Seth

Truth be told, I have had asian carp a couple different ways and it was pretty durn good! The first way was pressure cooked with seasoning salt and lemon pepper and turned in to fish patties. Another time, a guy fried some that he had cleaned up so they were just a boneless strip. Either way is more work than I want to put in to them, but I guess if I was starving...... I've never messed with common carp. The meat always looked yellow and reminded me of a nasty ol channel cat. One guy I know pickled some grass carp that wasn't bad, but it wasn't something I could eat a lot of. I'd rather eat pickled cukes, peppers or okra.

Deer are very resilient. If the food is scarce, deer will vacate the area and yard up with other area deer on the nearest food source in the winter. You would be surprised how much they browse on what looks like weeds and brush to us, even with a food plot nearby. Of course extra feed is never a bad thijg and will definitely help your local deer herd get through the winter. Which county are you located in? I am guessing you made sure you aren’t in one where it is illegal to feed deer or put out minerals due to the whole CWD thing, right?

This arctic blast really killed the deer movement overall around here. Even the game cam action died off considerably. I think it will really pick up once it warms up a little bit more.

Then you aint livin!

I've always noticed that when cleaning them, but never really could taste it. That's on the typical 11-13" fish. It may be more noticeable on bigger fish. Then again, trout are one of the few fish that I prefer baked or grilled over fried. Maybe that does something to it. My favorite are the ones that I catch at Taney that have been in the lake a while and are starting to get that orange hue to the flesh. It reminds me more of a salmon. Most people that I know seem to prefer eating the white fleshed stockers because they don't have as much "flavor".

Whites shouldn't need soaking or be fishy at all if you get the red meat off. I prefer the consistency of the flesh of a white bass over a crappie when fried. Also, if you freeze the fillets with the red still on, that fishy taste will permeate the rest of the fillet.

I sat in the bottom at dads farm where there "was" turnips and clover, but the deer have pretty well ate it down to nothing. Even so, you could see where there had been a few deer pawing through the snow to get to what little was still left. At 5:10, I noticed a deer head materialize out of the brush to the west of the plot. A few moments later, three does and three fawns stepped out and started nibbling around. The three does were facing me so I had to wait for my shot. After a few minutes, they caught the wind of something that made them nervous and were about to bolt. One of the does turned and stopped for a moment and offered me a shot so I sent a 250gr Hornady SST her way. All I could see after the shot was a big cloud of smoke and few a faint tail flags bouncing off, but I couldn't tell how the deer reacted or which way she even went. Dad was hunting on the north end of the farm so I waited for him to make it down to me before we started looking for blood, Surprisingly, there was no blood anywhere to found! I knew there was no way I could have missed that deer as I had a great rest and it was 95 yards. A few days before I was hitting a 1.5" circle at 100 yards with my muzzleloader. Dad noticed where it appeared that some dirt had been kicked up in the food plot heading to the north so he started walking up the nearest deer trail that went that direction. He didn't walk very far and found her about 50 yards inside the thicket. She was quartering away more than I thought the bullet entered at the back of the facing lung where it meets the liver and exited towards the middle of the opposite lung. A little piece of her internals was clogging up the exit hole which prevented her from bleeding and kept all of the blood pooled up inside her chest cavity. I'm probably done for the year after that one. I've still got an any deer tag left, but we don't have any bucks on camera worth hunting. Who knows though. It's too darn cold, even for me, to fish so I may change my mind and go back out a few more times.

The in laws bought me a spool of Seaguar AbrazX and some crappie baits.

Well, I wish I could say it was still swimming, but it wasn’t my catch and he wanted to eat it so I can tell you that it had a trout tail, a very decomposed sculpin and a fairly fresh sculpin in its gullet.....

I caught a few on the pink trout worm beneath a float and missed a few on a jig. My father in law was using powerbait and crawlers and caught a couple chubs and three trout. His last trout was a chunky 18” that weighed 2.93#. That is his personal best trout so far. Thanks again for letting us come down for a few hours @Phil Lilley. It was also nice chit chatting with @duckydoty.

I usually just cut above the mud strip and below and have two pieces. Trying to skim The red meat is the only part I hate about whites. They kind if like a sucker, taste great but require more prep than a panfish or bass.

