Seth

It will be like riding in a chuck wagon if it gets really rough, but you should be fine. I know several guys that take there flat bottom jets up to Loz to chase crappie in rough water during the spring. I used to run a flat bottom 1852 and did the same thing. My current 1860 semi v handles the rougher water better, but it still gets pretty rough in chop.

Just did a Google search and I keep seeing 6250 RPM's as the hard rev limit for a stock Etec EMM. I've personally ran in some pretty rough waters on LOZ where I was cavitating pretty bad. I've still never seen my tach reach over 5600 rpm's. When it is that rough, I can't run WOT anyways because flat bottom aluminum boats ride like a chuck wagon in rough water.

Every Etec jet I've ever seen ends up running between 5100-5600 RPM's at WOT. My 115 would max out around 5400 and my current 150 ends up around 5100.

Sounds a lot more productive than my Sunday afternoon trip to the Gasconade. I think I caught a half dozen with only one being a touch shorter than the one you got pictured. The others were dinks. My heart got to racing pretty good after something thumped my jig next to a wood pile, but it ended up being a 4# channel cat. He pulled like a good smally for a little bit and then started rolling and I knew what it was right away.

I ran a 2008 115/80hp Etec for four years and a 2013 150/105 Etec jet for the past two. They have treated me well and I'm a fan. Cowtown in Cuba, MO is who I deal with and they have always treated me right. Eberlin's in Hermann, MO also deals with a lot of Etec jet drives. Aside from the different labeling on the cowling, there won't be any difference between a factory jet and a prop motor that has had the lower unit swapped by a dealer. The factory jets will be rated by the horsepower being put out at the jet instead of by the powerhead, hence the difference in the cowling labels. The 40hp is equivalent to a 60hp powerhead, the 60hp jet is equivalent to a 90hp power head and the 105hp jet is equivalent to a 150hp power head, like what I currently have. My current rig is an 1860 Legend SS Vbass. With the 150/105, I run 42-44 mph downstream and around 37-39 mph upstream on the Gasconade.

I don't see why you would even have to bother downsizing it even more. I'm not sure how many bluegill and sunfish we caught on the NED Monday and Tuesday on Table Rock, but it was quite a few. It's a dink magnet! With that said, we did finally catch a smallmouth that was pushing 19" on it. I think that makes two bass that we've caught on the NED that broke the two pound mark. The less than two pound totals have to be pushing about 2,000 though.

Congrats on the win. You guys picked the right day to have a dream day! As for giving up details, you gave us a pattern, which gives folks a starting point. People who expect exact spots are just being greedy. I always love hearing about the different patterns that people do well on during tournaments. You mentioned that you were struggling in the dingy water around the dam area and ended up catching your fish out deeper in a different area. We did fairly well and caught around a dozen largemouths in two days on spinnerbaits, squarebills and tricks worms in less than 5' of water within two miles of the state park in coves. This sounds similar to how Stacey King's boat was fishing, which is just good old fashioned power fishing. It just goes to show that while somebody smokes em on one pattern, the next guy is catching them good doing something totally different. Figuring out how to catch the fish is almost as fun as actually doing it.

We covered a lot of shallow water and I never did see any bass on beds or cruising along the banks. I kept hoping we'd stumble across a big one locked on to a bed, but it never happened.

I'm with the others here at suspecting the weight of this fish. My hands aren't the biggest, but you can see in my pic that I could barely get my hand under the fishes head while still having a my thump on the top. The hand towards the back is in the same area as the guy holding the "state record" and there is no way I could support the underside of the fish and have any of my other fingers reach up high enough to see them on the back side.

My buddy and I came down to fish the Cops for Kids Tourney that was held today. We came down a day early so we could fish Monday since we've never actually bass fished on TRL before. We caught 11 keepers and around that many shorts on our maiden voyage on Monday so we had high hopes for Tuesday. On Tuesday, we started off with the shallow pattern that produced most of our largemouth the day before. I caught a nice 3 pounder right off the bat and then broke off its twin about 5 minutes later. The sun popped out after that and things slowed for us so we went out to hit some gravel points. They produced quite a few dink smallies, but never any keepers today. After screwing around with that until about 2pm, we decided to run back to the cove we started in, set the trolling motor on 100 and just beat the banks with squarebills and spinnerbaits. In the last hour and a half, we caught three more keeper largemouth, a couple just under 15" and lost another keeper on a crankbait. The four fish we did have weighed 10.68. Had I not screwed up on the early 3 pounder and also not bailed on our shallow power pattern, I really think we could have won some money. Either way, it was a well run event and we really had a blast down there. Here are the pics of each of our keepers from Monday. The largemouth were caught on weightless trick worms and squarebills. The smallies and spots came on spinnerbaits, squarebills and a PBJ Ned rig.

