WHARFRAT

love the fish pics, but darn them ribs look good!

guilty. I was butchered for years

Very Jealous right now, I walked into a spot, a mile+ in and a mile+ out three days in a row, GAINED 3lbs!!!! I think I gain weight just thinking of food. I've been with my wife for 34 yrs. She's 3lbs heavier than when I met her. She weighed 107 when she was 19 and now is at 110 at 53. She'll get on the scale at home and say she's lost a couple of lbs. Don't worry dear, I think I found them! Sorry for my little rant! BTW it was a good weekend. Mallards only 4 Friday, 4 Saturday & 3 Sunday. no other ducks in the air. I think I only missed one duck that I shot at and was out of the area in less than 2 hrs each day. Believe me, its not normally like that for me. its usually 2 ducks per box of shells and there until 1pm. Must be the extra weight I put on, it steadied my aim!

Yeah, it can get pretty rough around there, but not as bad as if you were closer to the dam or the grand glaize bridge. RPS is right on, seeing that you want a multi-species boat. Lund, Alumacraft, and Crestliner all make similar boats. If $ is no object, go with the lund. I've ridden in a model# 1975 ProV up in Minnesota last year, and it was one "sweet" ride, even in rough water. Being that close to the main channel of the lake, I would probably not want to go any smaller than a 19 footer. RPS, I saw pics of you Navigator. I love the tiller set up they make now, pretty nice, especially if you have an I-pilot. You don't see too many tiller set ups on LOZ. Its a great guide boat. If my home lake were anywhere other than LOZ I would take a hard look at a set up like yours!

LOZ is a big lake, with different characteristics depending where you are. So what area or MM will you mainly fish? And what time of the year will you fish?

You know after re-reading your post, I see you are probably going to a fish N ski. I would consider Lund. Its aluminum, but it is the Cadillac of Aluminum boats. When I was up in Minnesota last year, I rode in someones Pro V1975 (?) He powered it with a Yamaha 150 4 stroke, and it pushed it quite well, he also had a little 9hp kicker on the back for trolling at slower speeds. But the features were some of the best I've ever seen in boats. There was so much storage in the boat. The designers used almost every square inch of the boat for some type of storage. I think there was center rod storage and rod storage on both sides. Since its a deep boat, you could get a ton of stuff in each compartment. I rode in the boat a couple of times. Once on a real calm day and talk about a smooth ride. The next day, it was pretty rough, and didn't get a drop on me. Handles the rough water better than any fishing boat I've ever been on. I think they're pretty pricey, but, you said price being no object, and you are looking for that style of boat, that's the one I'd get! Crestliner and Alumacraft have similar styles, at a better price point, but I still think Lund is the one!

I owned a fish n ski back in the 90's. Hated it. Not a fan of the W/T windshield, takes away a lot of space. Now, I strictly fish out of my boat. In 30+ years have had 2 aluminum boats and 2 glass boats. Bought a glass boat early 80's, it was a small 16' boat. Loved it! I think it was a Tidecraft, can't remember the model, but it was perfect for what we could afford. I will say it wasn't the best put-together boat, but it hardly gave me any trouble at all. Then we started having babies, and the wife wanted a deeper, bigger boat. Went to a 20' Stratos Fish n ski. It was expensive to maintain, gas guzzler, just not at all convenient for me. Not a lot of space to fish up front. I own an aluminum Fisher MarshHawk 17.5'. And it is really a decent boat. I like it, suits my purpose. But now, the boat lives on Lake of the Ozarks, and I too will probably go back to glass, just because I think they are a little more stable, and are better with wind. I'm going to stay with bassboat style. Of course the wife wants a windshield or at least a dual console, but I'm by myself about 85% of the time, so I think I'll stick with a single console. I've ridden in Champions, Chargers, Nitros, and truthfully, as far as ride goes, not much difference. And a good smooth ride. The ride difference came in the two different Rangers. One was a 20', I think it was a 520 model. What a nice boat! Then I rode a 175 or 178vs or vx, and it was smaller, but the ride was about as good. I'd probably not be able to afford the 20' ranger, but now I'm looking towards a good used 17.5 to 18' Ranger. Plus, the 115 Yammy on the back of the 178, just sipped gas compared to the 250 on the 20' ranger. The only things about the smaller rangers that I didn't like was, 1. I want center rod storage, and 2. front and rear livewells. And I don't think it had that. But I've got time, to look around, not really in a big hurry, like I said the Fisher serves its purpose right now. It's just a want, and not a need. Good luck on your search, I would definitely ride some different models. And find out what suits your taste!

