Seth

We only fished for the first hour. I forgot to tell my father in law to not keep his fourth fish right away so we could fish a while. He was done in about 20 minutes and I didn't want to make him stand around all morning while dad and I fished.

The 3 pounder (actually 2.93) was one that he caught from your dock on a crawler when we stopped by to fish for a few hours just before Christmas. Would have rather seen it swim off, but it was his fish and he really wanted to eat it so I cleaned it for him. That guy had me rolling. He was trying to help his kids catch some fish and kept jumping their case for this and that. I'm sure I sounded EXACTLY like that when I was introducing Cari to trout fishing back in the day. Teaching people how to trout fish stresses me out too!

We only fished about an hour. One of the guys that went kept his first four and I didn’t want to make him stand around all morning waiting on us. I caught around a dozen and kept four that were 14-15” and headed back home. I threw jigs. Had to get them down on bottom to get bit. The others used dough bait and velveeta to catch their fish.

Hopefully it lasts for at least two weeks. I’ll be down to snag on the James at midnight on the 15th and then plan on hitting Taneycomo that afternoon and maybe omagain on the 16th. I love fishing a shad kill!

I'm swinging by Walmart to pick up a GoPro hat mounting kit so I can sport the GoPro tomorrow. That should help me stand out a little bit.

The James Foundation Facebook page says it's slightly high and murky. That's fine with me! Last year after the flood hit, we experienced some of the best trout fishing I've ever had down there. The fish were slamming jerkbaits and spoons in that high dirty water. I had one that day that was 17" and shaped like a football. It wasn't quite 3#, but I know it was 2.5#+.

I'd much rather fish Taneycomo anyways. Are you fishing from a boat? Sounds like they are going to be running water hard to try and get caught up from all of the rain they got last week. Hopefully it flushed a lot of that muddy and trash out of the way by now. Fishing last Saturday in the Elfrink was a freaking mess and the fishing was horrible. You know it's bad when very few limits are weighed and you get third with a measly 6.10#!

I know a few of you mentioned in another thread about going down tomorrow. I'm just following to see who is still on and who isn't. Sounds like me, dad and my father in law are going down for the buzzer. We'll be somewhere around the cleaning station and the river bend near back parking lot when the buzzer goes off. Just checked the forecast and it looks like it will in the low 40's and windy. Might have to dig out some gloves to protect those hands.

Bagnell is generating hard all week. Won't that drag the muddy water even closer to the dam by the weekend?

Aside from the initial spider web and people getting tangled up, I guess the funniest thing would be when this guy had his hat blow off in to the stream and he proceeded to strip down and bail off in to the stream to retrieve said hat. The other memory I have from opening day was when the water was up just over the top of the side walks across from the back parking lot. One guy hooked a lunker and it ended up jumping up on to the concrete and started swimming around like a salmon going through shallow water. It ended up swimming under one of the bench seats that were near them. The guys buddy flopped down on his stomach and laid in front of the bench to trap the fish and got soaked! They got the fish though!

I got my hunting/fishing combo license and trout permit today. I'm good for another year!

I stay away form the popular holes for the first few hours. There are so many fish that there really isn't a need to cram in to to those spots that first morning. Personally, I like fishing near he bend past the back parking lot. It holds plenty of fish an doesn't seem to draw near as much attention as the pond, bathroom or bridge holes. After the first hour or two, people will start shuffling around and heading back to their vehicles and that is when you can slip in to the busier holes. Some people are nuts and like to cram in there in the thick of things at the buzzer. If you choose to do that, you still most likely won't have any issues IF you are an accurate caster. I'm fairly good at snap casting and even "shooting" a jig underneath lines (thanks to dock shooting for LoZ crappie) so it wouldn't really bother me to fish in amongst the crowds. It makes for great entertainment!

If you want a true river bass trail where it's mostly jet boats, you need to pretty well host on waters where a jet is a requirement. I fish tournaments on the Gasconade, Meramec and Osage and you can use whatever you want. For the most part, everybody runs jets because you need it to get anywhere. However, if the water is high enough, there have been guys bring their bass boats.

I wish I could sew. I'd love to make a bandoleer just for holding jars of powerbait. This would be a nice touch for opening day fishing apparel, don't you think?

@Phil Lilley what is the biggest trout ever weighed in during these tournaments that you host? I remember reading about a 7+ pound brown being caught during one of the tourneys in the past.

That was a brutal day on the water! I was VERY tempted to just disqualify myself and go up in to the trophy area to fun fish the rest of the day at noon just so we could catch something. We ended up stopping and making a few drifts from Fall Creek down to Short Creek and started picking up a few fish using a pink jig with an olive micro dropper beneath an indicator. You couldn't hardly fish a moving bait because you kept picking up line trash on near every cast. Our first fish didn't hit the boat deck till 12:30 and we managed a total of ten by the time we had to weigh in. We were lucky enough to catch five decent rainbows though. We trolled some flicker shads on Friday from Scotty's on down and caught a couple of nice rainbows. I tried doing that Saturday morning, but I couldn't go very long before my jet was clogged from the surface trash so we tried throwing jigs around at the sewer plant and Monkey Island where there are always plenty of fish and I never even got a bite that I could tell. For anybody who doesn't follow Lilley's Landing Resort and Marina on Facebook or watch the one cast on YouTube, I've attached a picture so you can see just how nasty the water was. Fall Creek to Short Creek was cleaner and you could see about 2' during the middle of the day, but started to get dingier as the afternoon went on.

I stocked up on flickers and toostertails today. Hard to beat the prices.

I should step down to the bathroom with a casting setup and a big jigging spoon tied on and see if anybody says anything.

I love my Etec, but I hate having that darn oil tank in the bilge area. I'd be able to fit another battery in there and have a 36v trolling motor if it weren't for that thing. Maybe Cowtown and Outboard Jets will get the Etec G2 jet lined out by the time I decide I want to upgrade. The G2 has the oil reservoir in the cowling.

If three of us team up, I say we go hold our ground in the bathroom hole. Who wants to be the hero and make the first cast 5 seconds after the buzzer goes off and catch everybody else's line so the other two can get first dibs?

If you don't feel like messing with the super glue (or you realize you're only bottle dried up on the water), the Swingoil NED Headz work well. We caught over 50 smallmouth one day last year using those heads and a PBJ ZinkerZ and they held the baits in place very well. They are also 60 cents each instead of a buck like the Zman heads. Super glue is the way to go though if you have it.

Pick your starting point and see what it tells you. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/''/bell+chutes+access/data=!4m5!4m4!1m0!1m2!1m1!1s0x87db069348b9e25f:0xbe1f665282bb505b?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm24jlrrrZAhUKUK0KHaglAEcQ9RcIggEwCw

Springfield store? I'm going to stop by there on my way down to Taneycomo tomorrow. I was planning on stocking up on Roostertails since since they are BOGO as well as some of the line that they have on sale. One can never have too many flicker shads on hand either.

Yep, about $1-1.50 more than I need to be paying. I'll be stocking up on the colors that I use the most in the future from other sources for sure.