Seth

These were some of the better fish. The first one wasn't picture because I had to wait for my windshield to thaw out before the goPro would actually stick to it. I think I caught five over 15", but nothing over 17.5". Four were caught between Short Creek to just above Fall Creek and one just below the island near the dam. I lost another one that looked to be in that 17-18" range just below Fall Creek on the south bank. I'd sure like to have those fish during one of the winter tournaments when weight counts! Everything was caught on black/yellow and white/grey 1/8oz jigs.

Fishing that high water without a good shad kill was much more challenging that I thought it would be. I only managed to put 23 in the boat, but I did catch several good quality fish and a couple of them were between Fall and Short Creek. It was a pleasure sharing the boat with @jdmidwest and his buddy Brandon. If he ever talks you in to go trout fishing with him on Taneycomo, you better be truly at those trout because he logs some serious hours chasing them when he is down. We logged between 18-20 hours between when we arrived around 8:40am on Friday till just before dark on Saturday. We woke up to this Saturday morning before the tournament. It also felt like 15 degrees.

Our Walmart carries it next to the Louisiana and the Andy's.

I know the holes pretty well where I run these now so I don't get hung up much at all. If the fish are suspended or if there is quite a bit of trash on the water surface, I will run them up off of the bottom 5-10' or just put lead on and save the diver.

I honestly think it is about as versatile of a rig that you can possibly have for Missouri. It handles rivers like a champ, but the slight V and 1860 sized hull give you enough weight to handle choppy lake water fairly well. It won't handle a lake as well as a glass bass boat of course, but you also can't run that bass boat in 4" of water like this one can either. It sees Lake of the Ozarks fairly regularly for crappie and I have fished the Big Bass Bash out of it a few times as well.

I will get one done eventually. They are pretty neat looking. This is the bucket of scraps I got from cleaning these fish. It was an overflowing 5 gallon bucket worth. The amount of waste on them is ridiculous and they bleed like no other. They are my least favorite fish to clean.

I don't get it either. Either allow catch and release OR make people keep all of them. Those smaller fish are more at risk of being mortally wounded than those big ones, but you are not allowed to release a legal sized paddlefish and forced to put back anything less than 34".

I was able to snag a few fish before I got a good graph as well further up the river. I just used the bent rod pattern and then snagged around the outside edges of everybody else. Down in the big water where I was snagging in this video, the lake can get up to a 1/2 mile wide. I'd be lost without a good sonar unit down there. I try to stay around 4.5mph.

I will use Andy's for stronger tasting fish like spoonbill, but I am pretty partial to Zatarains Crispy Southern for just about everything else these days.

Yep!

That's a good point about the cooking. It's kind of like rolling something in Andy's and deep frying it. You could do that with a dog turd and it would probably taste pretty good. I think the biggest appeal to snagging is that paddlefish grow so big. It's your best chance at catching a fish that could possibly weigh over the century mark. Putting others on paddlefish and seeing them get a kick out of catching their biggest fish is more exciting to me than actually catching them myself. I'd rather go trout or crappie fishing this time of year, which is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

the first I fished Tablerock was two years ago in the Cops for Kids tournament in late May. I fished a big cove near the dam area the day before and day of the tourney and we caught fourteen keepers. Most of those were shallow fish that came on a pink trick worm so yes, it will definitely produce on the Rock.

A weightless trick worm is my go to lure when the water is really clear. Flukes and senkos are definitely better when the water has a little color to it though. I've out fished my buddies who were throwing flukes with that weightless trick worm too many times for it to be a "fluke" in clear water. The best part about it is that it has not only been a good numbers bait, but has also produced a lot of my biggest fish.

The amount of waste on these fish is crazy! I got over a 5 gallon bucket worth of skin, fat and mud streak out of all of these fish. As far as eating, they are OK, but I definitely prefer other fish like crappie and white bass. Since I crappie fish quite a bit, I usually just give away all of my paddlefish. I've got a list of folks who go bonkers over the stuff. I am going to keep a fillet and try boiling it in a cajun crab boil and see how it turns out. My current favorite way to cook it is to dip 1" strips in melted butter than has a bunch of cajun seasoning in it and then immediately throwing it on a hot charcoal grill for 3 minutes on each side. That was delicious!

Took a buddy, the father in law and one of his buddies up to LoZ for a day of snagging. It was around 7:45am when we arrived at Wigwam to an already fairly packed parking lot. It took us a bit to get things figured out, but we ended up all limiting out with six small males and two sows (a 47 and 54 pounder). We caught them at the 60mm and 53mm. They were tight to the bottom early on when it was cloudy and then started suspending later in the day when the sun popped out. This post has been promoted to an article

Thinly scored suckers fried at 350 for 6 minutes in the ticket. Most fish i only fry 4-5 minutes.

Me, dad and two buddies went down around 10 am and stood around like ding dongs in the rain for a few hours. The water is up several feet and up over all of the walk ways, but not muddy yet. Visibility was still around a foot. Fishing was slower than I thought it would be. Six or seven fish was all I managed, but one was a 19" rainbow that had came up out of the river. It's fins were in perfect shape and the flesh was very pink instead of the chalk white like your typical stocker. I caught most of my fish on a 1/16oz black and yellow marabou jig. The others caught all of their fish on an orange powerbait trout worm drifted along the bottom. Most bites came in the swiftest part of the riffles just before they dumped. You had to use a pretty good sized split shot to get the bait down or you didn't get bit.

If they think that is bad, they should go to an actual trout park in Missouri!

If this keeps up until CAM, we could be in for some REALLY fun fishing! I love fishing when the gates are open!

Big fish tournaments are a crap shoot anyways. You could have 20 boats fishing the same pattern in the same area and one person lucks in to a giant while everybody else just catches dinks. That's fishing for you. When you can bring in a limit of quality fish, then you're on to something, but that doesn't mean a thing in a big fish tournament. Take LoZ for instance. You can go out and catch five four pounders and stand a good chance at winning a check in nearly every regular tournament. However, that may not win you anything in the Big Bass Bash. How many times have you seen somebody weigh in a giant bass with nothing to go with it? They obviously weren't on a good pattern to catch a quality limit, but a loan big fish can pop up anywhere.

People don't get that. I've told people exactly how I caught my fish and where plenty of times. By the time they got out on the water to try and replicate it, the conditions have changed and that bite isn't happening. Some even have the nerve to come back and complain about you giving them bad information. I just record my trips and post the videos online so people can see I'm not lying. Some people just don't have the ability to fish the conditions and change things up. That skills just comes with time on the water and learning to feel things out as the day goes on.

@fishinwrench is the ethanol in fuel actually bad for the engines themselves or just the fact that it can eat away at hoses? Is this still the case on modern hoses or have they been built to with stand ethanol now? I have never ran any type of additive in my fuels and strictly run e10 87 octane with no issues, but my boat also gets used nearly every weekend and ran quite a bit so it sees fresh fuel nearly every trip out.

Flat Creek resort access is another one