Seth

Good grief! I can't catch a break! I've picked kennedy a few times this year as well and he hasn't done squat for me. Of course I don't pick him this time and he is lighting it up.

Figures, I had Hackney and then dumped him for Wheeler just before cut off....

Granted they are my own hand tied versions and not Turners, but I've not done very well on the gold head/ginger patterns. That gold head/olive with a red collar has been the most productive color by far. Chrome/pink and orange/brown have produce quite a few for me as well. Not sure what it is about that orange head, but those Taneycomo trout seem to love it. I've not had the same success with them in trout parks.

It's not a turners, but has any anybody played around with these? https://www.fishusa.com/product/Hareline-Tungsten-Jig-Heads Looks like they offer 1/50 with a #14 hook and a 1/100 with a #16 hook.

I can tell you that those stockers down by Cooper Creek didn't care whether it was a pink power worm or a trout magnet this past weekend as long as it was pink. There were so many fish in one small area that I think they were competing for anything you threw at them though. Definitely not one of the harder days of fish catching that I've experienced.

I cringe knowing how many of those pink micros we bought years ago that rusted away in dads "trout bucket" when it got left out in the rain.

I'd go try to find a used Helix gen 1 or even a 998 core Humminbird unit. I'm still running my Humminbird 998 hdsi and it serves me well. I think I've seen those for around $400 or maybe even less. Going with a used unit will allow you afford a bigger screen and that screen size is very nice to have with side imaging. The images are crisper on the newer units than my 998, but I can still find brush and everything I need with it.

If I keep up my string of success, I should beat most of you in my race to the bottom of the pack after being in the top two or three at one point.

Some of those trout fought like absolute demons this past weekend! Maybe it's just due to the fact that they are just really nice fish, but I don't remember having to play them quite like that before when using 4# test. We experienced that light bite stuff all weekend as well. They would become much more aggressive when the wind picked up though and it was like fishing for bluegill. That float would just take off!

As far as I know, Phil and Tim's Flyshop near Roaring River are the only two places that carries them anymore. The little guys at the top of the pic are the Turner Micros.

I think the weakest I've been was when those fish hammered the jerkbait over the past few days. The follows are cool, but I pretty well know they aren't going to bite when they start doing that. The browns that actually did bite didn't follow the bait at all, they just came screaming up from the bottom and tried to kill it. The one I broke off actually jarred the rod in my hand enough that I about dropped it. Those strikes got my blood pumping and adrenaline going more so than anything I've experienced before with trout fishing. Dad and I watched one swim out from under Lazy Valley Resorts dock back in the late 90's that we know was easily north of 20 pounds. I think it was back around the same time when there were several huge browns found floating dead in Taneycomo. I remember LIlley finding a few big ones and we saw a boat bring in a decomposing brown that weighed 29 pounds. It was would have been well over 30 alive. I've caught several 18-19" rainbows, but only one over 20". It was WAY over that mark at 27" and 10#. My goal is to get a brown over 6#. That's the mark I have set before I get a reproduction made for the wall to go next to the rainbow.

In the past I've always used the 3-3.5" countdown or husky jerks and caught plenty of fish along with having a ton of followers, but most were your average sized fish. My buddies have caught a few 20" browns out of my boat from the Short Creek area on those baits, but I've yet to do it. Going that a full size jerkbait reduced the follows drastically, but it also increased the size of the followers as well. I've typically done better in moving water on them as well, but I have had some decent days when the water was off and there was a good chop on the water and overcast skies. Has anybody every tried a soft plastic jerkbait like a fluke? I know a previous state record was caught on one back in the 90's. Wasn't sure if you would need to use a different style of hook since trout mouths are softer than a bass or what. It would definitely allow you to keep the bait in the strike zone a lot longer and fish in around the heavy wood cover a lot better than a traditional jerkbait.

If you're fishing still water and using an indicator, grab some zebra midges and white thread jigs. Those produce very well when on midging fish. If you tie at all, those are about as easy as it gets for tying.

I tie my droppers to the hook bend of the top fly/jig with a Uni knot and then add the dropper 10-12" below that. For tippet, I just use a couple feet of Pline CX premium in moss green for Pline Fluoroclear in 2#. I smoked the trout on an olive micro with a gold head this past weekend. If you have to buy small jigs anyways, I would recommend picking up a couple of the Turner Micro's. They aren't cheap ($3.50 vs $1.50 or something like that), but they are VERY hardy! As long as you don't break off a lot, they should last through a ton of fish. Even my hand tied micros seem to be a lot hardier than my regular 1/16-1/8oz jigs. Not sure if it's due to using finer thread that cinches down better on the collar or the trout not yanking on the tail of the marabou or what.

