Seth

Channel cats suck compared to a blue. Flatheads are even better. I grew up eating channels cats out of ponds and still enjoy catching them, but I don't waste my time to clean the nasty buggers unless somebody else just really wants them. Blues and flatheads aren't so fortunate when I catch them.

I’ll keep a look at out for ya. We will be just down the road in room 10 at Lazy Valley. I’m the black and orange Legend SS.

You west siders are lucky. We don't have enough good sources of blue cat in my part of the state to make selling it lucrative. People around here just resort to dealing heroin and meth.

This has become one of my biggest pet peeves. People make a statement and then tell YOU to look it up and prove them wrong. That's not how it works. It's up to you to prove your point.

Are you fishing the tournament?

If that one was 23”, how big do you think the one from yesterday was? I figured you would get another chance at a big brown while filming, but I figured it might more than three casts. 😊

Good! Throw the book at them!

Bummer on the brown, but at least you know what you had. I'm sure you'll hook in to another good one before this run is over with. Just don't sore lip any below Fall Creek before next weekend. I'm calling dibs on those for the Elfrink.

It's obvious that the mega worm is great for sight fishing, but has anybody tried it deep beneath a float just like you would a power worm or trout magnet?

I can't wait to see how he does dragging cranks this week. Hopefully the fiesta lasts till next weekend! All these white jigs I'm fixing to tie better not be for naught!

It was verified last year that you are legally supposed to keep all paddlefish of legal length in MO. Then again, how do you prove a fish was of legal length if you don't get to witness the measurement? They'll never be able to enforce it. MDC does a very good job at managing the snag fishery for paddlefish, but they tend to get butthurt when you bring up some of the things that Oklahoma does that most of us are in favor of. A big one is the fish cleaning stations that can sell the eggs. Why let all of that $$$ go to waste? While I don' think that would be worth the cost to set up a cleaning facility for Tablerock and Truman, you can't tell me that Warsaw doesn't have enough traffic to make it feasible. Oklahoma allows catch and release, but you are limited to one barbless hook on your line while snagging. You are also allowed one fish per day and two for the season. I'd like to see all three of those implemented here in MO.

Mother nature took care of that this year on the Gasconade. She kept the water high and dingy nearly the entire season. I'm not sure if the Meramec was in the same shape or not, but the Gasconade was definitely a bust. I'll be curious to see if the fishing is any better this yea because of it.

How long ago was that because that place has changed a lot just in the past few years. I lost interest in going down there a few years back because the fish they stocked were tiny. The average size is better now than it has been in a while though. It has been easy to catch limits of trout that averaged well over a pound the past few years.

If this is anything like last year, I'll do really well one tournament and then bomb several. Rinse and repeat.

Make sure you have the brightness turned up on your device. This what the bathroom hole at Maramec looks like about 15 minutes before the buzzer on opening day. Doesn’t that look fun?! Even I avoid that spot like the plague that first day for at least the first few hours. 🤣

The people I know that really like paddlefish almost always grill or smoke them versus frying. There was one time when I helped out at a church fish fry. We fried up suckers, crappie, catfish and paddlefish. I was afraid all the good stuff would be gone before we had a chance to eat and we would have to eat paddlefish. To our surprise, the paddlefish was gone and they were wanting more! They were all touched in the head as far as I am concerned because paddlefish was the last thing us fryers wanted to eat. 😂

I’ve got two opener memories that always stand out. The first was this guy who was in a motorized wheelchair. He slowly worked his way down to the stream side just before the buzzer. People were courteous towards him and gave him space so he could fish. After fishing a while, the Lord above granted him enough strength to get out of the chair and walk back to his vehicle for a cold beer and sandwich as well as enough strength to make it back to his wheel chair and continue fishing. The other memory was when the water was up a few inches above the concrete. A guy hooked a lunker that he fought up on to the concrete and started seimming around like a salmon trying to reach spawning grounds. The angler and his buddy chased it under a bench and one of them flopped down in the water in front of the bench to trap the fish. They were so excited to get that fish even though they were soaked. 😂 We all know it is a hot mess, but I still enjoy participating in the madness. Even now that i fish all winter, I still look forward to March 1st as it signals a lot of good things are right around the corner such as snagging season, white bass run, turkey season, etc.

I eat quite a few trout but rarely mess with paddlefish. The best way I have had them was to cut them into 1” strips, dip in some melted butter seasoned with cajun and then grilled over hot charcoal for three minutes on each side. I’ve hadthem smoked before as well and it reminded me of smoked salmon.

I should have specified that it would seem like a big waste if they were stocked in areas with an abundance of large predatory fish that could eat them such as flathead or gator gar. As long as they aren't getting ate by predators as soon as they get stocked, then stock away! It would be neat to catch one.

I made a couple videos of our trips on LoZ last year. One was during the infamous Ozark Snagmasters tournament. We were down between the 54-60mm in these videos, which is where I nearly always employ the divers. It lets us cover water much more efficiently and it's a lot easier on the body.

I've always wanted to try it just to see some new water, but it's hard to drive twice as far when I already catch plenty of them on LoZ. If I head to the James, I can always hit Taneycomo while I'm down there too since it's just around the corner. We still still make our annual opener trip to the James, but after we get our fill of that I always try to convince the rest of the crew to head over to Taneycomo for a day.

If I am available, I wouldn't mind taking others out at all. Chances are I will probably be fishing somewhere already. However, I will share as much information about where to snag as I can with anybody who wants to go try and catch some. I get more enjoyment out of putting others on these dinosaurs than myself. I'd rather go catch a crappie or white bass personally.

I took your post as they were possibly stocking the those mirrors somewhere in Texas. If they run that much, that sure sounds like a giant waste of $$$ to me!

If you ever decide to try it again, let me know. I'm pretty good at getting on them on Tablerock and Lake of the Ozarks. Never been on Truman though so I have no clue about up there.

Looks like a buffet for a big flathead.