Seth

As long as you enjoy what you are doing, why change? Most people I know are a one species type of person. I'm just kind of an oddball, but it's just how I was brought up. I've gone through several phases of what I was in to fishing for and ended up being able to go catch most of them somewhat decently. My biggest flop was chasing big blues and flatheads on the Missouri River. I never did figure that out and then the darn asian carp has caused the shad population to suck balls and make it really hard to get fresh bait without having to drive all over the state so I just kind of gave up.

I keep a few small ones for myself each year, but I personally don't care much for the larger fish. To me, they have a "different" taste. There are always a bunch of people that want them though so I give a few away every year to those folks. The people that are really gung ho about them usually grill or smoke them.

If I hadn't been able to make a run in the daylight, I wouldn't have even attempted it. I had a close call there a few years ago. The water was plenty high, but there was a gigantic root wad just up from point 15 where it shallows up and starts bending to the right and I nearly ran right in to it! I guess the water was really high at some point the previous year and it pushed that big thing down the river. It's not there any more so I guess it may have been a floater. Since then, I've made sure to go down early and make sure I make a run up the river to check for new obstacles. That could have been a bad deal!

I would normally be jealous, but I can "almost" honestly say I'm glad to be at work today just to recover from the past few days.

Years of experience, a jet boat, Lakemaster chip and making a day time run up the river to mark every stump near the channel helps. It really doesn't get bad until you reach the bend below Walnut Spring access. There is one stick up about a 1/2 mile down that could get a guy running up, but that's about it as long as you stay in the channel and not too close to the bluff walls. Those suckers are lined with trees.

That's still one more 20 incher than I have caught in a while! My longest that I boated last year almost 19" and it was one of those long, slender summer fish and only weighed around 2.5 pounds. The fall before last was the last time I broke the 20" 4# mark and I've only done it twice in my life. I can't say much.

It's all good. I'm sure I come off as an arrogant jerk too. I just call it confidence.

I bass fish plenty from the end of May through October. November is for chasing deer. From December until May, I'm pretty much after crappie, trout and then paddlefish during March and April. Some of us like to fish for more than just one species of fish. These are all from this week. I caught a bunch of trout during the day on the 15th, but didn't catch any worth taking a picture of. You can read my report in the Upper Taneycomo section if you would like though. I've also posted the info on our snagging in the Tablerock section. Unlike some of the forum members who seem to think that the only thing worth posting is pissing and moaning about other people fishing "their" waters, there are some of us who actually post details to try and help others out.

Those were on the Gasconade. I'm not sure what bodies of water you fish, but I can see where you are coming from. Aside from the occasional Bourbeuse River float, I usually fish the Meramec, Gasconade and Osage where you can cover a lot of water in a jet boat.

Catching 20 inchers in the winter on topwater and doesn't post any pictures to back it up...... sounds like a good fish story! Probably best though. The super genius smallmouth anglers on this forum would probably have the location triangulated and figured out in short order and then ruin the fishery!

I'm a bit tight lipped when it comes to winter areas, but I couldn't care less about telling people where I caught fish and what I caught them on in the warm months. It seems like I have to figure a new pattern every time I go out anyways so I stopped worrying about somebody else knowing how I caught fish on a certain day. Heck, I even started recording myself on GoPro and making videos so everybody could see exactly how and where I caught my fish. You wouldn't believe how many people I talked to that said they tried the same thing and couldn't catch much at all. People seem to think that once something works once, that's all you ever need to catch fish. They don't take in to account time of day, river conditions, etc. I get a kick out of it.

It was 10-12' most of the way up until you get to the Walnut Springs Ramp. Once above that, it was more like 5-6' and then drops down a few more feet once you get up river to where it necks down. You can't make it all the way to McCords without a jet boat though. It's just a riffle once you get up to a certain point.

It is shallow, but you can just get up there fine if you know the channel. My Lakemaster chip made running from Bridgeport to McCords Bend MUCH easier, especially in the dark. There's a lot of stobs up that way though. Those are what will get you.

Point 15 of James River arm so up river from Bridgeport.

Once boat traffic dies down, we snag during the day. We always go right when it opens to get first dibs on the fish. The fish become a lot tougher to find and snag even after the first day. It will pick back up when the water warms up again and new fish move up. New fish won't be moving up much with the water being 45-48 degrees though. I should have taken screen shots of how stacked we found them the first night and then compared it to the second night.

I love it for winter fishing. It's my go to bait. Once the water warms up, it turns in to a dink magnet and I usually just put it away until winter.