You told me the same thing on YouTube earlier today! Crappie are so much easier to find than whites and that is why I target them. I'd much rather catch good sized white bass over crappie for the fun factor, but they both eat well and I'll take whatever I can find the easiest. I've always done better on whites the closer to spring that it gets. I'd rather chase crappie in the winter and whites a little bit later. In the winter, I can chase main lake crappie and not die and then chase the white bass up the rivers in the spring as it starts to warm up and the bigger boats start to reappear.

I chose 20" and then read your second post and wish I had selected 18".

I wouldn't be mad if we got a bunch of precipitation to make TRL dam generate this winter in conjunction with some really cold temps for a shad kill. Those make for some insanely fun trips to Taneycomo.

This year was similiar too. It was 906.9 opening night of snagging season on March 15 and then peaked at 934.2 on May 1! That was some serious water! We saw wood standing up in areas that we hadn’t seen in years up by Walnut Spring on March 14th. http://tablerock.uslakes.info/Level/Calendar/2017/03/ http://tablerock.uslakes.info/Level/Calendar/2017/05/

As much I missed not going crappie fishing last weekend, I had a blast at Arrowhead Sunday. I don't really watch or even follow NFL games, but I would go back in a heart beat. The atmosphere was electric compared to the baseball games that I attend at Busch. The only baseball game I have been to that felt similar was a possible game 5 series clenching post season game. It doesn't appear that I will be hitting LoZ this weekend either, but I will be on another lake that is full of big white crappie so I won't be too upset about it.

I think we are supposed to go down to Branson for a day with the in laws towards the end of next week. If we do, I am hoping we get a chance to go back to the Sight and Sound theater for the Miracle of Christmas show.

I’m 31, but heen coming down to fish Taney for probably 20 years with dad. Branson has been as busy as I remember it the past few years. I’m more about the fishing and food than the shows but now that I am getting older, I am starting to become more interested in seeing more of the shows. We watched Moses at the Sight and Sound theater the last time we were down and had a blast. Stiff like Steal your Dollar City don’t do much for me unless I am going with little kids or people who haven’t been before. Seeing them have a good time makes it more enjoyable than if it was just me and the better half. We have done it plenty of times before so the novelty has worn off.

We saw a bunch of them on the Meramec near Steeleville a few weeks ago.most looked to be 12-15” long, but onelooked like it was twice that long. It was the biggest one I had ever seen. Funny you mention that about gigging because I always saw a lot of them near Vienna on the Gasconade and that place got absolutely hammered by giggers. Those are the only two places I recall ever seeing them in a decent amount though.

Taney already caters to both types of fishermen. It's called the trophy area. When I want fish to eat, I will stay below Fall Creek. If I am out to catch better quality fish, I go to the trophy area. Those fish fall within the slot limit and get put back right away after a quick picture. Even though my biggest fish have came below Fall Creek, the average size of fish that I catch is definitely better in the trophy area. If I want a fish dinner AND want the chance at catching a quality trout to take a picture of and release, Taneycomo is the place to go. If I may ask, how often did you actually fish Taneycomo before your injury or whatever that prevents you from fishing these days? You obviously seem to be more of an expert than Phil and others who have been living there and even making a living from it for years.

Same here. Less fish, better quality.

I wish I was fishing this weekend. I've got to cover some work for dad tomorrow since he is out in Colorado hunting elk and Sunday I have committed to going to KC for the Chiefs game. I'd rather be chasing trout or crappie than going to the football game, but I guess there are always plenty of other days to chase after them this winter.

I'm not sure, but they were moving along fairly well. I've never seen the need to run that far just to kill some suckers. There have been many a night on the Gasconade where we never left sight of the boat ramp.

Let me restate that. Two or three of us put together in a boat on a full day could break 100. That would be while fishing daylight to dark, which makes for a long day. Pulling that off solo would be incredible. Also, you always said you would have 100 keepers and that you didn't count the short fish. I'm counting EVERYTHING with a head and tail.

I watched the video and didn't see anything that looked like a bass. If you saw it, why wouldn't you just post the time and save us the hassle of watching the entire video ourselves to try and find it? Again, can you point out at what time in the video you supposedly saw a bass get stuck? The only thing bass related I saw was them be extra cautious on stabbing because they thought it was a bass. I'm not saying you're wrong yet, I just couldn't find it myself. Point me to where I need to be and I will agree or disagree with you afterwards.