Thursday, May 31 Me, dad and mom got out on the water for the last few hours of the evening. The water was moving pretty good. I ran up to Fall Creek and drifted down past Short Creek with only a few bites to show for my efforts. My next stop was the big eddy just down and across from Cooper Creek. From there down to the second creek was very productive using pink power worms and trout magnets beneath a float about 5' deep. We probably ended up catching 30-40 fish between us and kept three limits of very nice stockers. I'd say most were around that 1# mark. Those fish would pile in to those current seems when the water was cranking and you would get a bite every cast on the pink worm/magnet or a jig. Friday, June 1 Got out on the water around 6am and threw a 5" jerkbait from Cooper Creek down to Monkey Island and had three encounters with nice browns. Two followed the bait to the boat, but didn't bite and one absolutely crushed it and I over reacted and broke him off on the hookset.... It looked to be a 20-22" fish. After doing that for a few hours, I went back to the room and grabbed some food. I was back out on the water around 10:30am and fished just below Cooper Creek again. With the water off and light winds, the fishing was harder, but I still caught quite a few out deeper on a sculpin/peach jig and a pink trout worm about 8' deep. Dad and a nephew got back from Steal Your Dollar City around 1 so I went and picked them up and we fished till 3. My nephew had never caught a trout and he ended up catching five or six. A few were on powerbait and the others came on the pink trout worm under a float. His mom got back around 4ish so I dropped him and dad off at the dock and headed to the trophy area. The water was still running pretty hard so the trout were stacked in the eddy below Lookout. White and sculpin/peach jigs produced a bite nearly every cast. At 6pm, I got a call that dinner was about done and headed back. Saturday, June 2 Dad and I ran up and hit the area about halfway between Fall and Short Creek around 7:30. We caught a couple on jigs, but nothing crazy. We headed up to the narrows around 8:45am and saw a bunch of midging fish. I rigged my fly rod with an olive micro jig and dad with a brown orange head micro about 3' beneath a float and we proceeded to catch around 20 fish each over the next three hours. While throwing that around, we saw a couple fish blow up on shad in shallow water, but they quit before I could troll over to them. Around noon, we went back to the room to grab some lunch and rest a bit. The water was starting to turn on when I got back out so I broke out the jerkbait again and hit the Narrows and fished the rip rap down to Fall Creek. Two browns followed, but didn't bite and one bit, but didn't get hooked up. All were around 18-20". A couple of very aggressive stockers were all I caught. After that, I ran to the cable and floated all the way back down to Fall Creek and while tossing the jerkbait. I caught a few stockers again, had an 18" class brown chase the lure to the boat by Trophy Run and then finally connected with a 20" class brown just above Lookout. He was on for about 5 seconds, tail walking and jumping before the bait popped out of his mouth. Fished the jerkbait the rest of the way down and caught one more little stocker. My next run was to the cable again, but I threw a white 1/8oz jig this time and caught several rainbows. A few were really thick 16-17" bows. Around 6pm, I headed back down lake and threw the jig and trout worm below Cooper Creek and caught several more really nice rainbows up to 15" before calling it a day and heading in for dinner. Sunday, June 1 I got on the water around 6:30am and threw the jerkbait between the last docks below Cooper Creek about 1/2 way down to Monkey Island without any action. After that, I ran up to the Narrows and fished for a few hours before heading back to pack up and head home. Fishing was a lot slower than it had been the previous few days, but I did watch a guy boat a keeper brown near the rip rap. He was staying at Lilley's so maybe he got a pic of him with the fish. Not really anything new as far as presentation and lures. Threw the micro olive jig on the fly rod and a 1/16oz sculpin/peach or white jig around midging fish and caught a few. Summary The quality of stockers down lake is really good right now. We had several fish that were in that 1.25-1.5# range. Fishing was easier when the water was running as it pushed the trout in to the current seems by those creek mouths and eddy's across and down from Cooper Creek. When the water was off, we still caught them around there, but they were far more scattered and the bite wasn't nearly as good. The Narrows is full of fish, but we actually caught better quality fish just below Cooper Creek. The better quality fish in the trophy area came when the water was running pretty hard between the cable and Trophy Run. Committing to a big jerkbait can wear on a person. It's a lot of work with not a lot of action (for me at least), but the few bites you do get seem to be from very nice fish. I'll post videos to go along with my reports once I get a chance to edit the GoPro footage. Between work, baseball games and getting caught up from being gone the past four days, it may be next week before I get it done though.

I broke out the fly rod this morning and caught 19 or 20 using a gold head olive micro jig that I tied up 2-3' beneath a float. Dad fished a brown micro with an orange head on spinning gear and was right there with me on numbers. Had the GoPro running so expect a video soon. I have plenty of other fishing details to share as well, but I will make one big post with everything once I get back home.

Dad said he will loan you a few night crawlers when we get down there tomorrow.

I'm confused here. Hasn't MDC always had that information anyways? I've used my SS# for as long as I can remember when purchasing tags and licenses.

FYI, I was making a joke, hence the picture.

People will argue till they are blue in the face (or their fingers hurt from typing) over the internet and not convince either party to change their opinion. It's a waste of time. I can think of many other things I'd rather waste time doing online than bickering over political parties that don't give two squirts about the average Joe or the 2035823508 different versions of religion that are out there..... @Flysmallie don't like you're innocent. I found this pic of you online!

If you really want to get your nickers in a twist, skip the Tablerock forum and head on over to the smallmouth only section! They show less mercy than Sensei Kreese!

Just tell them they aren't supposed to do that and direct them to a sign. Some people truly don't know. If they do know and continue breaking the rules, then just hope they eventually get caught or make a call to the Game Thief hotline and move on. That's all you can really do.

Ditto! Only reason I won't shop somewhere is they have wronged me in some shopping related way. Otherwise, I could care less if you're conservative, liberal, straight, gay, gender fluid, etc as long as you have what I need and for a decent price.

That's God's way of telling you to give those poor brownies a break!

This was in early May on a 175 acre lake near where I live. I had hoped to get the video done soone but time was in short supply between fishing, mowing grass and getting roped in to helping my buddy coach his sons ball team.