hendernt

my wife got her 1st ever deer this year on opening day nice 8 point w/ tiny brow tines. She shot it with a 20 gauge slug at about 25 yds. It wasa great hunt and basically textbook. I saw the deer 6 yds away walking down a drainage and grunted at it. It turned and came right to us stopping along the way to make a scrape ad rub 2 trees then stopped broadside @ 25yds right in the shooting lane.

went yesterday and no btes...the water is still pretty high and muddy on the east side of the bridge. The whites have been hit and miss and havent hooked a crappie yet, but i figure it wont be long for them

Went to taylor ths morning and I caught 1 LM and hooked 1 white that threw the hook at the shore. Didnt see very many fish caught and there were a lot of bank fishermen. Then went up t the 215 bridge got 1 bite and missed the fish talked t one guy who said they had caught 3 or 4 small whites.

I ate carp fried ne time and it tasted like cod or fishsticks. We scored it like a sucker and deap fried it and the little bones al went away and the bg ones made good tooth picks

I was at taylor on saturday and the SAC was about 2' high and muddy and the feeder creeks were clearing, but there were some whites in there still just tougher to catch. I am going friday and will post an update

Tim, I caught a 16" musky at fellows on monday while crappie fishing w/ my ultralight man that was fun...I to do not understand the logic of no wading or bellyboats bt we will allow water skiing. Afriend and I were out there last summer while some people were skiing made it hard to fish in a canoe w/ them buzzing around the lake by us, but none the less still had fun fishing. One other thing I do not understand is why they dont allow canoes or boats east of the bridge or at mcdaniels. On another note while I was fishing on monday a couple of guys were out there checking out the stairs on the east side of the bridge and from what I gathered someone fell off of them and got hurt so they closed the steps.

went to fellows today after work for a couple of hors and caught my 1st musky. It was a small one about 16 inches bt on an ultralight rod (was actually fishing for crappie) it put up a good fight. That was all I caught and I only had 1 other bite. The water is still muddy east of the bridge and also in spots west of the bridge (mostly where the water flows under the road.

not storm swimming minnows I get them at fin and feather in springfield they are poured by them I believe I buy them in bulk

went to the little sac today and the water is still up and has a decent current and is still pretty muddy (about 6" visibility) at taylor anyway. however the feeder creeks were all clearing up really well (at least unti the rain came today).

My wife and I took our 2 boys from Good Samaritan Boys Ranch to taylor today for a couple of hours, the water was high w/ a decent current and very murky (could only see my lure about 6" down. My wife caught 1 male white decent sized (the one on top) and I caught a smaller white (the one on bottom) both males. I missed one good bite and one of the boys lost one. Not a bad day between rain showers. The consevation agent showed up and checked our permits and fish again today as well (she was very nice and answered a lot of questions for us). I have been checked twice in as many weeks, and according to her the whites were starting to move up the river until we got all of the rain (mostly males). we were using purple swmming minnows today and the agent said before the storm people were catching on small blue rattle traps.

well I can tell you this my wife and I fished for only a couple of hours tonight and got checked by an undercover conservation agent (showed us his badge when he walked up) and he was checking everybody that was at orleans. nice guy and glad he was out checking. He and his partner were in an unmarked boat fishing as well. The report I caught 1 short (6") LM threw him back and fshed for another hour and that was it not even anymore bites.

went to orleans for a couple of hours after work and caught 1 short LM other wise no luck. Talk to several people including a conservation agent and they all said there were a few short whites cought but nothing spectacular

I hunted bois darc as well on tuesday and only fired 11 shots. Didnt see many birds flying. However the guy at the headquarters told me that there were between 1200 and 1300 birds killed tuesday morning. Shocking considering the most we saw at one time was maybe 12 birds. most of the time it was singles or doubles then wait for 45 minutes to se a couple more.

I have fished it up around fair grove and have caught everything from bass to suckers. all in all it is a decent little stream and perfect for ultralight work for some small to medium fish. Today when I fished it I caught a pretty good size goggle eye about 6 inches long and 4.5 tall and fat. good fight on an ultralight

a couple of good bait rigs for rght up below the dam. A weighted bobber w/ a small split shot and cricket about 3-4 feet below the bobber. Throe it up by the dam and let it float back. I have caught everything from gar to catfish to crappe on this rig. If you just want to fish for whatever try wheatie balls and catch some of the crap (oops i mean carp) that hang out don there. Also anything ressembling a shad when thrown right up against the dam can get strikes from bass.

I know when I used to fish there a lot we would occasionally get a paddlefish that had tangled itself in our line. They are fun to fight w/. As for gar there are a ton of them there and I have seen a few people bow fish for them and carp. The few times I have actually landed a gar it was like I hooked a submarine. If you just want to catch fish buy a box of wheaties and fish for carp w/ wheatie balls. there are a ton of them in there as well.

