Seth

I've been using 15# Power Pro and 8# 100% Trilene for a while now. It has done me well. Use an Alberto knot to connect them.

I've seen a lot of deer, they just haven't cooperated at giving up good shot opportunities. Things finally came together for me yesterday morning and I arrowed this guy. He was cruising by to my south and I hit him with a few grunts and he walked right in to the base of my tree. He stood there looking for me for several minutes before he walked to my right and gave me a 10 yard quartering away shot. After sending a Grim Reaper through his heart, he piled up about 50 yards away.

42-44 degrees seems to be the magic temp on the Gasconade. Also, the nastier the weather, the better the fishing seems to be for me in the winter. The nice and sunny days aren't worth a darn for me. I don't know of it coincides with barometric pressure or what. Once it drops below 40, it gets tough. I know a few guys that like the water in that 36-38 degree range, but they usually fish Big River and the Meramec. Not really sure why the different rivers would fish more ch different in the winter, but they can catch them in those conditions. I was ecstatic last year when I caught four or five bass on a hair jig when the water was 36-38 degrees. That was the first time I had caught any below 40 degrees. Basically, I was throwing the jig out and just keep it on a tightline until something picked it up.

There were a lot of fish in the pond hole, upstream side of the bathroom hole and a few hundred yards up from the bathroom where it narrows on Derby Day, but they sure weren't biting, even at the buzzer. After I caught three, I went looking for lunkers and only found one three pounder down by the bridge. There several guys throwing jigs at it already so I kept on moving, but never found anymore. It was the only day I made it down for the buzzer all year and it was also the slowest trip I had all year.

That's how I feel about it too.

I bought my first tourney pro last winter and now own three. Those reels are freaking awesome!

I will have to mention those batteries to Tommy. The first half of our tour eys were rough, but we did well from the end of August on.

Same here. I think that happens a lot with those of us that work in a school system. We gripe about how the pay stinks, but we make up for it time off and other benefits.

There haven't been many tournaments down that way this year or else you would have probably done even better in that ramp hole. I do know for a fact that there were a couple 4+ pound largemouth released there during a tournament about 4 weeks ago. I'm sure they are still hanging around.

I've used the 17# on a jig rod and didn't have any issues. I've started using Seaguar Invizx and Red Label this year though due to it having a little less memory.

As long as I can get Cabelas Tournament ZX and BPS microlite graphite rods, I don't care what happens! I like both a lot.

My truck is a 99, but my boat is a 14. You can see where my priorities are. Hopefully I can stick to my guns and pay it off by spring. It has taken me around 6 years and a couple good boat deals to work my way in to this rig though. It also helps that I don't really blow money on anything else.

I use 14-15# line on my casting rods and I can winch in smallies pretty easy too. This is an 18 incher that I caught on a tube a month ago and I did the same thing as Tommy with it. It came right up to the top and he got a net under it on the first try. It's more fun fighting them with a spinning setup and 8# fluorocarbon, but I wouldn't dare fish a jig or soft plastic around heavy cover on something like that.

I believe it's actually 20# fluorcarbon. He uses it so he doesn't break off his jigs as often when he gets hung up. Plus he fishes the lake some as well and likes the heavier line for abrasion resistance around docks.

Thanks for the input. I'm still trying to decide how I want to do these videos. I wouldn't mind to make them have a little bit more of a story, but I get so locked in while fishing that I forget all about doing that part. I'm still fairly new at this video making stuff so I'm sure things will continue to get better as I go. By the way, me and a few others started a Facebook group called The Reel Deal Outdoors that we post our content to. If you do Facebook, go like our page and you can watch some of my other video I've uploaded. It's a fairly new thing we started so there isn't a ton of content yet. https://www.facebook.com/TheReelDealOutdoors/ We won with 11.52# of smallmouth and took big bass with the one in this video. It was the best day we've ever had for smallmouth outside of winter time. This weekend is the Walmart tournament and that will be the end of my fishing for a while. I'll be switching gears over to gigging suckers and hopefully putting down a nice buck with the bow.

My buddy has a Hero 4 Silver and he purchased a couple spare batteries and a USB charger for them. He gets about 1.5 hours of run time per battery and just keeps rotating them throughout the day. He was able to keep his camera rolling all day long this past Saturday while we fished. Mine doesn't have removable batteries so I just keep it plugged in to a battery cell or a 12v cigarette outlet charger.

Just a 3/8oz jig he makes with a paca chunk trailer. Nothing special.

Here is a short clip of a pig that my buddy caught this past Saturday on the Gasconade. It was 19.5" and weighed 3.84#. We are SO glad that he brought all of his stuff so he could keep the GoPro running all day long that day.

Do you have anything in mind? The kayak tournaments go by total inches of fish, but that wouldn't fly boats fitted with big livewells just for holding fish all day. A way of transporting the fish away from the ramp would be nice, but that still doesn't solve the relocation issue of a lot of the fish. There just won't be as many fish at Alhonna, PB2, etc. With so many anglers having GoPro's, you could weigh the fish a scale, get it on video and release it. The issue with that is making sure everybody is using a scale that is certified and weighs the exact same. If everybody was honest, you wouldn't have to haul fish back to a weigh in station. When you throw money on the line, people have a hard time staying honest, especially if it is a lot of money.

I was going to argue against momules advice, but then I read where you mainly fish the same body of water (Pomme). If you were somebody who likes to fish new water pretty regularly, a side scan unit and a map chip are awesome for reducing the amount of time it takes to find productive water, especially when the fish are keying on brush that isn't visible to the naked eye. This has been extremely valuable when I fish new sections of LoZ for crappie. If I fished visible cover on the same body of water every time I went out, a graph wouldn't be of much use. The GPS is always handy in case you like to fish after dark and get caught up in the fog. A smart phone has GPS and can do the same thing for you though if you have service on the water.

Nutech makes a chatterbait that looks extremely weedless. I've not tried any yet though. You could also try this with those clip on coils used on swimbait hooks.

7# seems to be the magic mark. It didn't even take 7 pounds last year in the fall BBB.

You and I are both friends with him on Facebook. We are fishing together this weekend so I plan on giving him a lot of crap about it.

How would you like to be the guy who missed out on $80,000 by .01 pounds?! I know he still won $20,000, but dang!

One of my buddies caught one near six today and missed the weigh in! The fish were biting and they wanted to keep fishing so he set an alarm on his phone so they could weigh it before 3pm. Apparently that alarm was only set to go off on week days.......