I don't shoot as many as I used to, but we used to breast them out and freeze them, then at the end of the year, go have someone make some sausage sticks out of them. If done right, pretty tasty. Great for snackin in the boat/field for next year. We did shoot a few last year, and took them and had jerky made, but..... wasn't very good.

my condolences to your Falcon. Love the rods! Good Quality, Good price. Would compare it to rods twice the price! Nice catchin' too!

NICE! Seems really late this year.

Great advise! Also, tie on about 2' of line to the back of topwater bait, and add your favorite jig to trail behind. Its really fun when you get two at a time!

I'm getting pressure from the wife about a deep V. I personally would rather have a bass boat style. Not a big fan of a WT windshield. Had a 20' Javelin back around 1992, and I hated it. Even with a boat that was 19-20' long, the W/S took up so much room. She wants one b/c we have a 2yr old grandson, and she likes the safety aspect because of the deepness of it. But that being said, when I had the Javelin, it's the only boat, my son who was about 3 or 4 at the time, fell out of, into the water. So go figure. I told her, if we went to a deep V, it will only be a single console. We checked out the Crestliner fishhawk 1750 and 1850, seems like you get a lot of bang for your buck, but, I'm still fighting her on the idea. I like my little Fisher Marshhawk. It gets me from point A to point B, about as economically as you can get.

What few white bass we've caught this week, they've all been pretty good size. Here is one Miss Julie caught on a flicker shad. Btw, I've never seen so many Cormorants than I've been seeing this week. Must be gorging on the shad.

Today was really cold, wind made it hard to control the boat, managed about a half dozen good size crappie and quite a few in the 8-9" range. Was only out for a couple hrs this morning.

The docks were in the 18' range real close to a bend in the main channel

Yesterday was the day to be out there. Wasn't able to go out until about 2:30, but in just a short period of time, I probably caught a couple of limits. It was a C&R day, so all fish are back home and safe in their beds. I'm amazed at how quickly the water temps have plummeted. Two weeks ago they were 78-80 degrees, now I'm not finding anything higher than 63. Most of the nice ones were blacks between 10.5 and 12". I found them on main lake docs on the Big Niangua between the 8 and 10mm. Shooting a red/chart slab buster or stinger shad in the front third of the dock, I don't think the jig is falling much more than 3' before the strike. Caught more shooting next to lifts with galvanized tanks more so than with poly tanks. Here's a few pics of the fish. Notice one has a red bloody spot on its side. A couple of days ago I had caught numerous fish with the same spot. Not sure what's going on with them.

I was using a hot n tot, Tennessee shad color

The crappie stunk today, Miss Julie went out with me this afternoon, she boated 2 overs to my zilch. Then while pulling cranks, my PR for walleye. 27 3/4". My cheap scale said 7 1/2 lbs. don't know how accurate that is, but still, almost 3" bigger than my all time walleye, caught when I was a teen. By the way, she went back to be caught another day.

Extremely tough today. Caught 4 overs and 2 unders. Deep, shallow. They seem scattered. No pattern. Going to go get lunch, then maybe pull some cranks, try to salvage this day. One of the overs was just a bit over 12 1/2".

