Seth

I picked McClelland and Davis for my fantasy team, but then my other three picks trashed it!

Well what else was Ish Monroe going to use as an excuse for not doing very well yesterday?

Champ learned grammar and punctuation so well that it didn't leave any room in his brain to learn how to be nice and polite. Don't take the above post personal this time. I'm just giving you a hard time. I do envy your grammar and punctuation. They were never my strong point. I've always been a math and science guy.

The smallmouth section can holds its own pretty well with the TR section ......

Man that is way down river! The farthest I have been down was the Mallard Bay area. I'm curious to see what the Oar House weights are this weekend. I'm guessing they will be a lot lower than the past few years. If things don't change soon, we are going to have to run a long ways down river during Snagmasters to do any good.

We are gonna have to start calling you Bill Dance now.

I definitely agree. When I do finally upgrade to a 859ci, I will probably install some 1/4-20 rivet nuts to my deck and use one of the Dek-It or Kick'n Bass type mounts as well. You won't get any sturdier than that. With that said, I have a 2.25" short RAM mount for the 998c at my console and it's rock solid when tightened down. It's nice to have the adjustment, but I don't think that's as much of an issue on the bow as it is for me at the console. Plus I like being able to turn the console graph around to face the bow so I can still run SI off the back and keep an eye on it in case I troll over some brush or something that's off to the side of the bow 2D.

I like it as well. I'd like to upgrade it to a 788ci hd or an 859ci so that I can network it with an ethernet cable to the 998c hdsi I installed at the console. Being able to mark brush piles on my SI unit and sharing them with the bow unit would really come in handy when fishing brush piles for crappie. Trying to triangulate the brush and stay on it when you are out in the middle of nowhere can be a bit of a hassle.

I have a 728 mounted on a small RAM mount on my front deck. That unit is the same size as the 597. My boat is a flat bottom and not a V so it may not really help you out much with your install. Here is a picture of my unit on the bow.

I need to keep some one of these days and try that method. Everybody I know who really likes the stuff smokes it. I've only ever fried it and while it's edible, it ain't no crappie, white bass or blue/flathead cat!

The fish at Meramec Springs have been running pretty good sized as well this year. It's about time they stock some decent sized fish. The last few years were abysmal for the most part.

Thursday should be really good if we get several days in the 70s this week like they are calling for.

It was shallow. We were in a jet boat so didn't have any trouble. It would be iffy with a prop boat.

Mallard Bay RV

Dragging jigs/soft plastics on the bottom seems to produce more quality fish for me. I love throwing spinnerbaits and other moving baits, but I just seem to catch small guys on those baits. If I am fun fishing, I will toss those moving baits but if it is tournament day, I will have a jig or trigged soft plastic in my hand most of the day.

It wasn't the best weather conditions but it ended up being a decent day of fishing for the crappie. We found two docks in the cove with the giant house on the point just below the 54mm that held nice crappie. The nice fish were way up under the docks and you had to shoot the jig a ways back to get them. There was one stump in Mallard Bay cove in 10-12' of water that also gave up 6 keepers towards the end of the day for us. Nearly every fish was within the top 5' of the water column. We ended up with a total of 22 keepers and most were solid 11-12" fish. The short fish were pests and I bet we caught 50 5-8" crappie around docks and up shallow on brush. The best bait was a pink/chartreuse curly tail grub. Black/chartreuse and blue/chartreuse slab busters also did decent for us. There was a boat spider rigging in Mallard Bay when we first put in that brought five crappie in the boat in the time it took us to idle by. They looked like keepers. Hopefully by the end of next week and several 70 degree days, the bigger fish will move up shallow and join those little guys. It will really be fun fishing then.

I would have guessed them to be flirting with 20"! Those pictures really do them justice. Very nice fish!

I like all of them and will gladly buy a few for the boat and truck.

