Seth

Seriously, we hammered them between the Walnut Springs boat ramp on down to the white boat house down river Monday night into Tuesday morning. We landed 18 of the silly things in 5-6 hours time that night. If a person snags this area and can't get a spoonbill, I just don't know what to tell you.

Legbuster knows how to blow smoke up everyone's rear end. That's what he does best. He's so full of it he stink. I know because I just spent all night snagging with him and he smelled stronger than the paddlefish.

I'd guess lazy K to be about 2 miles below the Hwy 54 bridge just guessing. Usually if they are running water hard, when you get there then it will be running the whole time. I guess it's possible to get trapped like you said if they shut it down, but you will probably notice the water dropping soon enough to get back up river. Wipers are decent. I'm always hearing of guys catching quite a few nice ones near the darn, but I haven't ever tried it much myself up there. The MariOsa access is where I usually do most of my wiper fishing because it's about an hour closer than Bagnell.

You'll be fine to fish below Bagnell on down to the Lazy K campground if the water is off. If they are running a lot of water, then you can run just about anywhere you want on the river.

Fished docks that were sitting above 30 foot of water. Caught smaller fish earlier in the day and then bigger ones later in the day when the water had warmed up to almost 55 degrees. Tube jigs and minnows were the baits of choice with pink and white being the best tube color.

We got a couple big suckers just down from Delaware town snagging for paddlefish last year. I haven't actually targeted suckers specifically though so can't help you out much.

Do you think you'll be down MOnday or Tuesday? Ed and I are heading out Monday and getting to Springfield around 4pm to meet Phil after he's done with classes. We'll be snagging most of the night Monday into Tuesday morning, but might hit it Tuesday some also. Let me know and maybe we can meet up or at least let one another know where the fish are.

I'm posting this for a buddy of mine. 2005 Legend SS Jet boat w/ 150hp Johnson and 2008 trailer. Boat is an 1860. I don't think it has a trolling motor or a fish finder either. This isn't the actual boat, but it's setup just like this. Here's a link to the Legend SS boat site with the rest of the info on his boat......1860 Legend SS information If you are interested, give Cory a call at 573-680-4981.

Ahh bummer. So are you coming home right away or staying down there till the weekend? Ed said he's coming down and Saturday. Jesse has a bass tourney on Saturday now so I dunno what I'm gonna go yet. Heck I might call Ed and see if I can go with him. I'm not decided yet.

A couple guys ran to the MariOsa this past Saturday and both got skunked. They said the pleasure boaters were everywhere also and made it hard to fish. I got a couple 7 pounders earlier this year up by the right side of the dam where the current is fast. Luckily I hooked them on the rod with 20 lbs power pro, but lordy I never thought I would get them in.

We are going to try it for the first time this year. We've never snagged on LoZ so we are gonna head up this Saturday and prefish for it and check things out. Is anybody on this site going to be up there and fishing in it?

We went down two weeks ago and did well from the Walnut Springs boat ramp on down to the sharp bend in the river. One of my buddies and his dad are going to snag down there Thursday and Friday also. They'll be in a silver Legend SS jet boat with a 50 hp Johnson on the back. Keep and eye out for them and I'd betcha you can find some fish. We thought about heading down there Saturday, but instead are gonna head to LoZ and try that. We've never snagged LoZ before, but want to do a little prefishing and riding around before the Snagmasters tourney on the 18th. Good luck to ya! I'll try and get a report from Phillip Thursday night and let you know how they do. I think I still have your phone number too so I can always give you a call.

Good to know the shad are up already. I might head up there and give the snagging and hybrid fishing a try over my Easter break.

There's always a good chance of catching hybrids over 10 lbs up there. We fish for hybrids at the MariOsa access way down river from Bagnell and have caught them up to 10 lbs this year. Last year one of my buddies got one a little over 12lbs and the year before another kid I know got a 16 pounder up there. Usually the average is 3-5 lbs though.

