Seth

I'm not real familiar with that section but everywhere else I've been has some really shallow spots. The water is lower now than I've ever seen it before. If you don't have a jet boat I'd be very cautious of where you run on the Osage right now. The MariOsa isn't too bad. You can run a little ways up from the ramp and quite a ways down which opens up quite a bit of water. We've caught decent bass there in the past but haven't hit it too hard yet this winter.

Buddy and I got ticketed for a bit over $100 each for shooting asian carp with our bows over the line when we were younger. As for not talking about Bagnell, I've not fished it much. We did catch a few nice crappie at the MariOsa access in early December. The top five were 11.5-13.25" slabs. A few weeks later, I tried it again on a nicer day and only managed one small bass and one nice crappie. Nobody else was catching anything either.

I don't go on as many big trips but that has more to do with buying a house and having more bills these days. Luckily I have several rivers within 30 minutes that has nearly every species in MO swimming. Today I fished some farm ponds and wacked a few bass and had a good time. If I were smart I would just sell the boat and do that becauase I'm pretty sure I catch more fish from the bank doing that anyways LOL!

We see a lot of those on the Gasconade here around home while gigging in the winter. Last year there was a mud flat near Vienna, MO that was loaded with them! I've seen them a few times in the past but never like that. It was pretty cool!

Watched a guy do that on a 22" rainbow one day up at outlet 1 after fighting it for a long time. This was int he summertime too so it's not like his hands were freezing. He let the fish go and it just kind sat on the bottom and started going belly up. Another guy noticed this and jumped out in front of the moron and tried his best to revive that fish. It eventually swam off. I hope it made it and his attempt to revive it was for nothing. It just makes me bow my head in shame that some people could care less about such things and but I'm sure they will be bragging about how they landed a nice rainbow on their fly rod.

Well that's good to hear. I was just going by what my buddies told me about the numbers. The Shriners run only had about 20 boats and there two wrecks but neither was that serious. The one boat had trouble with the forward and reverse afterwards but they were able to get it going again with some tools and a few hours messing around. Are you going on the Troutt and Sons Boating for Buddies poker run on August 11? It starts just above Indian Ford campground by Vienna and stops at Cow"poop" Island just down from the Belle Chutes access.

Rollins Ferry to Pointers Creek gets pounded pretty hard with pleasure jetters. Rollings Ferry is the closest ramp to Belle, MO and it's a nice ramp so a lot of people put in there. I would head down river for fishing. The last tournament we had out of Rollins Ferry was tough for the guys fishing up from the ramp but decent for the guys that went down.

There's some really nice bass around Helds Island that we've seen in the fall/winter while gigging but I've never bass fished that area. The only type of fishing I've done from Helds Island down to the Missouri is for catfishing. Never have caught anything big, just some small flatheads and channels. I heard the gator boat run wasn't as busy this year due to the water being so low. There's a shriners poker run out of Rollins Ferry this weekend and I imagine a lot of folks won't participate due to the low water. It's getting rough on the Gasconade. The bass tournaments I've fished on it this summer have tested my boat driving skills pretty well and I've had one close call with beaching the boat but shut it down soon enough and nothing bad happened.

Go sit on the Gasconade River between the Missouri River on up to Jerome and you will see plenty of inboard Gators, Shoal Runners, Scorpions, etc ripping up and down the river. Some of these tunnel hull Gators are being pushed massive big block v8 engines and supposedly a few are capable of triple digit speeds. Some of these people have no issues running there boats over logs, over embankments, due to the hulls being built with 1/4" plate bottoms and 1/8" gague sides.

We smoked the bass on buzzbaits and walk the dog baits near the wood piles this past Saturday. Biggest was about 3 lbs, but did lose one that was a solid 4 pounder. A few of those fish were MAD at those baits and flew out of the water when hitting.

I just logged on there a few seconds ago.

My dad is a nut about buffalo. Common carp have a yellow tint to there fresh so I have only ate them pickled, which wasn't bad. Buffalo really clean white meat and taste great as long as you know how to eat round the bones.

It's been good snagging on LoZ this year. We caught 16 between two boats last Saturday during the Snagmasters tournament. I barely missed out the last spot for money by less than a pound. My biggest fish was a 66.6 pounder and the last money spot was 67.4. Just my luck!

I would still call. The underlying cause of them dying might be bigger than you would expect. Hopefully it's nothing major though.

We fished out of PA He Tsi today and only managed 7 keepers and had a few other keepers pop off at the boat. It was very tough fishing. Most of the keepers we got came from two tree tops that came from the bank and extended out in to the water a ways. Only had one female. There were some people with a nice stringer of crappie at the boat ramp dock. They were just fishing minnows under a float. Sure made me wish I had bought some minnows on the way up.

That's my favorite non chartreuse color. Always have done well with it.

I'd be all for the non-motorized sections in some of the rivers. The places I run jet have shallow riffles, but overall are pretty decent sized on the Gasconade and can handle the boat traffic. It's the few shallow riffles between the ramp and my fishing hole that requires me to have that jet.

I've never seen any big crappie from LoZ. Biggest I think we've caught was about 13". Lots and lots of eaters though which are what crappie were made for!

Minnkota is what I use. If you want the best cable steer, get a Fortrex. Since it sounds like you are in to trolling for crappie, you may be better off going with a Terrova with Ipilot. You can set a course, adjust the speed, and just focus on fishing. If you find that awesome spot, hit spot lock and it will hold you in place and you can focus on fishing, not messing with the trolling motor. You said price wasn't an option so both of these will run you 1200-1500 most likely. Make sure you are running at least 6awg marine grade wiring from your trolling motor plug to the battery. If you can fit 4awg, even better! If you go with a 55# thrust, stick a 50 amp breaker on the hot wire to the battery, if you go with an 80 then use a 60amp breaker.

The original post makes me laugh. Are you one of the people that blame guns for killing people and not the shooter? Just like anything, you always have a few bad eggs who poach and do things illegally which puts a shadow over the good guys who follow the laws. I gig a lot in the fall and have a blast doing it. Sometimes we stab an illegal fish by accident. It's very rare that it happens, but it does. It's almost always a new gigger though and after they do it once, they start paying better attention to the fish they are stabbing. Gigging a mess of suckers and frying them on the bank is one of my favorite fall and winter events. Anybody who hasn't participated in one should try it. If it weren't for gigging, you would have a hard time getting enough suckers to be able to do it. Gigging is not stupid, illegal gigging is stupid.

We seen one fish caught up in Ashercane Bottoms and one caught down in the big water near point 15. There wasn't a whole lot of snaggers out though it seemed. More crappie and bass fishermen than anything. My advice would be to fish the hole near the white boat house, the shallow flat above Walnut Springs ramp, and the hole by Longs Camp and up about 1/4 mile towards McCords.

Maybe you're right. I'll have to pay attention next time I run it. I could have swore that I threw less of a wake on plane than when I was half throttle. Maybe it's just a prop thing that does that.

I've not had much luck on the river with a worm, but I do throw chigger craws and brush hogs quite a bit on a texas rig or a shaky head.

Unless a jetter comes to a complete idle, the boat will most likely throw less of a wake going full speed than if it was going half throttle. When a jet boat is on plane, there's only a few inches of the boat int he water.

I went Friday and Saturday night. We caught six near the Walnut Springs boat ramp on Friday night, but never caught anything on Saturday. We had three 40 lbs males and three sows just under 70 pounds on Friday night. All but one fish was caught in less than 10' of water.