Seth

We're heading down tomorrow evening. Going to snag for paddlefish on the James arm on Wednesday and then hopefully meander over to Taneycomo Wednesday evening. If not then definitely Thursday morning. Hopefully some of those shad will find their way through by then. I always look forward to fishing when the gates are open.

Smoke is a hammer, especially when it comes to the best five format. He'll be a force again this season for sure. It's also no surprise that Wheeler was right there near the top again. It doesn't seem to matter what the format or body of water is, he's always right there! The highlights don't show much FFS going on. Looks like it was mainly shallow around docks and sight fishing. Just goes to show that there FFS is a tool like anything and not always needed. These guys are good enough to know when they need to get away from it.

So many seem to hate on Maramec, but I feel like the quality of fish has been really good for several years now. The past few times I've fished Montauk, it was hard to catch fish worth cleaning.

I fished 7:30-10:00 and caught six on a black/yellow jig. The water was high and dingy so I'm sure bait would have worked a lot better. They seem to have a lot of very nice-sized stockers in there right now. Of the six I caught, three were 15-17", one was 14.5" and the last was 13.5". I didn't have a lot of time so I didn't get to explore anything below the river bend by the back parking lot.

I kept a laminated copy on me for several years after they came out with the app, but I never used it a single time and quit messing with it.

Auto renewal is the way to go for this stuff since you need it every year. Just make sure your credit card info is up to date! If your card doesn't work, they send you an email letting you know. I think they do this three times before it stops trying to renew automatically. I thought about buying a lifetime hunting and fishing license for the convenience of not having to buy a new one every year, but this makes that a bit pointless. I'll wait till I'm 60 before buying that when it's dirt cheap.

Well heck I thought you were talking about at some point at least in this century lol. I was born in 86 I wasn't thinking about Oktoberfest much back in those days. 😄

I hadn't heard of it being shut down. Heck they still had it in 2020 when Covid had the world shutdown.

I can see it now. Oneshot will hit up the wineries with good tasting wine and then head over to Oak Glenn for the dance party! I've been to one Octoberfest and that's how my day went anyways. 😁

A small split shot should work as long as you keep it close to the bottom. You could also just tie the scud off to the bend of your jig head as a dropper fly. Spread them about a foot apart and try to keep your jig a foot above bottom and the scud close to the bottom.

Anybody that doesn't like putting some fresh BBCs in their mouth is a liar! 😁

It's a custom built 7' MHX light action that a friend made me. I paired it up with a Shimano Stradic FL 1000 and 3# Maxima Ultregreen. We've been fortunate enough to do very well in the Taneycomo tournaments so I decided to splurge on a really nice trout setup. I'm not sure if I actually catch more fish with it than I did using my $120 Airstream/President combo, but it sure is nice to fish with.

We watched a couple eagles get it on across from Lilleys on the bluff Saturday during the Masters tourney. First time I've ever witnessed that. I wasn't sure if I should keep fishing or stop and take my hat off like the national anthem was playing while they finished. 😁

@Hog Wally I think ol Jeffro could bust a 15# sack of smallies out of the crapper at the boat ramp if he tried!

We only had two fish in the live well by the time the water shut down and had to come down lake and finish out our bag with jigs. Four of our fish were better than a pound and four were 3/4 pound stockers. Numbers were actually not bad, but catching one over 12” was not easy! The flats were dead for us and we had to fish out in the channels to catch anything.

Must be somewhere other that LoZ because anybody with a clue and side imaging should be able to go out and hammer fish on that lake anywhere below the 55mm.

Why the heck would somebody want to clean a big bass when they are catching crappie? I sure don't know anybody that would. If we wanted bass, we'd bass fish.....

Hard to beat a simple double smash burger with American cheese on a blackstone or cast iron IMO.

I don't eat a lot of fast food burgers, but I've always preferred ones that use sourdough bread such as the Hardees Frisco burger or Sourdough Jack from Jack in the Box.

I've fished that area very little. Snagged a few paddlefish in the dredge hole with dad probably 20 years ago and ran down there and caught a few bass during tournaments that were out of St Thomas, but that's about the extent of it.

Slabs!

MariOsa. We went back two days later and never got a bite though. Go figure..... I throw my swimbaits on 1/4oz heads and medium fast spinning gear with 10# braid and 10# fluoro leader. It blows my mind that people don't like white bass and hybrids. I've fried a lot of white bass for folks and they have always loved them. Some people were even surprised afterwards because they said they didn't care for white bass. My only guess as to why that happens is because people don't take the time to remove all of the red flesh before eating or freezing. Freezing them with the red still intact just ruins them. Walleye are great, but there is no way they are that much better than a properly cleaned white or hybrid IMO. I'd take a crappie over a white only because they require less prep work. I prefer the firmer flesh of a white/hybrid over a crappie or walleye too.

That flaired collar design of your head is my favorite thing about your jigheads. Everything has to cinch down towards the head and I've yet to have one slip regardless of whether I tied it myself or I bought it pretied. They all catch fish, but yours don't slip. Having to retie because a jig started to unravel or the marabou slipped down the hook drives me crazy!

I use 1/32-1/16oz jigs at Maramec all year long.

I'm not sure what happened either, but I was more than satisfied with the quality of fish present. We caught less fish during the tourneys than we ever have since I started fishing them in 2017, but also the most 2+ pound fish. The lack of quantity was made up with quality. During a typical tourney, we'd catch 50+ fish with ease. I'm not sure if we ever caught more than 20 in a tourney last year.....