Seth

I landed around 30 trout I'm guessing, including one about 18" and two tagged fish. Best luck was down at the bridge, but it was hard fishing with the wind and all of the other anglers crowded around there. Did anybody catch any lunkers? I fished for a pair that were in the deep water, just above where the water comes out of the sea wall a little ways up from the Lacy Hole. They never did want to bite though.

Sounds like a winner to me. I'm getting all the gear packed together right now and put in the truck so I don't run off and forget it tomorrow.

What do you mean by "herl"? Do you mean palmer it or do you do you actually use Ostrich Herl strands? I'm confused.

Ahh...I guess I been tying witht he wrong part of the marabou. I always just tied in the long ends of the marabou. I'll try that when I get home and use the fibers towards the bottom of the stem.

Do you tie with the soft, lower plumes?

Darnit, I was hoping the stream would be clear enough so I could do some sight fishing but with all the rain we been getting I doubt it. Dano, let us know how the stream is looking. I'm curious. Don't forget your poncho's Thursday, looks like we are going to be just as wet as the fish if the weather holds up.

How do I get more body to my marabou jigs? I am tying 1/32 and 1/64 oz jigs and my jigs don't seem to be as "fluffy" or have as body to them as the ones I always see in pictures or buy. Does it matter which type of marabou plume that I am tying with? Most of the plumes I have are "blood quills". Do other cuts work better for jigs? Does it not matter that much if they look thin? I've caught fish on them before, but I guess I just want to tie the best looking jigs I can.

Looks like Jeremy's brown might of taken a chomp on that one poor rainbow.

I might be down Saturday also. My girlfriend is wanting to go, but we have to see what her work schedule is for next weekend. I'll let you know my plans for next weekend also once they pan out.

Well first you need to get either a broom stick style 6 foot snagging rod with a big Penn level wind reel OR ,as I prefer, a 10-15 foot surf rod with a big spinning reel filled with 80-100 lbs braided line. Then for the terminal tackle you need some 8/0-14/0 treble hooks. For weights, I usually use 4-6oz bank sinkers on my surf tackle, but the broom stick snaggers use up to 24oz sinkers to stay on the bottom. Here's a link to MDC's page about snagging. It has some pictures on how to rig the hooks and sinker to the line. http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2005/02/10.htm You can either troll or cast while snagging. I like casting more just because I use a surf rod and have had better luck than when trolling. It's especially effective at night when the spooners are flopping on the surface. Just sit and wait for one to flop close by and then throw towards it and start jerking the hooks back as fast you can right under the surface. This is how I caught almost all of my spoonbill last year on the James River arm of Tablerock. For trolling, let out enough line so that you feel the sinker touch bottom right before you rip the hooks back. As for what holes to target, a lot of people stay in the river channel. I've had good luck on shallower mud flats next to a river channel also. Also, the mouths of coves are a good spot to pick up a fish. Here are some pictures of me with my two biggest paddlefish. The first pic is 67 pounds and the third was 74 pounds. The middle picture is the state record that was caught on opening day of 2002 on the James River. It weighed 139 pounds 4oz.

I'll be spin fishing till the crowds lighten up and then fly fishing also. Maybe there will be a few tight lipped lunkers that I can coax into hitting my little scuds. Shawncat, I'll keep and eye out for you. I always like to move around after fishing for a bit and see if I spot a big one. Center Punch, you need to go just so you can get your stale donut and old coffee I'll be in my green neoprenes with the white patch on the right knee and fishing with a 8.5 foot BPS Microlite spinning rod. There will probably be me and one or two other guys, all using those long Microlite rods.

I keep an eye out for the red Hoyt Hat

My buddy and his dad always talk about a guy everybody calls "Duffy" down on Taneycomo. The Archery and Anglers guy knows him too. He always fishes with an unlit cigar in his mouth. Is this Rolan Duffield of the forums here? I'm just curious because I have never seen the guy while down there, but everybody else has.

I'm not sure where I will start out at. Last year I started out fishing above the log that stretches across the river down by the picnic area at the end of the parking lot. I'll be wearing some green waders with a white patch of sealant on my right knee.

I am planning on going snagging up on LOZ this year so I am marking all well known spots for snagging that I've read about. I am still not sure about where the Dome Hole is and where the Little and Big Niangua come together. If anybody could show me on a map where those are, I'd really appreciate it.

Think what you want. The way I look at it, beating the outlets like everybody does when the water is running isn't fly fishing. I much rather prefer the water to be off so I can go fish the gauntlet and rebar holes. Sight fishing is my favorite thing to do when the water is down. We came down to catch some fish and that is exactly what we did by matching the "hatch" so to speak. I caught a few trout on my gbugs, scuds, san juans, and globalls but it still wasn't fly fishing since we were just "outlet beating". When the water is down, I don't even fish by the outlets because A) way too crowded and I'd rather fool trout that aren't getting pestered all the time.

I don't have a problem with spending money on fishing stuff so I will look into getting a pair of Dr. Slicks. Thanks alot for the advice.

Glad you finally got them figured out. We fished this morning till about 11:30 and it was slow for teh most part. There was about a half hour period where they really turned on up there by outlet 1. I guess it just proves that if you want to catch fish, go when its cold and nasty outside and play golf on the nice days like today.

Well maybe they were closer to 5-6", with a few 3-4" mixed in. I guess we seen around 50 get spit out the chute and ate by the trout. The big rainbow had 2 of them half way in his gullet when it was caught. My friends brown had one half way out of his mouth when caught. My friend and I just got back here to the Fall Creek Inn where we are staying. We went up to the outlets with some 5" minnow plugs and our spinning rods. We each hooked a fish, but didn't land either one. We met Leonard up there and shared some coffee and stories. I'm glad my friend was able to meet ya Leonard, he thought you were a good ol boy. We appreciate the flies too.

Well this is the first time I have ever seen dead fingerlings being flushed out. I've fished it with the food coming out a few times before and it gets pretty crazy. One guy across the shoot said he seen a brown about 15LBS swimming around there. We did see one about 7 or 8 pounds was our guess. My friends dads caught the biggest fish of the day, a fat heatlhy 19" rainbow that probably went 4 pounds.

My buddy, his dad and I fished up at the outlets today with our fly rods. We caught a load of them up at outlet one on fish food flies when they started flushing the hatcheries. We caught fish on tan/grey scuds, pink globalls, ginger gbugs, and one on a white jig today also. Seen something cool today while they were flushing the outlets out. A bunch of 6-8" fingerling trout came flushing out dead from outlet 1 shoot, and the big browns and bows were in there gorging themselves. I never could get any of them to bite though, didn't have any flies big enough to imitate a dead trout fingerling. They would come up and swipe them off the surface really aggresively. We might go up to the outlets tonight and try some big plugs and see if anything happens, but then again its awful cold out there so maybe not. Was anybody else up there today?

We didn't go out tonight because of the darn wind and cold. My pal and I are meeting his dad around 8am and heading to the dam though. Hope to see some of you up there.

Are they still running the water hard all the time? I know the shad are coming through when the water is running, but I like to get out and wade around a bit with the fly rod and sight fish.

I'm meeting my buddies dad in Cuba, MO around 5ish and we are heading down that way. Just wanted to double check and see who was fishing this weekend and where. We will probably fish a bit tonight around the outlets. We will probably fish all day tomorrow and maybe Sunday morning up by the outlets. Let me know if you're going to be there.

Has the cam been down for a while? I haven't been able to watch it for a long time. It always comes up and says "Ready". I've got WMP 11 installed also.