Seth

He didn't realize what he had until it was in the net. When Paul first hooked up, he saw the fish swim under his boat and thought he had a 4 pound fish. Later in the fight, he said they saw a glimpse of the tail and then thought it was possibly a 10# class fish. That takes "small eyeing" a fish to a new level!

Well I tried the white mega worm beneath a float just like you would fish the power worm this weekend during the Elfrink and it worked pretty darn well! It produced quite a few fish including one of better weigh in fish. I did miss a lot of fish though. I'm guessing they were just grabbing the tail without getting the hook in their mouth.

Here is the last 3.5 minutes of the fight leading up the landing.

While I will never be able to 100% confirm this, my dad hooked in to something huge in the same area the Friday before the RAW tournament on 2/1/19 on a large minnow and I am certain it was Frank. We never got to see what it was, but whatever it was made a few trout like head shakes shortly after hook up and then it became insanely heavy and swam steadily towards the docks just above Short Creek. We chased it upstream for 100-150 yards while dad kept the rod deep in the water to keep the line from catching on the docks. At one point I was almost on top of the fish, but it was a dark and cloudy day and I couldn't see in to the water very well. Dad couldn't budge the fish off of the bottom. There is a tree about 10' of the bank about 3-4 docks up from the last long dock above Short Creek that forms an arch. That fish swam directly through that arch and then continued on up stream. We couldn't do anything and eventually broke the line. Had it swam besides the tree instead of going through the arch, I think we stood a very good chance of landing that fish. Watching Paul fight that fish and chasing it around on the trolling motor and seeing how it headed for the docks was like deja vu of how the fight went with whatever dad hooked in to.

Yes. I believe they said he was hatched in 2011 and stocked in 2013.

Same for the ones in the Osage River below Bagnell. Caught plenty of blues and channels on the same day, same bait, same everything and there was a very noticeable difference in the quality of the taste between the two.

Everything I've looked up shows the current New Mexico state record is 20lbs 4oz. This one would have surely beat it.

GIANT! Did they say if they were sight fishing or did they just blindly hook in to it?

That one looked like how I feel after eating at Lamberts! I believe Phil uses Trilene XL. I’m partial to P-Line premium cx or Floroclear.

I’m not sure on the flatheads but they sure are good. Small channel cat aren’t bad, but anything over 2# has a funny taste to me. I grew up eating the snot out of channels from local lakes and ponds, but I guess I wasn’t as picky back then or something. I’ve ate blues up to 45# and they have always been good as long as you trim off the thing layer of silver skin and red meat.

We should be getting down around the same time as well as long as there aren't any hold ups.

Channel cats suck compared to a blue. Flatheads are even better. I grew up eating channels cats out of ponds and still enjoy catching them, but I don't waste my time to clean the nasty buggers unless somebody else just really wants them. Blues and flatheads aren't so fortunate when I catch them.

I’ll keep a look at out for ya. We will be just down the road in room 10 at Lazy Valley. I’m the black and orange Legend SS.

You west siders are lucky. We don't have enough good sources of blue cat in my part of the state to make selling it lucrative. People around here just resort to dealing heroin and meth.

This has become one of my biggest pet peeves. People make a statement and then tell YOU to look it up and prove them wrong. That's not how it works. It's up to you to prove your point.

Are you fishing the tournament?

If that one was 23”, how big do you think the one from yesterday was? I figured you would get another chance at a big brown while filming, but I figured it might more than three casts. 😊

Good! Throw the book at them!

Bummer on the brown, but at least you know what you had. I'm sure you'll hook in to another good one before this run is over with. Just don't sore lip any below Fall Creek before next weekend. I'm calling dibs on those for the Elfrink.

It's obvious that the mega worm is great for sight fishing, but has anybody tried it deep beneath a float just like you would a power worm or trout magnet?

I can't wait to see how he does dragging cranks this week. Hopefully the fiesta lasts till next weekend! All these white jigs I'm fixing to tie better not be for naught!

It was verified last year that you are legally supposed to keep all paddlefish of legal length in MO. Then again, how do you prove a fish was of legal length if you don't get to witness the measurement? They'll never be able to enforce it. MDC does a very good job at managing the snag fishery for paddlefish, but they tend to get butthurt when you bring up some of the things that Oklahoma does that most of us are in favor of. A big one is the fish cleaning stations that can sell the eggs. Why let all of that $$$ go to waste? While I don' think that would be worth the cost to set up a cleaning facility for Tablerock and Truman, you can't tell me that Warsaw doesn't have enough traffic to make it feasible. Oklahoma allows catch and release, but you are limited to one barbless hook on your line while snagging. You are also allowed one fish per day and two for the season. I'd like to see all three of those implemented here in MO.

Mother nature took care of that this year on the Gasconade. She kept the water high and dingy nearly the entire season. I'm not sure if the Meramec was in the same shape or not, but the Gasconade was definitely a bust. I'll be curious to see if the fishing is any better this yea because of it.

How long ago was that because that place has changed a lot just in the past few years. I lost interest in going down there a few years back because the fish they stocked were tiny. The average size is better now than it has been in a while though. It has been easy to catch limits of trout that averaged well over a pound the past few years.

If this is anything like last year, I'll do really well one tournament and then bomb several. Rinse and repeat.