Seth

That’s all that was available at the Wally World last week. All the 80/20 and 73/27 was bough out. Made for some dry meatballs.

I've been eating quite a few of them lately and I honestly can't tell any difference between them and the crappie I've been catching. I wish people would keep every one of the little suckers!

The problem is the regulations they have in place on the lake. They have a 12-15” slot limit in place. I wish they would up it to 15-20”. Not that people actually pay any attention to those rules out there. That is blatantly obvious when the crappie are biting. Most I see just keep everything they catch instead of adhering to the 15 fish limit.

Nope. She came from a 180 acre lake near where we live. It's over run with little dink bass and fish like these are rare birds. I grew up out there and have fished it my entire life and my best is only 6.5# and I caught it probably 20 years ago.

My buddy caught this one yesterday. She was 22" on my golden rule, had a 17" girth and weighed 7.20 pounds on a digital scale. He weighed her right after she was caught and a few hours later after being in his livewell and came up with 7.20 each time. I witnessed him weighing her the second time. It's the second heaviest bass I've seen with my own eyes. That fish in the picture is pushing 24" and as round as a basketball so surely it's pushing 9# or better.

We won’t have to worry about it for a while. I saw on Facebook where they are closing it down after today....

That oughta restock the walters, white bass and smallies.

Bummer, but totally understandable with everything going on.

Tan and grey are about all I have ever used. Dead orange and oink get hot at times too. I’ve also never had much luck on olive scuds, but hammer them on a gold head olive micro.

I don't think Maramec is nearly as long as the other parks so I don't think there is really enough space to do the zoning. That's what I've always heard anyways.

I think Doty had some good success with a client fishing the jerkbaits in the rain a few days ago.

Maramec doesn't have any restrictions. The bait soakers fish right next to the fly fishermen.

Jigs will work just fine. Focus on eddy pockets on the bluff banks and inside bends. If you have trouble fishing the heavy flow above Lilleys, you can always go down below Scottys. Scottys down to the power lines is always full of fish and the current is a lot slower. If things get too dirty, go up river and find clean water. If you are vait fishing, you can still catch fish at the creek mouths well in dirty water. Fish will stack uo there and gorge on all of the food coming in. Crawlers should shine in that situation. This is a tourney we took third in while 15k cfs flowing. Should give you an idea on how we fish those conditions. Personally, I love fishing when the gates are open.

Canterbury and Arey killed me! They weren’t looking too bad after day 1, but day 2 was ROUGH on both of them.

I always have a few drops of water come out and it stops around 10 pumps. I may have a little bit of a seal leak though as my motor is up around the 400 hour mark. Not sure what seal life is on a jet unit. Seems my jets have always been like that though. Grease is cheap so I fill it till all water is purged. The 2-4C grease is recommended by Outboard jets, not Mercury. I figure the people who engineered these jet kits probably have their reasoning for it. Also looks like Lubriplate 630-2 is recommended as well. http://outboardjets.com/a-change-in-the-type-of-grease-for-driveshaft-bearings/

We bought some Gamakatsu Octopus circle hooks at Springfield BPS this past January on our way down to Taneycomo. They still had quite a selection of Gamas.

Outboard jets recommends the Mercury 2-4-C grease for those jet lowers now. I give mine 10 pumps after every use.

I always tell everybody that's the best part about it. Going down solo strictly for the fishing isn't really worth it, but bringing friends and standing together just having fun is a good time. From a fishing standpoint, you're far better off waiting till about noon and going down as a lot of people will clear out and you can actually get a decent spot where fish are congregated. We didn't get a very good starting spot so we basically just went through the motions for the first few hours and then moved in to a good spot once people started thinning out to clean fish. That's just the nature of the beast when it comes to park trout. Most of the fish are going to be ganged up in small areas.

I've been too a lot of opening days and I think this was the busiest I've ever seen. For as busy as it was, it was awfully boring as far as the people watching went. The folks that hooked lunkers actually knew how to fight fish, nobody fell in the water, nobody got in a fight and everybody was calm and collected when there was a tangle. The best thing I saw all day was some guy in a crappy old Mustang left his rod and reel sitting on top of the car and slung it out on to the highway as he left the park.

Water clarity wasn’t the greatest. Fish seemed to he very congregated in certain spots. I helped my fiance catch her five at the buzzer and then fishing slowed. We basically waited around till 9:30 to get in a spot where fish were biting and then caught a 10-12 in short order down below the bathroom hole on a black/yellow jig and orange trout worm. I’m not sure how many tags were sold but park was the busiest tyat I can remember seeing today.

Water is still in the low 40's at Taberville. I know on the James, until the water gets above 50, there aren't a lot of fish up river aside from a few locals.

I was ate up with it when I was younger. I'd built a really nice 5/6wt Sage rod in a rod building class when I was in my early teens and then added a 4wt St Croix for roll casting in close quarters. They burned up in my parents pantry fire several years ago and I just never really got back in to it. I've got little cheap beater setup that I planned on using at the trout parks, but haven't used it much.