Seth

You would likely want a floating model stick bait for the dragging technique. A countdown would just go right to the bottom and get hung up. @Mitch f it is legal to get bait above the no fishing line at Bagnell. I've done it for years. Most will stand by the look out wall and get shad before they go fishing when they are stacked up right there.

The nice fish were definitely biting last weekend. My partner landed a 20.5" brown Thursday evening, @Toby from MO put a 21" in his boat on Friday and the Burris team put a 3.4# rainbow in the boat on tournament day as well as a 19.5" brown. If that brown had been 20", they would have been in the hunt for the #1 spot on Saturday. We had another 17.5" brown right before we came in for weigh in too. My brown trout curse is still running strong. I think I may have been the only person to not catch one in our group last weekend.

That's for the next month. I'm not sure if he has anything in March. I believe CAM is usually held in April.

RAW is this coming weekend and Elfrink is Feb 22

I sure wish you could have at least seen that giant that you guys had on. Those are always heart breaking. Duane hooked a big one on One Cast yesterday, but it hung him up in a tree and broke off. Last year my dad lost something that felt like a small submarine just above Short Creek the day before the RAW tournament. We chased it upstream for 5 minutes and several hundred yards before it found a big tree right on the bank. I had no idea that tree existed and it's now one of my favorite spots for pulling out decent fish. Frank was caught in that same area a few weeks later during the Elfrink tournament. There were a pile of nice fish caught this past weekend. I was rooming with the Duff and Burris teams and each boat landed a trout over 20" between Thursday-Saturday. We took third and Burris took fourth. Duff was in 7th or 8th so we all had a good showing on Saturday. Half of what we weighed came down from the Landing the other half were caught up in the Fall/Short Creek area. This was the most solid bag of fish we've ever caught in a tournament without having a big fish. We were just missing that one big bite to shoot us up to the top. If they keep up this amount of generation, I expect there to be a lot of big fish caught next weekend during the RAW tournament. There will be twice as many boats fishing and bait will be legal to use.

I didn't bother going in either even though I'm sure I could have made it. I've got plenty of leave and vacation days accrued up anyways. Spent the day watching Breaking Bad and tying up some jigs for next weeks Taneycomo trip.

I joined up.

I know you have Port Hudson and the MO River out that way, but I don't know what else there is really.

Dad told me about this show a few days ago. I need to have him record it so I can watch it sometime. There is an old episode of him fishing on the White where he lands a 12# rainbow. I'm pretty sure he was on the Norfork that day.

Here is my setup. The flanges and pipe are either 1.25" or 1.5" and the bar is 2x1" stock. The rod holders are 1/2" Monsters. It's stout as can be and removable. Here's a couple videos of them in action.

There were a lot of nice smallmouth caught on the Nade last year, but the largemouth fishing sucked. As far as I know, there wasn't a single largemouth over 3lbs weighed in during a tournament last year between June and October. I'm not sure what the deal was with them because there were some nice ones caught that spring and this winter. There was a 6+ monster caught out of Rollins Ferry last month! Biggest largemouth I've ever heard of coming from the Gasconade. Maybe somebody finally caught one of those lake bass that people have been bringing back and dumping in there for years. 😁

Has anybody actually been to the spring itself to see what it's like? I know a lot of times the spring branch will stay relatively clear and you will have a mud line below the bridge where it meets the actual river. That usually makes for some fun fishing.

I didn't realize he was using a lure. I do a reel set depending on what type of lure I am using. If I'm fishing a wacky worm on a neko hook with a spinning rod, 15# braid and 6-10# leader then I will typically just do a "reel set". If punchin cover with a jig or texas rig with 20# fluorocarbon, then I crack em pretty good. Thin wire hooks don't take much to penetrate a fishes mouth, but a heavy wire hook built for stout tackle will require a lot more force to punch through a fishes mouth. I can tell you that I lose less fish on those light wire hooks and a "reel set" than I do cracking them with heavy tackle.

