Seth

I figured Wheeler would show up again since I skipped him this tourney after burning me last time. I believe I only have two in the top 50 so far.

I didn't even bother reading the pundit reports this time. Maybe I'll screw up and make better picks this time in doing so.

I may have sprayed a cow on the bank the first time I put my first Legend SS in the river. I've matured a lot since then though. Also, you have full permission to make fun of my buddy for his girlish laugh.

I was there a few weeks ago and didn't have near that many problems with kayakers. They were around, but they were far from clogging up the river. It'd take 50 kayakers to pull that off on most areas of Taneycomo due to how wide it is and I doubt I saw that many kayakers during my four day stay. I'm on the Gasconade all the time so maybe I am just used to running in to groups of floaters on much smaller bodies of water and don't think much of it anymore.

Sounds very similar to my experience with throwing a white RC STX when I was down there a few weeks ago. I committed about six hours across a couple days early and when the water first cranked up to it and I think I had five or six follows and three confirmed strikes from browns. Of the three strikes, I broke one off on the hookset because it absolutely murdered thet lure and I just jerked way too hard. Another smacked it, but never got hooked up and the other was on long enough to jump twice and tail walk before coming unbuttoned. Everything looked to be in that 18-22" range. Nothing humongous. There were a few aggressive stocker bows in between to keep my head in the game and at east let me reel something in.

The smallmouth management actually area runs down the Jerome bridge that sits just above Little Piney. Fishing is better around Riddle and gets tougher the farther down you go do to the extra fishing pressure. The gauge at Jerome was reading 2.00 this past weekend so it's going to start getting really skinny in some areas. You can also put in at Boiling Springs for $5. The next access down from there is Bell Chutes, which is about 20 miles down river from Boiling Spring since the Jerome access has never been re-opened.

I did really well with a jig the evening before in the Lookout eddy when the water was running. The current really pushes those fish in to that area and the boat will stay put fairly well without much work on the trolling motor.

I think my crappie videos are the most boring of any that I've made, but they seem to get the most views. It's crazy!

Both. There were a lot of fish midging on the shallow gravel point at the upper end of the rip rap bank closet to the narrow channel in a few feet of water, but there were also some big hoards of stockers hanging out between the two rip rap banks. When the wind got to blowing hard enough to put a good chop on the surface, it didn't seem to matter where you threw and you got bit. The takes were also much more aggressive when the wind was blowing versus when things were calm.

I can't say I have ever found one on a trout, but have seen them attached to smallmouth and suckers a lot in the cooler months.

Footage is from the weekend before last. I caught 20 rainbows in a couple hours that morning using a 1/100 gold head olive micro jig that I tied up below a float on the fly rod. Never caught anything big, but had lots of action that morning. This was the first time in a few years that I had actually used the fly rod so my flyrodsmanship was a bit rusty. Dad was in the back of the boat using an orange head brown body micro on a spinning rod and holding his own as well.

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.