I'm at the 13mm of the Big Niangua, close to the hwy 54 bridge. Sitting here at 6:45 this morning drinking a little coffee, got the long Jons on, getting ready to have at it. Going to be a chilly ride this morning, going up close to bridal cave and fish some brush. Hopefully they'll be easy to find. Unless I'm just exploring, I don't go much farther up the lake than where the little niangua comes in. Good luck!!!!!

Leaving tonight, going to be there a full week. Hope to catch some. Probably keep a few. Nice catch Stuart. Were they still in the docks? I've just been using jigs and shooting them in the dark confines of the docks and doing pretty decent, especially on sunny days. Seems like when the sun goes down and/or cloudy you'll find them scattered around the outside of the docks near wood. Great eating size you got there. When the crappie are around the 11-12" mark, it don't take as many for a meal for the wife and I. We like to cook em fresh out of the lake. I'm not a white bass fan, I'd save those for the dogs (or in-laws) Good luck next week and Happy Birthday. Let us know how you did!

I did talk to a couple that were catching a lot of whites. They didn't give up too much information, but it appeared that they were pulling small crankbaits. They did say the whites were running very small. When they left our docks, they headed in the direction of Ha Ha Tonka. I saw a lot of shad, but nothing seemed to be chasing them. A few disturbances here and there, but nothing like in past weeks. I like catching, but don't like eatin them

Couldn't get down until late last night, went on our docks at dark, I caught one real nice one. Wife caught about a half dozen keepers. Fish were 3-4' down in 15 fow. Went out at 7 this morning, didn't catch a whole lot, but most were pushing 12". So they were really nice. Came in about 11, wifey was on the dock and tearin them up. Same pattern as the night before. Slabbusters, with a nib straight down, she was getting the bite about 4' down.

WOW! 18's are nice.. I don't think I've ever personally broke the 16" mark. And the last one over 15" I landed, I took the snoopy pole out of my 3 yr olds hand and landed it for her. She's now 28. So it's been a long time. Now before we had kids, my wife and I were bass fishing on a 40 acre lake and she caught a crappie just under 19". Wish I would have got it mounted for her, but we didn't really have the spare change at that time of our lives. For some reason, big crappie elude me. This year I've only caught a handful of crappie over 13"s, and I've caught a ton of fish this year. The biggest one in our boat this past year, my son-in-law caught a 14 1/2" fish. But, the year isn't over, I still got time!

This weekend was kind of goofy. No real pattern emerged. Temp was mid 70's. Could see fish on brush anywhere from 4-8' down. For some reason, can't catch fish vertically jigging, and I love doing that more than anything. I guess I'm addicted to the "thump". Got up Saturday morning, and said "no way" not going out on the boat in this rain. So I grabbed a big ol cup of coffee and headed out to our docks. Maybe hour and a half caught 3 small crappie verticle jigging. Caught in middle of stalls, no cover to speak of. Left ran some errands. Got back around 2, rain pretty well quit. Miss Julie wanted to nap, so out to the lake I went. Saw the fish on the graph, couldn't buy a bite. Was out for 2 hours, caught 5 or 6. All but one could have went in the livewell. Wound up shooting docks, but the fish bit almost to the boat about 4' down. Went in, Pretty dejected, but Miss Julie met me on the dock with life vest in hand. So out we went, fished until about six, with only a couple of 10" fish, I was ready to call it a day, she wanted to cast to some of my deep brush. I didn't have any luck on it earlier, but we rode over to the two spots. We stayed out until just past dark, probably caught 20 keepers. She got the prize, with a 12.5"er. Of course she knows way more than me now! Sunday, I guess the high pressure spooked them, except for the dinks. I think I caught only one fish that measured. Went in about 10:30, Miss Julie is on the dock, and get this, verticle jigging and tearing up the big crappie. I just tied up the boat, lifted it up, and put the cover on. I conceded. I was a beaten man. Anyway, the fish we did find, still don't seem to be on the October pattern, I'm not finding many fish mid cove, they still seem to be around points and docks around points. I'm still fishing the same water I was fishing in August. Anyway, that's all I got.