Seth

I’ve accomplished nearly all of my personal goals regarding big fish and tourneys over the past few years so my goals are changing. The only two goals I really have are to fish with dad as much as possible and try to take more youth out fishing.

I don't see it making much of a difference. There ain't a wintering hole on those rivers that most of the avid winter bass anglers don't already know about. Those guys don't even have FFS on their river rigs. I'm sure you could use it to see a fish eat your lure, but it's not making a difference in who is winning a river tournament. Ya'll act like this is a new phenomenon, but a lot of the guys I know have been fishing these river tourneys for 30+ years now. If they were going to destroy the bass fishing, it would have happened a long time ago. A lot of the guys that fished the rivers when I started aren't even doing it anymore. I'd bet the tournament pressure is lower now that it was when I first started fishing them in 2012. That's not a bad thing either because it was a bit ridiculous at one point when there were a good 4-5 clubs running at the same time. There's really only one that draws good numbers and a few smaller ones now. As for crappie, side imaging helped increase my crappie catching ability FAR more than FFS ever has. I went from rarely getting limits to rarely not limiting when I got side imaging. Side imaging has been on for over two decades and yet there are still plenty of crappie to be caught. If that didn't wipe them out then I don't see FFS doing that job any better. The only thing FFS has really done in regards to crappie is allow anglers to target the larger fish. That matters in a tournament, but your average weekend Joe isn't going to pass on a bunch of 10 inch fish to try and catch a 14 incher. He's just looking for some fish to eat. I'm not sure how Truman , TRL, Pomme and other reservoirs are fishing these days since I mainly fish LoZ, but the average size for crappie is the best that I can ever recall on LoZ in my 15-20 years of chasing crappie on it. I do have FFS, but I am not using it to single out larger fish when I'm out fishing for food. If it's a tournament then I'd be out in the middle of a cove single poling for the bigger fish. Dock shooting and fishing brush is going to put a limit of 10-11" fish in my boat quicker than single poling would though so I do that the majority of the time. Of course this is all just my opinion based on what I've seen first hand as somebody who fishes river tournaments and owns a Garmin Livescope. I don't do the winter tournaments since those are typically won by whoever can get to a certain spot first and my boat is way too slow for that stuff. Plus I'd rather go fish for something else in the winter like crappie or trout than a bass. I'll save them stinkin bass for the warmer months where I can get out and swim if they are being stubborn. 😁

I’m for sure in. Probably won’t make it down until Friday afternoon though. I’m going to leave my boat down there after Masters the weekend prior so it will be available Saturday and Sunday.

I have quite a bit of wild turkey breast left that I can fry up. I’ve got some jalapeno pepperjack venison sweat bologna for snacking.

You proved there is at least one little largemouth hanging out by the White River Fish House the other day too.

I'll try to make it. With The Masters and RAW being the weekend before and after, it might be tough to make it down three weekends in a row.

Pretty slow since youth season. Yesterday was the first decent sit I’ve had since youth season. Ended ip seeing 15 deer and harvesting a big doe. So far this season I’ve taken three does with the rifle and doubled up with a 2.5 year old 8 pointer and a button head with the bow in early November. I’m holding out hope that a mature buck will start showing up between now and the end of bow season, but my hopes aren’t very high. I’m sure I will end up filling a few more antler-less tags before it’s over.

Thermometer read 4 degrees at take off for the Masters earlier this year. That's the coldest I've personally fished. I didn't think we were going to be able to fish it because it took my motor forever to start peeing. It actually got hot and shut down on me on our way up river that morning. We missed the first 45 minutes of fishing and missed the check line by 0.13lbs. I'm pretty confident that we would have placed had we not had to deal with that because all of our better quality fish came early that day. I hate fishing when it's that cold. Staying warm isn't much of an issue but everyting wants to freeze up or freeze to something and it drives me nuts!

You're probably right. I've been making deer fajitas for a long time and the goose fajitas were very similar in flavor to me. I love me some fajitas!

You may be aware of how marketing works, but you obviously don't understand what "donating" means when it comes to competition. A donator is somebody who is paying the entry fee to compete, but stand essentially zero chance of winning anything in return due to their lack of skill.

Yep. Lots of selfish old heads that want it all to themselves. They'll gripe kids are too busy playing video games instead of doing outdoor things, but then complain when those kids are out there enjoying the outdoors because they are intruding on "their" territory.

I'd take @duckydoty's goose fajitas over a trout anytime!

I'd be lying if I said that wasn't how I felt towards bass fishing. I love the competition and getting to bs with the other anglers before take off and after weigh in. If I'm fun fishing, it's more than likely going to be for something else besides a bass since I get my fill of them while fishing tournaments. I'm doing cheap river club stuff and not spending big money on the lake scene either though. If we weren't winning enough to at least break even or make a little bit of money then I would have a hard time justifying it.

I don't disagree with you at all, but what do you expect when the popularity of tournament bass fishing is as high as it has ever been? Would less tournaments with higher participation make much of a difference in the grand scheme? You'll still have a lot of pressure on the lakes. I'm sure the guys that win often would enjoy the bigger payouts.

Didn't you fish a lot of tournaments back in the day? Seems hypocritical to complain about them now that you've decided to not fish them.....

Well as usual, this is the same weekend as the Missouri Disabled Sportsmen antlerless hunt so I won't be able to make it.

I'm looking forward to catching some more of those guys this winter on the Osage. It's a lot closer to the house too.

Sounds like the makings a good country western song.

All hooks do damage to a fishes mouth. Maybe we should just not allow fishing at all for the sake of the fish.

Yep, daytime was brutal outside of that last hour before dark. It was even a struggle for me to catch them on the pink powerworm. They'd nip it, but I couldn't seem to hook them. I could throw a jig and watch fish follow it back to the boat every cast, but I just could not get them to commit and actually bite it. We tried sculpins a couple mornings hoping for some browns and only managed two in two days. One was 12" and the other was 18". It was definitely one of the toughest trips I've had in a long time during daylight hours.

I beat on those fish pretty good straight lining a white jig and dragging a white bomber along the seam in that same area Saturday. It never produced anything over 16" for me though. On the other side from where you started, I did catch a 19" beefcake of a bow on a shad pattern flicker shad. It was the hardest fighting fish I caught all day. Even with 6# Trilene XL, it took me a bit to land it. I do regret not playing around with the fly rod more, but I threw that flicker shad for most of the afternoon hoping for a big bite. Ended up with 6 or 7 follows, one hook up and nothing landed over 20" for trout. The only 20" fish I caught was a walleye up near the cable across from the outlets. it was the first thing I landed on the flicker shad. Also got one white bass up there and had another chaser.

I'm really glad I decided to come down Saturday now. I had a feeling they wouldn't be on much longer. Had a half dozen 20"+ fish follow me, but only one hook up. Had a 20-21" brown on for a while and then pulled a newbie move and caught the lure instead of the fish with the net and he flopped off. Dragging the white bomber and casting a #7 flicker shad in shad pattern was the best thing I had going. Fish were deep. I did see some fish blowing up on something on the bluff bank below Lookout. I never actually saw cicadas hit the water where they were blowing up so they have just after shad. They were eating whatever it was with authority though!

I give him crap about it all the time. Don't sweat it.😉

I ended up cleaning all of them. He felt bad for not helping, but Lord knows he has cleaned plenty of my fish over the years.

He always has that look. Even a tournament winning brown doesn't get him to smile.....😁