The trick to cleaning suckers is how well you score them up. Usually we fry them in Andy's, but my girlfriends dad likes to use flour, salt, pepper, and garlic salt mixed together and it's out of this world. The flour messes the grease up a lot faster, but I think it's worth it. Add a cold beer and you are in heaven. I fried a bunch of suckers for some catfisherman a few months back and they loved them. Another guy had walleye and it was a pretty even tie between what they ate the most of so that tells ya how good they are.

I'm going with 60-65. This is an 80 that I got the first night. I'm 6'0 and 200 lbs so you can compare this to whatever size that guy was.

Some people cut the tail off and pull the cartilage out and bleed them while others, like myself, just slab the sides of and clean off all the junk. It's really just whatever you are comfortable with. I'm not sure if it makes much difference when it comes to eating them.

Glad you guys got a few yourself. I didn't know you were anybody from the forum or I would of been a bit more friendly lol. A couple college buddies of mine have been fishing for whites the past several days and getting several nice ones around the boat ramp there. It might of been there fish you seen cleaned. I prefer the night time snagging most of the time. We just seem to have better luck. As many fish as I seen flopping around there though, we could probably do well during the daylight also. My buddies who been getting the whites have been getting several spoons during daytime also. I'm not afraid of those rocks and tree's. I'll throw right up in amongst them and snag the fish. That's how we get most of our fish anyways. We lose very little tackle surprisingly.

Landed 10 paddlefish between three guys. Five were keepers and five were short. We had two sows and three males that ranged from 40lbs up to 55 lbs. Fish were flopping all over the river all night so there's a bunch up there. We started fishing the bluffs just below Walnut Springs boat launch and fished down to the sharp bend in the river about a mile down stream. Most fish were in that sharp bend area. Weather was pretty nice throughtout the night except for the last hour before daylight. It got to raining pretty good then.

CC is right about it either being totally dead or on fire. We went up on a Thursday last year for my birthday at the end of May and caught the heck out of dandy blue cats. The next day I went back up with the girlfriend and all we caught was one asian carp. The catfish just totally shut off. That's Bagnell for you.

Three of us ended up going and landed three paddlefish between 15-35 lbs. My buddy got one about 5 minutes in to snagging. I caught mine my first cast of the day and then we snagged about 4 more hours before I finally got my second one. The first two were caught around the golf course hole that everybody snags and my second one came from right below the 54 bridge. A guy on the bank landed one I'd guess weighed in the 40# range. It was the nicest fish I've seen caught up there in a long time. Lots of spoonbill were cleaned on the ramp so they are catching them pretty decently this year it seems. There was also a couple crappie cleaned at the ramp. Won't be long before those are biting hot and heavy.

Had some guys around home snag the Niangua part of LoZ and came up empty. Said it was slow for everybody around there. Snagging on the James usually slows down after opening night, but picks back up again in April. This will be the first time I've snagged before April after opening night in a while. We are going to try it again on March 28.

All I've ever done on the Gasconade was gig in the fall. We used to fish quite a bit down at Gasconade City near the Missouri River, but that's been years ago. Hopefully if the river's are so dang high this year I'll try and get on it more and do some more fishing on them.

We did the best at the mouth of a cove about a mile up from Flat Creek. We seen fish on boats everywhere from the mouth of Flat Creek on up past Walnut Springs. The fish are all over the place up there. A couple guys said that people were snagging them up at the Lake Springfield Dam also.

I never noticed it being too forward heavy, but I also have my cranking battery and fuel tanks towards the back of the boat and not the front. When I run the trolling motor, I put both of my batteries under the front deck to try and get more weight in the front. She gets on plane pretty fast which is all I ask of her so I'm plenty happy. I'm not sure if the decks on my boat were done by F&F or done by somebody else later. The boat itself is just a regular 1648 jon with the back bench seat and then it has the removable aluminum deck in the back. Due to the "quality" of the work, I'm betting it was done by somebody else AFTER they bought the boat from F&F but I could be wrong.