We weighed four largemouth for 10.68. Two were decent 3 and 3.5 pounders and and two were squeakers. A faulty knot cost me a good fish that morning that I guessed around 3 pounds. A trick worm on shallow wood produced our first two keeper bites (one about 3# and the one I btroke off) and that pattern died once the sun popped out, or so we thought anyways. Since we weren't doing well on the shallow fish, we decided to go fish some main lake gravel points that produced some keeper smallies for us the day before, but it only produced shorts today. With only 1 keeper in the boat at 2oclock, we decided to run back to the cove we started in, set the troller to 100 and beat the banks with spinnerbaits and cover as much water as possible. We managed to catch three more keeper largemouth in that time and lost another keeper on a crankbait. I was kicking myself for not sticking with the power fishing game, but I truly thought that sun would have jacked up the shallow pattern for us so we went out to fish points. This was our first time bass fishing on Tablerock and we had a ton of fun. We boated 11 keepers and around that many shorts on Monday while prefishing. Today was actually better for us from a number standpoint, but lacked the number of quality fish that we had the day before.

I saw it, but I wasn't paying attention to what lure he was using.

What prevents you from using spinning gear on with a 1/8oz carolina rig? Everybody on here throws 1/8oz sized rigs on spinning gear all the time.

I don't fish split or carolina rigs much at all, but I have a question. What do you gain with a split shot rig over say using a mini carolina rig with an 1/8oz or 1/4oz egg sinker? Is it just for the sake of simplicity or am I missing something here?

It was suspended up in a root wad and I just assumed it was a grass carp when I took a stab at it. We were all surprised when I lifted it in to the boat to see that it was a red horse.

Al, what kind of setup are you throwing your flukes on? I've alway uses a spinning rod for it too, but I think I would prefer to use a bait casting setup with flukes since I usually throw them on much stouter hook than I would say a senko or trick worm.

I stuck this one on the Bourbeuse last winter near Melody Lake. It weighed right at 12# and is the biggest I've personally ever seen. The state record for alternative methods was 14.5# if I remember correctly though.

I know people aren't a fan of Bass Pro, but I think their Pro Qualifier baitcast reels are hard to beat for the price. They are normally $100, but they mark them down to $80 pretty regularly. As for rod's, I really like the Cabela's Tournament ZX casting rods. They are normally $100 as well, but they are marked down to $70-80 pretty often. I'm using a 7'2" jig/worm tourney ZX rod paired up with a Lew's Speed Spool Tourney Pro and absolutely love that combo. A couple of the best bass fishermen I know also use the tourney ZX rods and feel they offer the best performance without breaking the bank. The Tatula rod and reel combo's are dang nice as well, but they are costlier than what I mentioned. My buddy has a Tatula combo and he spent around $300 on it if I remember correctly.

I couldn't get away to LoZ to chase crappie so I settled for bass on the Gasconade. After managing a measly four dinks, I now know why you guys hate this time of year. I had several fish pick up and swim around with my jig, but I swung a miss. I'm not sure if they were just dinks or bed fish trying to move the bait off but I had a heck of a time hooking anything. I just bought a GoPro to film my trips and was trying it out too. Mabe I jinxed myself since I was on camera.

1 3/4" spurs!!! Man I would LOVE see a picture of those things. That is just insane! I'm really wanting to get a full body turkey mount, but I am waiting until I can bust one with those 1.5" hooks that I've seen on other peoples turkeys. The bird I got yesterday was my 22nd spring bird and many had 7/8-1" spurs, but no big hooks.

Most home routers only have the ability to block by port and not by website. This site is access via port 80, which is what the majority of web traffic uses unless it is encrypted and then it uses port 443. If port 80 or 443 outbound were blocked, you wouldn't be able to get anywhere on the internet. I Googled your router model + firewall and found this link. Read through it, perform the steps and see if it solves your issue. http://portforward.com/english/routers/firewalling/Motorola/SBG6580/defaultguide.htm

I busted one at 7:20 this morning. It weighed 23-3 and had a 9.5" beard and 1" spurs.

Crappie are biting fine at LoZ, they just aren't on the banks spawning yet. Fish around brush in 12-20' of water and you will catch crappie. Nearly every spot like that produced fish Saturday, but only a few had a good concentration of fish on them. I'm thinking by Sunday or at least early next week, everybody will be able to go catch a mess of crappie shallow with ease. We're finally getting some warm and stable weather conditions. I'm hoping I can bust a thunderchicken during the week and go chase crappie next weekend.

Those fish are goofy. In the winter when it's cold, you would think they would prefer the sunlight but instead you have to shoot 20' up under a shaded dock to catch them. Glad you got them figured out.

I believe a 3 year old 36v Fortrex would be the 101# version.