My fiancé has an AWD GMC Terrain that is a beast in slick conditions. She drove it in the snow and ice this winter on slick tires that should of been replaced last fall and never skipped a beat. It doesn't take much power to pull a boat. Stopping is what gets you when you run a smaller vehicle depending on how much of a rig you are towing. My first boat was a 1648 with a 50 hp jet and I towed it 3.5 hours to Tablerock a couple of times with a manual 2wd 2005 Ford Ranger with a 2.3l four cylinder. It had to be shifted down to third gear going up those Ozark hills and never set any speed records but it got the job done and still got around 20 mpg towing the boat. Now I pull a much heavier rig with a full size Chevy silverado and get 11-14 mpg. If I pull my buddies bigger boat, It drops down to 10-11mpg.

I haven't heard anything yet. Everybody is saying the spoonbill are still out in the Missouri River right now and haven't started running at all. The water was only 52 a week ago and I wouldn't be surprised if it was below 50 again with the temps we have had.

It doesn't matter. Some old timers on here just have it out for us younger generation of anglers, especially ones who have success at fishing apparently. This isn't the first time I've been jumped on here just because I'm part of the younger generation. Some of these older guys on here need to grow up IMO. Many of them are hypocrites. This thread is a great example. Old guy gets upset because young guy disagree's with him. Young guy apologizes for misunderstanding and old guy still continues ranting about stuff that has nothing to do with the original post that upset him. It get's old and sometimes makes me wish I wasn't part of this forum. However, I am open minded enough to realize that it's only a few that get under my skin at times so I just move on and conitinue posting reports and talking fishing with the ones that aren't pricks.

Chill out lol. I was just kidding around. I could care less who you root for. There are plenty of folks who hate on KVD and he is one of the best. Nobody is going to liked by everybody. Everybody has their own reasons for not liking something. I just love seeing old guys get hacked off when the young guns kick everybody else's butt. It was nothing more than a little sporting trash talk. I'm sorry that you took it personal.

We are in the same boat (pun intended) when it comes ot our rigs. They are nice setups, but definitely not the biggest and fastest out there. Most of the guys I fish tournaments against are running 1856-1960 hulls with 250hp outboard jets versus my little 1852/115hp setup. Most of the serious cat guys make special trips in the winter to Cumberland City and stockpile skipjack. I'm sure Ryan has other connections with guys in Tennessee an Kentucky where the skips can be caught year around so that he doesn't run out of bait. Catching a big cooler full of skippies on light tackle when it's cold outside is a blast. They put up a pretty good fight. Most guys will throw Sabiki rigs and haul them in several at a time when they are really running hard. All of the guys I met through Gateway Cats all shared the same mentality when it came to big catfish. If it was over 10, it got put back. They are just as passionate about those big whiskerfish as many of us are about our big smalies. Catfish in general are looked at by most as a food fish though so most of those big fish get the knife. Luckily, our beloved smallmouth get more respect by the vast majority of anglers since bass fishing is a lot more commercialized.

I'm still figuring out my best baits but last year I had my best luck on the Gasconade with a bubblegum zoom trick worm, chartreuse/white war eagle spinnerbait, trigged 4" watermelon tube, 5/16oz PBJ Eakins jig with a Zoom critter craw of a similar color and a black buzzbait. My two biggest fish came on a 3/8oz green pumpkin terminator jig with a matching Zoom Super Chunk and the other came on a trigged watermelon yum dinger. Those lures didn't produce a lot of fish for me, just my two best so I didn't list them. I'm sure my list will change as I gain more experience fishing the rivers, but I have the confidence to go catch fish in any condition with the lures I listed.

His new rig is by far the best looking Seaark I have ever seen! A few years ago when we were involved with Gateway Cats, we always gave him crap because he couldn't hold a job due to always being out cat fishing and couldn't get to work on time LOL! He definitely put in the time to know those fish as well as he does. Were you guys anchor fishing? Drift fishing in the summer is an absolute blast down there!