Seth

The water up there was amazing! We went out that Friday morning while it was flooding and headed to Bagnell Dam for a snagging trip. Highway 89 heading towards Linn was just about underwater when we came through and on our way back home they had shut the road down. To make it back home, we had to run down to Vienna and take highway 28 down to St. Roberts and come back up 63 through Rolla.

Legbuster and I snagged up there at the dam today for several hours and caught a bunch of common carp. Those suckers were thick in there today! Never seen any spoons caught while we were there. Heard a guy saying that they had been catching a few earlier in the morning though.

Bill kills suck! Good luck on LoZ. I'd like to try and make it up there on the 19th for a tourney if I can find somebody atleast one other person to go with me. I went down to Tablerock today and never hit a bill. We caught a bunch of common carp though. They were flopping all around us on the banks so we started snagging them. Atleast we caught something although it wasn't the spoonbill that I wanted. That's the first time I been skunked down there in a LOOONNG time. This high water sure is making it hard to find them spoonies.

What was the water temp like? I was down there last Saturday and it was up to 58.5. Spoonbilling usually picks up when it hit's 60 from what I have seen in the past. With all of this high water though, I don't know if they have already started running or what.

With temps in the 70's all week long, it should really be hopping by the following weekend.

Good luck on getting some slab hunters. Everytime I have been up there, they were old out of the "hot" versions each time. The first trip I ever made up there last year I watched eveybody fishing for whites and hybrids and they were all using slab hunters. thanks for letting us know about the Slab Slayers. I will be sure to get some of those before I head to the Tailrace next time since they are always out of the XL Slab Hunters.

Taberville just north on Highway H on the upper Osage arm of Truman. The hwy H bridge that crosses the Osage arm there is called the Taberville Bridge usually. Schell Osage Conservation Area is where Duckman does a lot of his snagging I think. He just snags from the bank.

glad to hear you tore them up at Tabervile. I wasn't sure if that was fisheable or not this year with all the rain we have got. Tablerock has been really high and it's hard to even put a boat in there. The fish haven't started running from what I can tell though, unless they are already way up river do to the high water. The water temps were 58.5 degrees when i was up there last Saturday which should be about right I would think. Good luck this weekend if you go.

Nice bill Duckman. How much did she weigh and I take it you caught her up at Taberville?

Will the females eventually make it up that far as long as the water stays high? I've never snagged past McCords Bend before but my buddy went below the dam and seen them catching spoonbill so he tried it. He caught a 30 pounder while wading and it about drug him under because he didn't loosen his drag LOL. I'm going to come down there and give that a try.

I have to drive a ways to either Bass Pro or Cabelas so I just order online. It's probably cheaper doing that then paying the gas and running down to the stores.

My buddy who goes to college at Evangel went down there and said he caught some. For some reason, we had always thought you couldn't snag there and had to be below Highway 160. All well, I plan on coming down there next Sunday/Monday so hopefully the fish are still there. The water should stay high enough with all the rains we just got.

Not sure about those areas, but last Saturday up around the Walnut Springs boat ramp on the James River arm it was right around 58.5 degrees for the surface temp.

Nobody has posted on here in a while so I was wondering if anybody has been snagging lately? We went down to Tablerock and snagged last Saturday. Took while to find fish, but ended up gettng a 40 and a 25 lbs male. Should of limited out, but had trouble keeping fish on the hook. The water temp was 58.5 so if the temps stay up in the 60's the sows should start running here shortly.

Put in and Walnut Springs around 6am and fished the stretch of river several miles below the ramp with no luck. We then ran up to McCords Bend snagging and finally found a pocket of fish around 10:30am. My buddy and I hit six fish in about a 30-45 minute time frame, but only boated two. Both fish were males, one was 25 lbs and the other was around 40 lbs. A pontoon boat seen me catch the one, and started snagging right besides us heading up towards the Blunk Hole and eventually hit one also. The water temp was 58.5 degrees and the river is still pretty high. We never ran up nearly that far snagging before so we just happened to get lucky. If it stays warm down there the snagging should really heat up here within the next week or two I'd guess.

Put the boat in below Bagnell right at daylight. Dad and I went below Hwy 54 bridge and snagged for several hours and never hit anything. Seen on guy on the bank right below the bridge catch one little paddlefish. I never marked a good concentration of fish anywhere that I went. There are several paddlefish cleaned by the ramp, but this has been the worse year ever for us snagging up there. We have have limited out every trip up there for several years until this year and we've been skunked both times. We got tired of that and went and got some minnows and tried crappie fishing the south bank below the dam. We caught three crappie over there. . Right as we pulled up we seen a guy pull in three crappie one after another from a brush pile in the same area. He must of been sitting on it just right. On the way back to the ramp, we went to the north side and rode the current down to the boat ramp. Dad flipped his minnow out and hooked something big as soon as it got to the bottom. He fought it for about 15 minutes on 4 lbs test before finally landing a 5lbs hybrid bass. That's the first hybrid we've ever caught up there.

Were you snagging from the bank or a boat? Does anybody have an update on if the water level at Riverview Park is low enough to be snagged?

We talked to Ron, one of the workers down there and he said they lost a few but it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. There were a lot of buzzards out in the fields eating on something, probably a bunch of dead trout that were stranded is my guess.

I just got back from fishing down there and it is muddy and the side walks under a little bit of water. Fishing wasn't too great for myself, but dad managed to catch his limit. Only one trout was dumb enough to let me catch him today. People that were catching good numbers of fish were targeting the faster riffles right below the pond hole and cable. Also seen a couple guys catch some right above and below the riffle at the bathroom hole on the bluff side. They would just hold there bait in the current until a trout grabbed it. I didn't wear my waders today so I couldn't fish on that side due to the walkways being under about a foot of water. I did see several nice trout caught today. One guy caught a legal brown while I was down there.

Man that is nuts. I just checked the local liquor store that sells snagging tackle and they sell there 8oz weights for a buck and some change.

I am starting to use a 50lbs mono leaders also because last year I broke a reel trying to break that 80 lbs Power Pro. That is some tough stuff! You can't go wrong with any type of 80 lbs braid I wouldn't think.

We went up there to snag for spoonbill today and never hit a fish. We seen one guy that had two paddlefish from the bank right below the bridge. This is the first time I have gotten skunked up there ever I think. The past few years we hit a lot of fish in some deep holes, but I guess with the water running the fish weren't holed up like usual. I did graph several fish right below the bridge, but never seen anybody actually hit anything. I guess it was just bad luck for us today. A guy my buddy knows that lives up there went up to the dam and said he saw a guy catch some crappie one after another but we forgot our ultralights.

The reason I went up to 80 was to help with the line twisting around the hook. I had a 10' surf rod with 20 pound Big Game spooled on the reel last year down on the James. It was hard to bury the hook in a fish, but I did manage to land one about 45 lbs. It was a blast on that lighter tackle.

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I'll try and find a few guys to go down with me and split the fuel bill and give it a shot. I've always heard about how awesome the snagging down there can be but never experienced it myself.

I think you have to stop after catching two "legal" fish. Honestly I don't know how well they enforce that rule though. I've released fish that I thought were right on the edge of the length limit and kept snagging EVEN THOUGH they probably would have measured. If you do release a paddlefish, just be sure and not ram a gaff hook through it's belly so it dies anyways. I want to punch every person that I see doing that do a short fish. We have stopped using a gaff hook in recent years and just grab ahold of the fish, remove the hooks while they are in the water, and then lift them in the boat. A few treble hooks in the legs have made us start removing the hooks before bringing the fish overboard.