Seth

Tan and grey are about all I have ever used. Dead orange and oink get hot at times too. I’ve also never had much luck on olive scuds, but hammer them on a gold head olive micro.

I don't think Maramec is nearly as long as the other parks so I don't think there is really enough space to do the zoning. That's what I've always heard anyways.

I think Doty had some good success with a client fishing the jerkbaits in the rain a few days ago.

Maramec doesn't have any restrictions. The bait soakers fish right next to the fly fishermen.

Jigs will work just fine. Focus on eddy pockets on the bluff banks and inside bends. If you have trouble fishing the heavy flow above Lilleys, you can always go down below Scottys. Scottys down to the power lines is always full of fish and the current is a lot slower. If things get too dirty, go up river and find clean water. If you are vait fishing, you can still catch fish at the creek mouths well in dirty water. Fish will stack uo there and gorge on all of the food coming in. Crawlers should shine in that situation. This is a tourney we took third in while 15k cfs flowing. Should give you an idea on how we fish those conditions. Personally, I love fishing when the gates are open.

Canterbury and Arey killed me! They weren’t looking too bad after day 1, but day 2 was ROUGH on both of them.

I always have a few drops of water come out and it stops around 10 pumps. I may have a little bit of a seal leak though as my motor is up around the 400 hour mark. Not sure what seal life is on a jet unit. Seems my jets have always been like that though. Grease is cheap so I fill it till all water is purged. The 2-4C grease is recommended by Outboard jets, not Mercury. I figure the people who engineered these jet kits probably have their reasoning for it. Also looks like Lubriplate 630-2 is recommended as well. http://outboardjets.com/a-change-in-the-type-of-grease-for-driveshaft-bearings/

We bought some Gamakatsu Octopus circle hooks at Springfield BPS this past January on our way down to Taneycomo. They still had quite a selection of Gamas.

Outboard jets recommends the Mercury 2-4-C grease for those jet lowers now. I give mine 10 pumps after every use.

I always tell everybody that's the best part about it. Going down solo strictly for the fishing isn't really worth it, but bringing friends and standing together just having fun is a good time. From a fishing standpoint, you're far better off waiting till about noon and going down as a lot of people will clear out and you can actually get a decent spot where fish are congregated. We didn't get a very good starting spot so we basically just went through the motions for the first few hours and then moved in to a good spot once people started thinning out to clean fish. That's just the nature of the beast when it comes to park trout. Most of the fish are going to be ganged up in small areas.

I've been too a lot of opening days and I think this was the busiest I've ever seen. For as busy as it was, it was awfully boring as far as the people watching went. The folks that hooked lunkers actually knew how to fight fish, nobody fell in the water, nobody got in a fight and everybody was calm and collected when there was a tangle. The best thing I saw all day was some guy in a crappy old Mustang left his rod and reel sitting on top of the car and slung it out on to the highway as he left the park.

Water clarity wasn’t the greatest. Fish seemed to he very congregated in certain spots. I helped my fiance catch her five at the buzzer and then fishing slowed. We basically waited around till 9:30 to get in a spot where fish were biting and then caught a 10-12 in short order down below the bathroom hole on a black/yellow jig and orange trout worm. I’m not sure how many tags were sold but park was the busiest tyat I can remember seeing today.

Water is still in the low 40's at Taberville. I know on the James, until the water gets above 50, there aren't a lot of fish up river aside from a few locals.

I was ate up with it when I was younger. I'd built a really nice 5/6wt Sage rod in a rod building class when I was in my early teens and then added a 4wt St Croix for roll casting in close quarters. They burned up in my parents pantry fire several years ago and I just never really got back in to it. I've got little cheap beater setup that I planned on using at the trout parks, but haven't used it much.

I need to start bringing my fly rod and putting in some time with it down there. It's just hard for me to put the jig rod down. The last time I used the fly rod was a few years ago in the summer. The water was off and fish were midging everywhere just below the narrows. I hammered them on an olive micro about 2' under an indicator.

If anybody ever questions what I do in a tournament, wait a week and I'll have a video of it up on YouTube. 😁

Good job! It was a tough day for us weight wise. Numbers were great. Not sure how many we boated, but it was a bunch. We'd caught quite a few 1-2.5# pound fish between Fall Creek and Cooper Creek the previous two days so I was feeling pretty confident. Boy was I wrong! Everything we weighed was 13-15oz. I was surprised nobody brought in a brown as our boat and several others I spoke too caught several short of the 20" mark.

I ended up going with a Shimano Stradic FL 1000. It's quite the step up over the Pflueger President. Hopefully it ain't cursed because I never did catch a decent fish on it during the tournament. One of the worst days of quality I've had on Taneycomo in a long time. It would have been a good day for a CAM style tournament for sure.

I doubt there is much cheating going on in these tournaments either, but it never hurts to remind anglers that you’re not bluffing.

Only if they are from the factory jet line up and they have the pump rated horsepower on the cowling. If it says the powerhead rating on the cowling, it came from the factory with a prop lower.

I always do better on quality when the water is high and fast.

Darn it! I was hoping it would stay at 15k cfs for the tournament.

I think the confusion is with the factory jets versus replacing a prop lower with a jer. Factory jets come labeled as 40, 60 and 105hp. The powerheads are actually 60, 90 and 150 though. The HO motors are sold from the factory as props and then the dealer has to swap the lower to a jet.

Having power tilt/trim will spoil you. I run a jet and trim it all the way down so I get up on plane the quickest. When I'm on plane, I will trim the motor back a bit and gain several more MPH. That's just outboards in general and not specific to those with jet lowers.

Horsepower and displacement are all that really matters when it comes to jets. The gear case stuff doesn't pertain as I think that is only for the prop lowers. Is that right @fishinwrench?