Seth

I just go for the free coffee and donuts. Since I'm there, I may as well fish though. I think the biggest reason I still go is out of tradition and the hilarity of getting that many anglers together. It provides some pretty good entertainment Folks falling in the river, people getting all tangled up and cussing at each other, watching people belly flop on top of a litlte trout so that it doesn't get away, etc. The fishing itself is almost second nature to everything else.

There are several river clubs here around home that fish the Osage, Gasconade and Meramec. All of us run aluminum jet boats, but that is out of necessity due to the shallow water conditions.

The weather conditions aren't looking the best so I'm hoping that will keep some of the crowd at home. I'll be down there at the buzzer somewhere where the river bends just past the second cleaning station.

I haven't fished the Piney so I can't say. As for the Gasconade, Last summer was pathetic due to the low and dingy water conditions. The only bright spot was I caught my personal best 20.5" smallmouth. The spring, fall and winter fishing has been leaps and bounds better than the summer. The previous summer was pretty good, but we had more water in the river.

There are a few things I wish they did different, but it's for selfish reasons and not from a scientific stand point. I'm very happy with the MDC. Most of the issues I hear people complaining about are for selfish reasons as well.

I enjoyed that as well. It sucks they cut it off early to set up for the weigh in feed though since there was usually an afternoon flurry of bites that they missed.

I guess no bait manufacturers will get the big sales increase from somebody winning with a certain lure. Technically a fluke was part of the winning bait, but who doesn't already know what a fluke is?

I sucked it up bad if BassTrakk is very accurate. My team consists of Mark Davis Jason Christie Brett Hite Ott Defoe Jacob Wheeler

I've been streaming it all day while I worked. When they say somebody is hooked up, I'll switch over to it and watch real quick and then go back to doing my work. Pretty awesome to be able to watch them bringing fish in to the boat during a tournament in real time. Eventually they should have a live stream coming from every boat with a panel that allows you to pick which angler you want to watch. That would be sick!

Pretty much the same opinion for me as well. I love trout fishing from my jet boat down on Taney. I'm 40 minutes from Meramec Springs so fish it the most, but ot doesn't hold a candle to Taney!

I'll admit that I haven't paid much attention to anything political, but this is one thing that bothers me enough that I want to let somebody know of my opinion. Are you all writing to every one of your representatives or just certain ones? The rep search that was posted above gave me this for my address. Using this address, your local legislators are: Senatorial district 006 - Senator Mike Kehoe House district 062 - Representative Tom Hurst U.S. House district 03 - Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer Your statewide elected officials are: Governor Jay Nixon Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder Secretary of State Jason Kander State Auditor Tom Schweich State Treasurer Clint Zweifel Attorney General Chris Koster Your US Senators are: Senator Roy Blunt Senator Claire McCaskill

The Humminbird Helix line up may be right up your alley as well. They are 5" units, but have a wide screen instead of the typical square. I can see how that would be very helpful with the side imaging model. http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/search.cmd?form_state=searchForm&N=0&fsch=true&Ntk=AllProducts&Ntt=humminird+helix&x=0&y=0&WTz_l=Header%3BSearch-All+Products

I really like Pline Fluoroclear for trout. I've got a spool woth 2# and one with 4# ready to go at all times. Most of the time, I do fine with the 4#. In the summer when the streams get low and super clear, I will switch to the 2#. Many have also fallen to Trilene XL in the same strength so I am not positive the line even matters much other than the casting distance gained between 4# and 2#.

Yep, it is closed until March 1.

I didnt take any pics this trip. My hands were freezing so I didn't feel like fumbling with the phone much until they thawed out in the truck. If I had caught it, I'd make sure there was a pic taken though.

I probably spend too much time throwing a jig when I should switch to a jerkbait, especially this year. The few trips my buddy and I have made together have definitely been dominated by the jerkbait. I've stuck to throwing jigs and while I have caught several really nice fish, he has me whipped in numbers by quite a bit. Yesterday we took off work to hit the Gasconade before the nasty cold spell hits us. He threw a jerkbait most of the time and ended up with 10 fish to my five with his biggest being a fat 18" smally. I caught two on a NED, one on a hair jig, and two on a jerkbait. He threw an Eakins jig for a while just to try and catch a fish on it and never caught anything. After losing a bunch of NED's to sticks, I tried a small beaver on a shakey head and never got anything on it either. We both went to jerkbaits for the last little bit and started catching fish again. The fish seemed to eat my $8 RC STX just as well as they ate his $25 Megabass 110 for the short time we fished them together. I was definitely impressed with how the NED rig produced a couple fish and a few misses in the short time I used it while the silicone skirt finesse jig and shakey heads didn't get squat. We spent more time throwing the jig/shakey compared to the NED as well. It's only one trip of course, but it definitely seemed to be a difference maker for my first time using it. The best part is I caught one on my very first cast before my buddy could even get his bait wet!

That's exactly the type of stuff I was fishing around. It's hard to not fish around little sticks and small trees that have fallen in to the water on that river. I'll be sending you my order shortly.

Finally got to try out this famed rig today on the Gasconade River. Caught a smally on my very first cast and thought here we go! Well I caught a few more before I broke off several jigs due to snagging wood on the bottom and decided that was enough. I will be holding off on using it until I can find some weedless models to purchase. We tried some Eakins jigs and shakey heads with beavers, which were much more snag proof, but the NED was the only bottom bait that produced. The jerkbait bite was decent too so we just switched over to those the rest of the day.

They are supposedly doing a remodel of the Pro Qualifiers next year and that is why they are so cheap this year. I sure hope they don't jack them up like the did the Carbonlites.

I wish I had noticed the Pure Poison sale. I'd have bought several of those as well.

I don't drop shot for bass much, but do vertical fish brush piles for crappie. The 83/200khz split screen is my preference and I turn the scroll speed all the way up. The 83khz lets me know if I am close to the brush when it's not showing up on the 200khz. When I get it in the 200khz beam, then I know I'm right where I want to be. If you are drop shotting in water over 20', then you shouldn't have any trouble finding your bait on the 200khz side. Don't be afraid to crank up that sensitivity either. I've gotten to where I use clear mode with the sensitivity all the way up instead of max mode. The screen stays uncluttered, but I can still find my lure and the fish/brush easily. This is just on a cheap 728 unit. The 859 should be much easier to view.

Yes it is. I went and joined it as soon as I read this post. https://www.facebook.com/groups/306415396098801/

If the PB&J color offends anybody in my boat, they can just swim to shore. That's my favorite color.

I tried one of my new 5.1:1 PQ's yesterday. It slung a bandit 200 a pretty long ways. Even caught a few bass, but they were dinks and didn't put much stress on the drag either. Last year I bought a 7.1:1 for my jig rod when they were marked down to $75 and it's still going strong and working great as well. My buddy that fished with me yesterday used a 5.1:1 as well and commented on how nice the reel felt.

It was ripping until the last hour of daylight. The last twenty minutes we fished was the best bite all day.