Came down for our annual trip and did really well. We never ended up with any giants, but caught a lot of small males with a few sows up to 56#. On the first night/morning, we boated 15 between 12am-4am. On the second night, we caught four more between 12-2am. They weren't nearly as concentrated as the night before. I'm sure the pressure from the daylight snaggers had the fish stirred up a bit. Everything was caught above point 15. I also caught my first tagged fish. My buddy caught one too. We kept six the first night, but never messed with keeping any the second night. My decks were a solid sheet of ice where we were pulling the fish in to the boat after a few hours of snagging on the first night. We also trout fished on Taneycomo during the day on the 15th. I posted a report for that in the Upper Taneycomo section.

We were down for our annual snagging trip (report for that is in the Tablerock section). After snagging the first four hours of season, we caught a few ZzZzZ's and then headed for Taneyomo during the daylight. We put in and ran down to Monkey Island and the fishing was good all day. A 1/16 or 3/32oz black marabou jig was the best followed by a sculpin/orange. We caught a few fishing a pink trout magnet and pink powerbait worm under a float, but they preferred the jig. We didn't catch many of the really small silver bullets, but did catch a lot of 10-12 inchers. A few of the rainbows were pushing the 1# mark and my buddy also caught a nice 17" brown. The last time I was down fishing the Elfrink tourney, they wouldn't hardly touch a jig down there and wanted something under a float. Conditions were nearly identical too. Trout are silly.....

Got down around 1:30 and fished for 2.5-3 hours in the pond hole down to the falls below the second cleaning station. Ended up catching 8, but had a bunch more hooked that I had come unbuttoned during the fight. Orange trout worm was again the best bait. I caught several by just drifting a Bekley Powerbait worm under a float as well as the traditional slow reel and shake method. The fish that were holding well above the falls in each location bit better. The pods of fish that were sitting right in front of the falls in both spots weren't very active, but they were also getting beat on by other anglers the entire time. While cleaning my fish a couple guys came up and said that they watched an angler catch a 4 pounder out of riffle by the bathroom hole. He was sight fishing for it with a jig and it took him a long time to get it to bite.

Pumping the rod to fight the fish was non-existent. The term "Set the hook!" didn't mean anything. The line on those reels is probably so twisted up, it just needs respooled and it's a good thing some of the fish swallowed the hooks. Teaching somebody who isn't very experienced at fishing in the first place to try and trout fish with light tackle can be very trying, but it's totally worth it when they finally catch one!

Took a group of nine high school aged students in the hunting and fishing club that I sponsor down for our annual school field trip. Water is low, clear and full of very nice trout. Six of the nine kids caught trout and a couple who were familiar with trout fishing caught 15-20 fish. Me and another teacher that went down to help out probably caught 40-50 between the two of us. The best bait by far was the good old orange wacky rigged trout worm. The Powerbait brand seemed to produce the best, but I caught plenty on the cheap versions. I also caught a few on a white/orange trout magnet, 1/32oz white marabou jig, and bait (brown 007, velveeta cheese, rainbow and yellow powerbait) drifted under a float. It's not too often that the weather and fish cooperate as well as they did today.

My air stream was bought to be used as a trout setup with 2# test, but I love it so much that I just have to swap reels and take it with me when I go crappie fishing. It's just so dang light and fun to fish with! I have a feeling my Microlites will be getting replaced with a couple more Airstreams before it's over with.

These are the combos I use for crappie. 6' medium light BPS Microlite graphite spinning rod w/ Pflueger 6925 and 4# Mr Crappie Hi-Viz mono (dock shooting with 1/16oz jigheads) 6'6" ultralight Browning Airstream w/ Pflueger 6925 and 4# Mr Crappie Hi-Viz mono(dock shooting 1/32oz jigheads) 7' light BPS Microlite graphite w/ Pflueger 6925 and 4# Mr Crappie Hi-Viz mono(slip corking, casting double jig rigs, vertical jigging) 10' Sam Heaton super sensitive w/ Pflueger 6925 and 4# Mr Crappie Hi-Viz mono (dipping brush and standing timber) I would rather have 6# on my other setups and 15# braid on the long rod so I can straighten hooks from snags, but I have a bunch of the 4# Hi-viz Mr Crappie line so that's what I have been using on everything. It gets the job done for us.

I'm headed down Wednesday to fish and bringing along a dozen high school aged kids. I'll let you know how we fair. Hopefully the fish cooperate and everybody can at least catch something.

I JUST started using this stuff in 2# for my trout rods after seeing several people talking highly of it. So far I really like it. Hopefully BPS will still have some left in a few weeks and I can pick up several spools to last me a while.