Seth

We haven't gotten anything here and we are only 1.5 hours east of LoZ. We sure could use a drink!

Do people really have that much trouble keeping fish alive? I've got a decent sized livewell that pumps fresh water in for 30 seconds every few minutes. Once a fish goes in to it, I flip that on and let it run. The surface water temps have been near 90 the past few weeks and the fish are feisty as all get out when I take them out of the livewell for weigh in. None of the fish I am catching are deep fish so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm catching them in water that's the same temp as what they are going in to.

I'd also give the reel another shot. I've always had good luck with Pfluegers in the Trion and President line. Another reel to check out would be the Daiwa RG-AB. It's in the same price range as the President $60. I've not tried it yet, but a buddy has and he said he likes it better than the Plueger President.

This is the first time I've heard about these cover issues on Etecs. Google does come up with a lot of reports and posts about the issue happening though. I ran an 08 115 from 2010-2014 and then bought a 2013 150 in 2014 and have well over 200 hours on it. The cowlings have a lot of scuffs and scratches from limbs, lures and whatever else, but nothing has cracked yet. The issues do seem to be mostly occurring on the Etecs of 90hp or less. The 75hp model comes up a lot with those cracked cowling issues.

Troutt's puts tons of perforated floors in boats. Pretty well every Blazer they sell will have one. I hear you on the Meramec stuff. I'd love to have a small beater boat just for that place. My first boat was a 1648 with a 50/35 jet and I so wish I had kept it for using on the Meramec and for gigging. Last year I tore my boat up down below Stanton when I hit a rock at Roaring Spring and had to get a whole new hull. I'd love to go back and fish the Meramec again, but I'm still nervous about doing it at summer pool.

Branson in January and February are my favorite. With that said, I was surprised how much busier the area gets between us coming down for the January tournaments and the Elfrink in late February.

A 1756 with a 90 is probably overloading it. I'd want a 150 on that thing at least for the extra oomph. I'm running an 1860 Legend SS with a 150 right now and I don't have any issues with those riffles. I doubt I could say the same thing if I was running anything less though. Those Weldcrafts are built a lot sturdier than your typical Blazer.

If you want an Etec on a Blazer, I think you will have to head south. Trouts can set you up a great rig with a 60/40 Mercury though. You can't go wrong either way IMO.

I've always enjoyed going down there, but since I started getting in to the winter tournaments that @Phil Lilley hosts, I've REALLY fell in love with going down there. I've got a few buddies that have started going down as well. Hopefully I can convince them to start doing the trout tournaments too. Be a blast to have enough of us together to make renting a big room out worth it.

Sounds like we will be down for a few days during the week later this month. Bringing Cari this time so I won't be hitting it quite as hard, but hopefully we can catch a few fish and get another video out of it anyways.

The fight that those fish had in them was unreal! That one fish I caught just did not want to give up!

Lots of fluids and cover up my body in sun protective clothing. Keeping that sun off of my has made a world of difference in how I feel after fishing in the heat for 8 hours on tournament days.

I was told he won a lot more than that after incentives kicked in.

Clifford Pirch sure made a come back! He only weighed 7 something on day 1 and then had almost 20 the next three days! Now I know what they mean by "you can't win it on the first day, but you can lose it".

If that rod is a buggy whip, you are going to lose a lot of fish on a countdown unless you really pepper them on the hookset. You need a fairly decent backbone for that type of stuff. I throw my smaller countdowns on a medium light spinning rod at Taneycomo. Edit: @Johnsfolly nailed it. I was just typing my reply as he posted his.

I could have picked anybody else besides Hank cherry and probably be up over 1000. My others picks actually weren’t too bad this time.

Doing OK aside from my E class pick. Hank Cherry is third from last and killing me!

Most of the break offs were on the hookset due to my line being old. OnE fish that buated off was due to it being nice and then burying itself in moss. He was stuck for a while and I finally just pulled till the line gave. Later on I saw him chillin in the riffle with my lure in its mouth. I had another rod with fresher line and didnt have the break off issues. My own fault for being cheap and trying to stretch out the life of 2# line that was over a year old.

I think most of mine are 1/80th with #10 hooks. Definitely not the smallest micro out there, but much smaller than your typical marabou jig that you would typically fish straight. I'm fishing them on a 6' Falcon Ultralight, Pflueger President 6920 and 2# Pline. That 2# is key as it allows me to actually cast the micro 25-30'. Most of the fish I am targetting aren't too far out and in big schools. Stand up stream enough so that you can swing that jig around in to their faces and shake it as long as possible before it's out of the strike zone. You're pretty well force feeding them, but eventually one of them won't be able to resist. I've caught plenty of them using just a plain jig head in the same size. You have to react fast on the hook set fishing like that. They can spit that jig faster than you would believe.

Just make sure you guys don't pick Jacob Wheeler. I'm sure he will have one of his few bad tournaments since I'm going with him again.....

Sir, in this day and age we relay our retorts via memes. Therefore, proper etiquette requires you to reply with something such as this.

I know what I'm throwing at the CAM tourney next year!

Dad and I were bored and headed down around 3pm. We started out near the steps on the upper end of the park as there were a lot of fish laying there. I started with a gold head olive micro jig that I could just barely reach the fish with on 2# test and caught several in short order. Dad was using a white micro and an orange powerbait trout worm and caught a few. A white trout magnet produced a few for me there as well. We then moved down below the second cleaning station. An orange trout worm/ 1/32oz green/white rubber leg jig and a white trout magnet produced several more fish for me. Dad tried velveeta cheese beneath a float, but they weren't showing much interest. It seemed like they wanted something moving. My fish count ended up being 14, but should have been around 20 if I hadn't broken several off. Dad ended up catching 5 or 6. Water was fairly clear with a slight green tint to it. If you go down, I'd be sure to have some micro jigs on hand. They have produced the most bites for me by far during my last two outings. I'm not sure color matters much as long as it's small and you shake it in front of their face long enough.

From 3rd to 15th..... This pretty well sums up fantasy season so far.