Sounds like he was using circle hooks. They are the deal when it comes to bait fishing.

I linked the pic from my Google Photos initially, but I guess the permissions aren't set for public viewing. It should show up now since I uploaded it to the forum and relinked it.

We only caught one brown during our Taneyfest stay. It was a giant too! 😁

While at Taneyfest, I met a couple guys staying at Lilleys that were having a tough time catching trout. The first time we met was Thursday evening when I was cleaning the trout that Les and I had caught. They were intrigued by my method of cleaning the fish so I did my best to try and show them how to clean them and let them give it a try. I also explained how we caught them on jigs up around Short Creek and tried to give them some pointers to try the next day in hopes that they would catch more trout. After fishing all day Friday with DJ, his buddy and Les, we came in for dinner. As I was about to walk up to the room, those same guys I met the day before asked how we did and I told them it was slow, but we still caught probably 60 for the boat. They had another tough day. Before I left the dock, the older gentleman asked if I could possibly go out with them for an hour or so and show them how to fish a jig and where to go in person. I could have easily said "No. I'm tired and hungry.", but I always try to jump at the opportunity to try and get others on fish. I ran up, told the others what I was doing and then went back and got in the pontoon with them. We went down to Monkey Island and hit the inside bend first. They caught several on their power eggs and I caught several while showing them how I fish a jig. The next spot I showed them was from Scotty's down to the big boat where we all caught a few more. They had been fishing from Fall down to Short Creek the previous couple of days and I wanted to show them how the current slows up down lake and makes controlling your drift much easier. As it got close to dark, we came back and they thanked me. Before I left, I told them about the forum and about One Cast and recommended they check both out as there is a wealth of information available. Later on while checking Facebook messenger, I noticed I had a message from somebody not on my friends list. One of the gentleman I took out found me on there and sent me this. As much as I enjoyed fishing and hanging out with DJ, Les, Phil, etc, I have to say that this was the highlight of my trip. A little bit of my time to make somebody's entire trip is definitely worth it!

We didn't get anything real big during Taneyfest. Fishing was pretty slow compared to what it's usually like. This one was caught the morning after the CAM tourney last April.

I've always been the same way, but I did keep some legs from a jake I got last spring and made some turkey and dumplings. They were freakin delicious! The fiance couldn't get over how dark the leg meat was though so I had it all to myself. 😁

I've made fish patties out of my trout the past few times I have had them. They were good. I just bake them in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes until they flake, mince them up, mix everything together and make patties. That works well for frozen trout too since they tend to get a bit mushy after being frozen. There are plenty of fish patty recipes out there. Just pic one and give it a whirl. I'm surprised so many dislike the taste of trout. My fiance isn't much of a fish eater and even she likes my baked trout. Olive oil, lemon pepper or Old Bay on both sides, slice of bacon on top of fillet, wrap in foil, bake at 350 for 15 minutes, open top of foil and broil till bacon is good and crispy. They are decent even without bacon, but of course as good as with.

Suckers and trout are the only fish I leave the skin on. The suckers don't fall apart after I score them with the skin on and the trout getting grilled keep their skin. I've ate fried fish with and without the skin and I can't tell any difference. Most of the flavor is coming from the breading anyways.

My buddy was up there yesterday and said they wore out the little whites, caught a pile of little dinker catfish and snagged several spoonbill by accident on blade baits and crankbaits. I don't think they tried for any crappie. A few guys I know have been up there doing well on the nice whites/hybrids. I'm pretty sure they are using a-rigs. Saw a pick on FB from Friday or Saturday of a 14-9 hybrid that somebody had caught.

I'll be there for the Masters, RAW and Elfrink.

They aren't much different than last year. - Win the Masters, RAW or Elfrink trout tournament - Break 20" on brown trout - Break 15" on crappie - Meet and fish with more OAF members - Break 4#/20" on smallmouth - Get down to Taneycomo with @JestersHK for a full night of wade fishing if the water cooperates

You just gotta know how to use a net and it works great! 🤣