Seth

I dropped it off at Cowtown so they can handle the damage estimate portion. Once they get that done, I will get ahold of my insurance company and then they will have somebody come verify the damage and give me a check for my loss. It should be enough to pretty well cover the cost of a new hull since the boat is new enough. I'd rather have a new hull that I can 100% trust versus buying it back and trying to have it fixed myself. Most people would rather buy it back, have it fixed and pocket some money. I just want to get back on the water and go fishing.

Not sure about what normal readings for the Sullivan gauge is, but I know I screwed up and smoked some rocks down by Roaring Spring and tore my boat up the Wednesday before last when it was showing 3.85. There is a rock sticking a foot out of the water in the middle of that spot and I should have went to the right side of it and I went left. We made it back to Sand Ford with water sloshing around at our feet. I was more ticked off that I had to quit fishing early that evening as there were several nice fish caught that day.

Did you double it up? The last heat shrink that I bought wasn't nearly as stiff as the stuff I had before and I was having the same problem that you are having. I ended up "double bagging" the heat shrink and that helped out a lot. Melt one piece in place, slide another of the same size in place and melt it on top of the other piece of heat shrink. The stuff I had before this batch worked with just one piece. The bait shouldn't need to be replaced until you catch enough fish that it just breaks in half and that is usually after at least 10 fish.

Pline CX Premium in moss green for me. I started using it last winter and I really like it.

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If there is flow and you are using 1/8oz, you are fine with 4#. Anything 1/16oz or lighter is better on 2# simply because of the added casting distance. As for working the jig, try "snapping" the rod more and then just reel slow and pump it. Sometimes they like one over the other. I have a better hook up ratio when they are biting the "reel and pump" retrieve because I feel the bite before pulling back on the too hard. I suck at hooking them when I am snapping it and feel the weight of the fish on the snap. Most of the time they spit it out after feeling me pull on the jig and before I can set the hook.

It's 3.3 miles from Cooper Creek down to the White River Fish House according to Google Earth.

I use a size 1 octopus hook with a snell knot. When I get a bite, I just start reeling. 9/10 times the fish is hooked in the roof of the mouth and I rarely lose any. Sweeping hooksets to the side resulted in a bunch of lost fish. It was a hard habit to break, but it definitely improved my bite/catch ratio.

Dad had to drop his boat off at Troutt and Sons to have some maintenance done on his motor so we decided to shoot on down to the Springs afterwards. The Pond Hole was empty so we started there and stayed there the entire time. We both threw wacky rigged orange trout worms and caught 13 between us. Dad caught four and I caught nine. They were all 12-13" and worth cleaning. While cleaning our fish, another guy came up and had three that were all probably 1.75-2#. He said that he had caught a 5 3/4# rainbow earlier in the day and also had another lunker the day before. Ron who works down there told us that the fishing was better down by the second cleaning station, but we didn't mess with going down there to check it out since they were biting fairly well where we were at.

PBJ is the only color I bother carrying anymore. These river smallies near me love it.

I will add this. For weightless wacky rigging, I prefer the Senko for the faster sink rate. If I am using a flick shake jighead or texas rigging, I use the cheaper Yum Dingers or BPS models.

Get some clear shrink wrap and melt a couple pieces in the middle of your senko. You don't go through them nearly as often. I've tried the o-ring method of rigging and I still prefer the shrink wrap. I'd guess 10-12 fish per senko is about the norm with the shrink wrap.

How often do you guys water maters in raised beds when it's warm like this? I usually let the soaker hose run a few hours a couple times a week, but thinking maybe I need to do it more often? Those raised beds drain pretty well if they get too wet, but they also dry out faster than a regular tilled garden.

If I had my choice, I would take a mess of suckers fresh caught and scaled/filleted/ribbed/scored and deep fried over a trout every day of the week. It ranks up there just behind walleye and crappie in my opinion. We used to catch quite a few of them fishing crawlers and corn years ago, but that doesn't happen anymore. I could be wrong, but I think the popularity of gigging has reduced the numbers far below what they used to be.

Hate to be greedy, but I don't mind this. The fishing up that way has been great the past few weeks. The fish are dispersing though. It was decent this past weekend, but not nearly as good as it was afew weeks ago.

I wore my yellow TackleHD shirt the evening before so it was all nasty. The first thing I thought of when I woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning was that SIO3 sure is going to be sad when I don't have the yellow shirt on after I win today.

If you have experience on that stretch of river in a jet boat, how can you possibly compare LoZ traffic with that of a jet boat? They are polar opposites. I agree with Gator on the whole jet boat thing. With that said, I would MUCH rather this jet boat business not be on Taneycomo. The biggest issue to me is whether it stays below highway 65. There are times when you can barely get a fishing rig up through Short Creek so there is no way this attraction jet ride could make it up that way.

There are several that beat me FAR more than I beat them. I've just been fortunate with a couple good bites lately.

Another giant Big River largemouth! That river has produced several in the past few years.

Almost. I got third Friday evening. Still got some cash though.

That's good because they aren't in season right now. The season here in MO runs March 15-April 30. As high as the James was at the end of the season, I'm surprised there isn't an absolute pile of them stuck up there. That one you caught looks like a 35-40 pounder. Just imagine hooking one that weighs 140 pounds like this one that was caught down there a few years ago.

I like the PJ's jigheads the best, but if I need some jigheads in a hurry, I just grab some collared jigheads from Walmart in the size I need. I'll take pliers and mash the sides in slightly and then paint the lead with nail polish. I think they are like $2 for a 10 pack. The hooks aren't at strong as the better quality jigheads, but I haven't had any issues with them straightening out on trout since we are using 2-4# test. Typically, I will lose the jig to the bottom or a fish before it gets messed up enough to worry about powder painting. I've tied with collared and non collared jigheads and they both work, but I think the collared ones "look" a little better to me.

Half of a nightcrawler caught the majority of them, but we also caught some on corn. We never put air in our worms so they would lay on the bottom for the suckers and still caught quite a few trout. We hooked several of our biggest trout doing that without injecting the worms with air. When I was younger and didn't have a boat, I would spend hours walking around on the dock looking for white suckers with a half of a nightcrawler and a piece of corn (for visibility) and sight fish for them. When I saw one, I could ease the bait down to the bottom and get it a few inches in from of their nose and they would suck it in nearly everytime. We introduced several people during our stays down there to freshly caught fried suckers. Most preferred them over the trout.

Yep, that is a white sucker. My buddy caught a norther hog sucker across from Fall Creek a couple years ago on a countdown Rapala of all things. He threw his lure out, got a loop in his reel and it laid on the bottom for a bit. When he fixed his tangle and reeled his line tight, it started to fight back! We have caught a bunch of white suckers over the years down there, but this is the only hog sucker I'm aware of.

I had always thought that it was four fish and a 15" minimum length limit unless specified otherwise. Some places require them to be 18" like you posted above.