends on the Gasconade.

What not to do when driving a jet boat.....😆

Why? I can haul fish around all day long in my live well and they are as frisky as when they went in. What would be the point of killing those fish? We've caught the same fish multiple times throughout a year in some of our river tournaments. Those fish obviously had no problem being caught, put in a live well for a while and released again. If a fish is weak or dead when weighed in at the end of the day, somebody will claim it and eat it so it doesn't go to waste.

Sometimes it just sneaks up on a guy. I stuffed my boat worse than ever this past fall in an area I've ran several times on the Osage. The water was falling out and I thought I had enough water left to take a straight shot through a spot that I usually have to swing wide on before cutting back towards the middle. I quickly realized my assumption was wrong. A boat had just went by 5 minutes prior and then we had to wait darn near 2 hours before another boat came by and helped get us unstuck.

If you haven’t ran out of water with a jet boat at some point then you just ain’t using it right!

Congratulations on an awesome fish! I told my buddies that next morning that I had them around a 30 incher but they weren't good enough to catch it. 😆 It's interesting that you guys had better luck on the slow retrieve because I was getting spanked by my buddy using a 2" countdown rapala with a fairly quick and snappy retrieve. My catch rate improved once I went to the faster retrieve. Apparently that boat ramp area is where the browns are. The only brown of our trip came on a jig off the rocks right below the ramp. The only place we could get bit that night was that south bank between the cable and the island though.

Me and two buddies ran down to Lilleys for a last minute trip. We didn’t do the best on numbers. Averaged about 10 fish an hour overall, but the quality was there. There were around a dozen fish between 18-19.75” boated in about 9-10 hours of fishing. One brown was boated. The fish are very colorful and full of fight right now! Most time was spent in the trophy area throwing jigs. Dark colors were. best. The Narrows and head end of Lookout were the two best areas for us.

I thought Phil had some in an aquarium in the past, but I may just be thinking of underwater footage he took of them.

I don't know how I haven't had it yet considering my fiance that I'm constantly around works around Covid patients all the time. She had a minor sinus infection for a few days after being exposed to a Covid positive coworkers, but her tests came back negative. It's hard for me to believe that she was actually negative after being exposed and developing symptoms 5 days later considering she is never sick with anything. I worry more about me bringing it to somebody else more so than myself getting it and suffering from it. That's part of why I skipped Jigfest this year as well as other get together type shin digs in the past month. It's such a weird virus. A big part of my family was exposed to my brother in law during deer season and not a single one of them became symptomatic within that two week window. In other similar instances everybody gets ends up getting it and developing symptoms.

Politics suck. The end. It amazes me how many people will ruin relationships arguing over which group of rich old farts are better for America. Seen it time and time again over the past few months from extremists on both sides. I hate politics and still find myself getting sucked in to arguing over it. Usually I'm just calling people out for being hypocrites though.

That's awesome of you Phil! I'm not going to make Jigfest, but I will be at your place this coming weekend with a buddy. We're going to fry up some pheasant Saturday evening. You'll have to swing by and grab a piece or two.

I think before anybody who is sick enough for a hospital visit due to Covid, they need to answer this question. What's more important to you? Masking up and not hanging around large crowds to prevent the spread of a highly contagious virus or "muh freedums"? If you say "muh freedoms", then you don't get hospital treatment since you don't feel that Covid should be taken seriously. Seems fair to me and the patients concerned about their freedoms should understand completely.

The way I understood it, the antibodies were good for 3-4 months after you had covid. Hopefully these new vaccines last longer than 4 months.

@JestersHK and Sonic is like me and Dannas. 😁 Hope you catch a some bigguns!

Inlines are just single shot rifles. Shooting a deer at 200+ yards with one isn’t anything crazy. Dad has a Ruger Redhawk 44 mag pistol that I have thought about trying to harvest a deer with, but I always end up taking the muzzleloader or bow.

Harvesting a deer is great, but everything leading up to the shot is where the real enjoyment comes. I'd take a sit in the woods like that anytime! I had a similar sit with the bow in hand this year. Decided last minute to go sit at dads farm when it was 75 and windy just to say I did. Didn't expect to see much. Wouldn't you know it the largest buck he has on camera followed a doe to just within my effective bow range, but I was caught with my pants down and the doe pegged me trying to get my bow ready for a shot.

I'll be eating whatever left overs my fiancé brings me. My brother in law tested positive for Covid yesterday and I was sitting next to him for an hour watching TV in between deer hunts two days before that so I'm stuck in quarantine......🤬

The CVA Accura is a great inline. Pair it up with 250gr Hornady SST and 2 or 3 triple 7 pellets and go hunting! We have no issues getting 1-1.5" groups at 100 yards with ours using that load. They say you can get more accurate with loose powder, but I wonder if it's really worth the hassle since the pellets are already pretty darn accurate. Our regular deer rifles don't shoot much better groups than that at 100 yards. Dad has the Accura. Mine is actually a CVA Optima, but it shoots great as well using the same loads. I was only able to fill one antlerless tag during rifle season so I will be out with the inline in a month trying to fill another and looking for one of those mature late seaon bucks.

I love shooting things I enjoy eating. The only critter I shoot and don't eat is a coyote. I've had several chances to shoot a bob cat and never do. Just don't see the point in killing one just to mount it. I'm sure it would save a few turkeys by taking one out, but I see plenty around nearly every time I go out in to the field. Stray dogs have ran deer by me a few times and I know most would probably shoot them for that, but I couldn't do it. The only way I could see myself shooting a dog would be if it was extremely aggressive towards me, another person or our pets. I think this is part of the reason why I'm not that great at putting down big bucks. I'll pass on smaller bucks, but I don't really put in the time to try and pattern the big ones. If I see a good one then I'll shoot it, but otherwise I'll just pop a few does for the freezer and be totally fine with that. Once I get three deer in the freezer, my drive to hunt fades since I will just be donating anything else I harvest. One of my buddies has already harvested 11 deer this year and is still out there hunting hard trying to get on a big buck. He is way more mad at them than I am. I'm way madder at fish than deer. 😄

It sure is nice to be able to process your own meat. Glad we don't have to stress out over that bs.

My buddy and I hunted the same blind this past weekend. There were times we sounded about like that scene from Family guy where Peter and the guy in the bathroom stall next to him were having a fart off. Good thing the wind was in a good direction and not blowing towards where the deer typically show up!

Hell even if you don't know how, there are these little things called the internet, Google and YouTube that shows you how to do darn near anything you can possibly think of...... With as many deer as shoot, we'd go broke paying a processor to take care of each one. It's not hard to do yourself at all. If you're that unsure on how to do it, just learn how to the remove the backstraps and tenderloins and then just chunk the rest off. It may not be pretty, but it won't matter if you just need burger or scraps for sausage. You can take the boned out meat to a processor and they can grind it or turn it in to whatever deer delicacies you desire. I think the majority of deer hunters want the backstraps to fry/grill, jerky and sausage anyways.