Mitch f

Well Dan I agree with you; I guess it will take a long time to change the "Hearts and Minds" as they say of the poachers. One time I was in the boat ramp parking lot at the Riddle Bridge Access on the Gasconade River. An MDC agent was checking fishing licenses and he asked me where I was from. When I told him St. Louis, his comment was "I don't need to check your license, you're not local. The local people are the ones that do all the poaching" I was quite surprised by his response. I will do all I can to report the poachers myself without getting into a confrontation.

Went fishing with a smallmouth alliance member yesterday on the Meramec. The bite was pretty tough, the fish seemed to be scattered. We caught maybe 12-15 fish but was able to catch a nice smallie (19.5") near the end of the day on a wiggle wart. The water was slowly dropping since the rains a couple weeks ago. We had several fish pop the jigs we were using but when you tried to set the hook they weren't there. Seemed like a spawning behavior to me. Water temps around 60, murky water in some areas and 3-4 ft visibility in others.

I have fished Joachim Creek in Festus, a good friend owns property that has river frontage. It is capable of producing large fish in the 20" range. This stream is one of Missouri's great treasures. Last year he caught a guy wading on his property with a stringer full (well over the limit) of 15-17" smallmouth, dragging them down the river. The guy claimed he had no idea what the limits were. These streams unfortunately are susceptible to 1 or 2 bad eggs destroying the fish population. There is really no way to police these streams very well. The only good thing to say is at least you cant' get those darn jet boats (I own one) down a small creek like that...............ha ha Anyway, sounds like a lot of fun Al! thanks for the post

double uni always works for me too! wet the knots and if you have dissimilar diameters, double the thickness of the thin line.

The more I fish the rivers, the smaller my jigs have become. The last few times I've caught nice jig fish in Missouri they threw up crayfish that were 2" or less in size. I know the Eakins team made their jigs smaller after recognizing the fact that they catch more and bigger fish by using a smaller finesse jig. The 5/16th oz Eakins jig is the biggest jig I will ever throw anymore. I've heard of situations like night time fishing where you may need a larger profile jig so the fish can find it quicker. I know the crayfish change size during the year and was wondering if anyone has had sustained success with a large jig? The other variable is the hook, I think I'm going to try to pour my own jigs using a bronze hook instead of a black nickel hook. I think the bronze will rust after 2 weeks if you break off on a fish, allowing the fish to survive. I'm not talking flipping jigs now but I think the light wire hook with an O'Shaunessy bend seems to be a good combination for a finesse jig. I was wondering if you guys were going to design the perfect jig, what style jig head would use for the rivers? I've always been a big fan of football heads but it's hard to find a small weedless football head with a smaller hook. any suggestions would help.

Went to Meramec yesterday (4-10) and had similar results, fished all the right places. Water was high and won't be perfect for a few more days but thought I would give it a shot anyway. Fished with a spinnerbait most of the day and only caught 4 fish. The water was pea soup with about 24" visibility. The fish we caught really smacked the spinnerbait when they hit it but only a few wanted to play. Lot of jet boat traffic in late afternoon.

First thing you do is bring a can of spray paint to cover up the stump of the freshly chopped off little tree. The first thing savvy fishermen do is browse the shoreline for cut trees and they know brush pile is near.

Cricket, you're a philosopher! I've got some of those same failings myself!

When I get upset is when I watch Bill Dance pick up an 8 lb bass by the lower lip and hold it horizontally without supporting the tail. I'm happy he releases it but can't be good for the fish.

I saw a guy on the river with a mullet fishing a few days ago in his jet boat with his "old lady" on the deck. He was blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd and caught a couple of fish. I wonder if smallmouth bass prefer Country Rock or Heavy Metal? Personally I think the fish were attracted to the mullet and came up to take a look.

I would like to personally thank you Dan for all the work the Blue Ribbon panel has done, you are moving in the right direction regardless of what some people say! I don't see anybody else taking the lead. You are my hero man!

I agree with Trav to a point, with the exception of the new japanese jerkbaits that have perfect action right out of the box (no more buying 5 husky jerks or Rogues until you find a good one), I'm tending to spend less and less on my lures and rely more on imparting the correct action instead buying the latest "hot" bait. In my business, technology has taken away what used to be considered an art form. The kids out of college are superior to me with the use of computers, things that used to take us days to accomplish can now be done in hours. But like Chris Farris said, these new electronics are a "game changer". It takes much less time to get to know a lake and find one little piece of structure down 30 feet deep that you may never find with poor electronics. But good old fashion boat handling ability and fishing know how more than levels the playing field. But if you can put in the time and learn the electronics inside and out, there's no way it cant make you a better and more complete fisherman. A little off the subject but one of the things that really makes me go postal is some guy burning down the lake at 70 mph in his 21 ft Champion through a dense fog just because he has a good GPS system.

I fished with the Guru when he caught this pig, it was a huge fish, caught 40 fish, I only caught 15 Guru caught the rest, he done wupped up on me again

Mosouthpaw- I dont like PETA either, bunch of idiots. But how far would you go if you saw a group of boats snagging large trout with a treble hook? No, I wouldnt ram their boat but I would harass them and call the MDC folks.

I've always used Seagar Carbon Pro and have had good luck. Some of the fluoro coated lines dont seem to last long enough for me. Any thoughts?

I'm curious the preferred method of fishing these lures, I know all of the old time smallie experts fish these and I thought they were fished almost like a sub surface bulge bait. When I looked on the War eagle package it says "Fish in the same place you fish a football jig,Carolina rig, or a deep crankbait.If you fish it slow, you can't fish it wrong" which sounds much different than I was thinking. Need some advice

My inlaws are chinese and I know they are the some of the worst abusers of mother nature. I took my father in law fishing and when I released an 18" smallmouth, he looked at me like I was the "missing link". The culture of these people is so old that they won't change for many generations. Thats why they have little to no natural resources.I'm a conservative by nature but I agree that sometimes it takes a radical element to shock the conventional way of thinking.

I've been running into this gigging problem ever since I purchased my jet boat a few years ago. I went to the MDC and was given a stock answer saying that they have no evidence that gigging is reducing the number of smallmouth in the Ozark river chain. This subject seemed so taboo to them that they didn't want to touch it. They assured me that the gigging marks I was seeing on the fish were from a heron, but did encourage me to take a camera with me to record anything I found. I know it's not fun to dredge a stinky 21 inch smallie off the bottom in 12 ft of water but if thats what it takes, I will do it. The gigging lobby must be very strong in Missouri, I know this because many of the agents are giggers themselves. We witnessed an agent giving gigging lessons to people in the trophy trout/smallmouth areas at the MDC Scotts Ford access a couple of years ago. If they could just limit the gigging in the SMA's' the problem would be greatly reduced. Bring a camera and document,document,document. Remember without data, everything is just an opinion to the MDC!