Seth

Glad to hear a decent hybrid report for the Osage. It has been a few years since I've got in to them up there. I miss it!

I was thinking of running down there. I've got a craving for some baked lemon pepper and bacon trout. If I go, I'll definitely post how I do. I'd imagine the water is nice and clear by now, which usually makes the fishing slightly tougher, but at least you can sight fish and that si always fun.

Sounds like the quality was much better up that way. I can't buy a fish over 2 pounds no matter what I seem to do lately. What is the water clarity like up that way? We were fishing out of Sand Ford and it was still pretty stained. You could see 2' in some spots, but that was about it.

I fished the Mac for a few hours last night with Brian Jones. I've been forcing myself to fish a WTD topwater more since so many on here seem to really like them so I tied on a Damiki Dolphin that smalliebigs gave me a few years ago that I've barely thrown. It produced several bass for me yesterday, but what blew my mind was how violent the small bass were hitting it! I was fooled more than once in to thinking I had a big one blow up on the lure only to reel in a little guy. One in particular blew my mind. The bite was violent enough to throw water a few feet and I anticipated some weight when I set the hook. The bass I landed couldn't have been over 8" long! I'm still not convinced a bigger fish didn't strike, miss and then the runt grabbed it as it was washing around in the wake of the strike. The water had just enough color to it though that I couldn't make out a fish on the strike. The fishing was better than it has been, but still no size to anything. Our biggest was a 1.5# largemouth. Brian had one smallmouth about 14-15" that came off. It swam right at the boat on the bite and he didn't get a good hookset on it.

Were you using GPS to check your downstream speed? Don't ever go by what that speedo/pitot thing says if it actually works. I'm not sure why they bother putting those pieces of junk on these boats. I've yet to see one that actually worked like it was supposed to. I'd rather have that slot used for a small round radio unit. The livewells will drain like Dadakota mentioned if you leave the plugs out. If I'm fishing and plan on putting fish in the livewell at some point, I just leave it unplugged so that there is fresh water for the first fish to go into. I'll plug it and turn the livewell pump to auto so it runs every few minutes and forget about it. One tip on loading a boat in current is to angle the boat trailer down stream so you can drive in to the current while loading. It makes it a lot easier versus trying to time it just right and load it with the trailer perpendicular to the current, especially if you're not used to a jet. It seems like common sense to me, but I never see anybody else doing it.

who needs a hydrowave when you got a radio on the boat to set the mood.

Good thing I don't run in to you guys on the water while fishing. I have caught a lot of bass and won a few tourneys while bumping some electronic, pop and rap music on my boat. I'm not rattling nearby boaters teeth, but I'm sure you could have heard the bass thumping just a little bit at times. The bass don't mind it. I aint even wearing a flat bill and my pants are pulled up above my waistline the whole time too!

That's pretty much been the story of my fishing the past week on the Meramec and Gasconade except for I can't can barely catch a keeper and definitely no big ones. I'd gladly take a slow day of fishing for a couple of 20 inchers though! Congrats on the big largemouth.

I've been to Sand Ford a couple of times and recently to Onondaga and Sappington Bridge while the water was higher than normal so I'm not very familiar with the Meramec. I mainly run the Gasconade and Osage.

I'll second this. My new Legend came with the recessed tray and I will never own another boat with out one! It's much easier on the knees when you don't have to do the Captain Morgan pose all day.

They are great boats. I'm on my second one right now. First was a 2008 1852 flat bass with a 115 etec and my current one is a 2014 1860 vbass with a 150 etec. My only gripe on the new one is that they changed tanks in the 14+ model year hulls due to epa regs. The 1860 used to hsve a 36 gallon plastic tank, but it now comes with a 19 gallon aluminum tank. The 1852 has the same tank where as you have the 24 gallon plastic tank.

Nice! That definitely wasn't the story around Sappington Bridge yesterday evening. Numbers were average and they would bite about anything you would throw, but keepers were very hard to come by. It amazes me how different the bite is on different sections of the same river on the same day. The Gasconade was the same way last weekend. Very tough bite between Vienna and Jerome for keepers, but a buddy caught several really nice largemouth WAY up the river on the same day. Last year it seemed like you could take a pattern and fish it throughout the entire river system and do well.

I fished all day Saturday out of Sand Ford and we managed four keeper largemouth up to 14" and about a dozen short smallmouth. Not a single smallmouth was a keeper. There were a lot of really nice largemouth over 3# caught farther up the river that day, but the smallmouth fishing didn't seem to be all that great overall. Now the Gasconade is a different story. There have been a lot of really nice smallmouth and largemouth being caught in this high water. I'm fishing it this weekend so hopefully I can catch a few of them myself.

I'm no outboard mechanic but based on what I'm reading on etecownersgroup forum, it doesn't sound good. Most that reported the ticking ended up having to get a new powerhead due to one of the engine cylinders being scored.

I've only fished truly muddy conditions a few times on the Meramec and the Gasconade. Each trip was tough, but I did catch a few on a black/blue chatterbait fished very slowly and a 1/2oz black spinnerbait with a single colorado blade slow rolled with my rod held high. I didn't catch many, but each trip yielded some nice fish to make up for it.

I usually don't make it down until noon or later and the crowds have thinned out considerably. The closest I ever had another angler to me was probably 20' and that was fishing the bathroom hole and down by the bridge, which are both pretty popular areas. The high water may have ran some people off, but the fish were more than willing to cooperate. The fishing is actually easier when the water has some color and flow to it IMO.

Water is up a few feet and dirty. I hooked three on the upstream side of the bathroom hole after an hour and a half. I worked my way down toward the bridge and caught three more in short order. There were several people catching trout by the bridge. One guy caught a keeper brown. My fish came on white trout magnets and yellow power bait drifted on bottom.

Is your grizzly already setup with 6awg wire or have the batteries in close proximity to the trolling motor? Dad has a grizzly and I believe it came with 8awg wire and you only want to run a 50amp fuse on that size wire. The fuse is there to protect the wire, not the trolling motor. I have 8awg wire on my boat and run a 24v 70# thrust Minnkota Maxxum that draws a max of 42amps. I've got a 50amp fuse within 6" of the positive battery post on my trolling motor circuit.

With that said, I did just order some supplies to make some custom spinnerbaits for high dirty water. They are going to be 1/2oz with a single #7 colorado blade in a couple of your typical dirty water colors. It may be a bust on these river fish, but I've had good luck fishing that type of bait in muddy lakes for green bass. We shall see....

Seeing Aaron catch these fish on natural colored craws in this muddy water makes me wonder if the whole dark colors for better contrast in dirty water even matters.

Ain't no smallmouth in their right mind that would fall for those terrible craw imitations. Send me a few dozen along with some of your jigheads and I'll prove it.

My first boat was a 1648 flat bottom and I thought there was a very noticeable difference for the better in how the 1752/1852 rode on rough water. I'm sure the extra weight of the hull is the biggest reason.

You have zero reason to be feeling guilty about keeping a few barely legal bass to eat. I could see the point if you had a limit of toads strung up or something. Everybody just gets offended about everything these days.

I figured it probably had something to do with how they see purple. It seems to be effective regardless of the water clarity as well. When it gets really clear, I don't do as well on it but I don't fish bottom baits much when the water gets that clear anyways.

What makes PB&J so special? I've caught more bass on PBJ colored jigs and soft plastics than any other color by far. It usually out fishes straight green pumpkin for me. It's the only colored NED I bother throwing anymore.