I fund a good book a couple of years ago about fly fishing for carp called carp on the fly a flyfshing guide. It is written by barry reynolds, brad befus, and john berryman. It lists sme good fly patterns in it ie clouser swimming nymph, bead head prince nymph, wooly bugger, bead head stonefly nymph, san juan worm, midge larvae, griffiths gnat, parchute emergers, ants, beetles, hoppers, scuds and crawdads. It also has some specialty flies like a cottonwood seed (basically white cdc tied parachute style) and a thistle seed (looks similar to a mdge pattern just bigger hackle). I also have seen patterns for things like mulberries etc that might work at the right time and place. hope this helps

I shoot sonic pro 100 grain heads and they took a deer down @ 60 yds with a clean pass through and stck in a cedar tree behind the deer the deer fell about 20 yds away from where I hit it. They shoot just like my field points as well

lilley Yes it is a beautiful place we ate some St Peters fish as well I agree a little bony but pretty good. I really liked the lox for breakfast though man that was good stuff. Did you get to go to the dead sea lilley? talk about a lot of minerals we went swimming in it and even after a shower we had white minerals caked to our skin crappiefisherman It would have been nice to have a boat, but unfortunately I had to fish from shore (a dock actually) but there were quite a few people fishing along the shore I attached a few pictures of the water and 1 of me floating in about 3" of water @ the dead sea

congrats guys. My morning didnt go as well as yours but still had a fun and interesting time. I had 2 Good gobblers w/ in 200 yards gobbling their heads off to every sound in the woods and @ about 6:30 a hen few down in front of me and took the closest gobbler across a tree line. then about 6:45 I had another hen fly over my head and land on the other side of a river. About 10 minutes later I had an egret try to land in my lap until i moved my hand then it got the heck out of dodge. I also saw 3 does about 10 geese and I dont even know how many ducks fly over. lots of wildlife just no shooting. I put my gun away around 9:00 and grabbed my fishing pole and ended the day w/ about 25 white bass between me and a buddy

My wife got in a pheasant hunting class put on by the conservation department this year. She got 1 male and then she went to another class by conservation on how to mount a pheasant. Attached is the bird in progress and then the finished product. It is my understanding that MDC does a few of these every year for women and kids

we had a good day on monday around the steel bridge. all in all we had about 25 whites (all were females except 2) that me and a buddy brought home (we had 1 more stringer just about as full and I had already cleaned 1 fish when we remembered t take pictures. The water was really muddy but we found some clear tributaries holding fish. We were using swimming minnows in a smoke color in clear water where we could find it. caught quite a few smaller LM some in the 12" range, and had 3 fish break our line before we could land them and also lost probably 10 or 12 more because we didnt hook them well. All in all a good trip. I would say when the water clears up the fishing will be pretty good

Binman, I know that when I fished it we saw quite a few as well but never like the one day described above kinda takes the fun out of fishing at least from shore when there are more snakes than fish. However if the fish are biting I will put up w/ a few snakes. Also Springfiled is a good lake especially below the dam when there is water going over it. I have caught a lot of LM and cats. We also used to catch a lot of Carp, some good sized gar and an occasional spoonbill. Lots of fun on light or ultra light tackle. I always had a lot of luck catching mixed bag of fish on crckets rigged about 3-4 feet below a weighted bober w/ a bb size split shot about 8 inches above the cricket. Throw it right up in the water coming off the dam and keep an eye on the bobber any twitch set the hook.

I have always heard that the lake is polluted due to the power plant, however I dont think that is really true. My biggest complaint about the lake is during the summer when the water all but stops flowing over the dam the water below it gets kinda stagnant and really doesnt smell very good. As long as there is a decent water flow over the dam it is a good place to fish I used to fish it from the shore almost every day after work. My only other complaint was the last time I was in the park (about 5 yrs ago) in the summer, I almost stepped on 5 snakes in a period of about 20 minutes. 1 of which I am almost psitive was a cottonmouth and one of which was a copperhead, but I have heard that the shores are better now.

I shoot a Darton trailboss set at about 58# it isnt a popular bow but it is quiet and I have taken 1 deer w/ it at about 55yds and had a clean blow through of both lungs (my arrow hit a cedar tree about 5 yds past the deerwhich is what stopped it). I got it cheap which is why I shoot it. I have a friend who swears by PSE bows and I have shot his bow and it is fast and quiet. I have also shot matthews bows and Parker bows both of which are nice to shoot. My wife shoots a browning which is a nice quiet bow as well. In todays day and age almost any bow that fits you ad is quiet is a good bow to hunt with. As I said I got mine because it was right at $200 for the full set up. I also an older PSE (about 10 yrs old) but havent had the chance to shoot it yet and also a pearsons that is about 5 yrs old but havent shot it yet either (got them because i got both full set ups for 150). I am thinking of making 1 a bow fishing bow.