Seth

I love my 1860 Legend SS vbass. It will run shallow on the rivers when I need it to and can also handle fairly rough lake water. I'll put it through anything MO can throw at me. It is a heavy rig though. Last summer I got to find out just how heavy after I stuffed in a shoal of loose gravel. If you're mainly going to be fishing on smaller rivers, a small rig like you mentioned with a 40-60hp jet would be more suits. I'm a fan of a tiller or stick steering setup on the smaller rigs since you don't really lose any space versus if you have a console. I'm costantly wishing I still had a small rig like that for taking in the skinny upper reaches of the Meramec and for gigging in the fall and winter months.

That sums up how my fishing on the Gasconade has been the past few weeks as well. Can't buy a decent fish in areas that have traditionally been good for a decent fish at some point during the day. Plenty of 12-14" smallmouth and little largemouth to keep a guy busy though.

You completely redeemed yourself this year my friend! I don't think we could have had a much better trip for catching than we did this year. I'm sure owning a rod that was longer than 4.5' helped a bit too while fishing out of my boat. 😆

Bake the fillets or pan fry in light oil till the meat flakes. Mince the trout and use them in place of salmon and make fish patties. Simple and delicious. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/9401/salmon-patties-i/

There's nothing wrong with trophy hunting if that's your thing nor is there anything wrong with filing the freezer. Hunt the way you like. I've passed bucks that didn't meet my standards, but was thrilled when another member of the family killed that same deer and it put a big smile on their face. It doesn't matter what it is, but there are always people who feel they have to belittle and talk down on others who don't see things their way. It happens on here and on literally every hunting or fishing forum or group that I've been a member of.

I wish I felt like messing with squirrels. They are infested around here and drive me batty when I am trying to deer hunt every fall. Rabbits are hit and miss, but it seems like we have a bunch of them this year though. I'd have a hard time shooting a quail just because they are so few and far between around here. We usually have a couple that hang around our back pasture. A few years ago we had a covey that would be in the yard most days when I got home from work that numbered between 12-15.

Right now, fish is as expensive as you want to make it. You can go fish for bluegill with a push button and worms from the bank or chase little green bass out of a $100k bass boat. I don't think that will ever change as there are public waterways everywhere throughout the country.

Access to prime private ground may be an issue, but there is a TON of very good public ground available to anybody who wants to hunt in MO, especially if you archery hunt. With crossbows now being legalized in MO, you can hunt with an easy button the entire season. Not all states have it that good. Everything comes down to who is willing to pay the most for it when it comes to hunting and fishing these days. That's just how the world works. It sucks, but with so many willing to pay to lease decent hunting ground, can you really blame the land owners for leasing it?

I hope this trip pans out. Areas south of 44 that affect the Gasconade have gotten 3-4" of rain in the past 72 hours. There's still a lot of rain chances this week too. Jerome is already up over 5' on the gauge and Hazelgreen is 3' and rising.

So much crying over a $19 tag.....I hope those same people don't bass fish or else they would really be crying. Even most land owners I know who actually take hunting seriously hunt land they don't own and that requires them to purchase deer tags anyways. The only ones I know who strictly use land owner tags have far more than 20 acres anyways.

Touche! 😆

CWD has been around since the 60's. Is everybody who has eaten venison over the past 60 years withering away to nothing and dying? Nope, they sure aren't. Of all the crap in the world that I worry about killing me, eating venison is not even a blip on that list. If you're too afraid to eat venison for fear of contacting CWD then stop eating it and move on. That leaves more deer for the rest of us to kill and eat. http://cwd-info.org/timeline/

I always ran a single camera in the past, but I missed a lot of my buddies catches and fish action off to the side of the boat. Having a first person view allows me to catch a lot of that. As long as I have the cameras synced up in my editing program, I can seamlessly transition between the two cameras to get the best shots when we hook up. People always thought I caught all the fish and that's far from true! My buddy caught some awesome fish in the back that I never got on film during the past couple of years. Another plus about running two cameras is that I can get much better quality audio from the one that I wear. If I had a mic setup, it wouldn't matter, but I don't currently have that. I wore the camera on my hat this past weekend and it was better than the chest mount. My arms and hands blocked too much with the chesty mount for my liking. The only issue with the head mount is that I got my line caught in it a few times and knocked it off my hat and it almost went in to the Gasconade River.😲

We don't mess around in tournaments and that 40 minutes was worth $725 so the guilt didn't last long. 😄 I'm not well versed in fishing for bed fish so it took a while to figure out how to get her to eat. I'm typically chasing crappie or turkeys when bass are spawning. This year is just weird and they are spawning later than usual. First bedding smalmouth I've ever caught in my life.

I hear ya. It was just one fish though and there were several others guarding nests nearby that we did not bother. This is the first time I have ever seen a smallmouth on a nest in my life much less fished for and caught one from a bed. They are normally done spawning way before now. Tommy gets way more wound up than me. He gets antsy if I don't net the fish the first time it surfaces. I'm going to start slipping Xanax in his energry drinks before we take off in the mornings. 🤣

I finally got it finished. Hope you guys like it.

I would think the Infisherman crew would be ranking pretty high when it comes to this. They fish for everything!

That's going to be tough since one of the rules is to not let the fish touch the deck of the boat. If they have to measure every fish, then every fish will be touching the boat. It doesn't work with their system.

I can’t make any concrete commitment that weekend right now, but if we aren’t out of town then i will try to at least make an appearance to meet some new faces. I’m pretty sure I have to coach baseball that Friday as well.

I swore that they made everybody run Rangers on the final day for years.

He's been pretty good ever since he wont the BFL All American and Forrest Wood Cup in his early 20's. At the age of 29, he has already won almost 2 mill catching bass. His success has followed him from the FLW Tour to the Bassmasters and now in to the MLF circuit. Biggest five or total weight for all fish caught, he just flat out catches fish and gets it done. I mean, I guess you could say Clunn and KVD are just having a "good run" as well. That run just happens to be 30+ years long.

You can fish for free on Lilleys dock too. Just sign in at the office before hand.

KVD is a heck of a power fisherman, but I don’t recall really seeing his prowess when it comes to finesse. Based in how far aheadhe is on money earned, I can’t say he should worry about it too much though. His style seems to work in his favor well enough. He did throw a spybait for some big lake smallies a few years ago on a soinning rod, but that is about the only time I recall seeing him finesse fish. Wheeler and Martens are guys that can do it all. I think Wheeler is the most well rounded angler out there. The dude just seems to catch them everywhere he goes.

Those flies could replace the tried and true fluke any day!

Exactly. If the conditions permit, then I see no reason why the fly rod wouldn't work great. In fact, I think it could be a darn good tool for largemouth fishing on the rivers since they like to tuck up next to cover right on the banks when the water is slightly high. I target those fish with spinnerbaits most of the time, but I'm sure I miss certain nooks and crannies that hold fish due to wasting time reeling my lure back in to cast back out. I'm pretty darn efficient when it comes to pounding a bank with a spinnerbait too (high speed reel, not switch hands to roll cost, close quarters). A big white and/or chartreuse streamer or popper could nail those fish if you can put it in the right spot since they usually bite within inches of the bank.