zipstick

My partner and I caught a limit on Table Rock that weighed 21+ pounds in about 45 minutes to win a Heartland Buddy a few years back in February on jerkbaits. Sweet! Biggest bass weighed over 7 lb.

Interesting. The spawn on the Meramec was in full swing the last week of April. Doubt it's still continuing on Meramec, but the next full moon could see a few more laying.

Thankfully the bass season doesn't start until next week. This extra rain may roil even the smaller creeks by now.

Any for sale? Colors not that important. Will trade tackle or pay $. I wnat the floater three hook model with the screwtail, not the new style. THanks.

Those guys are really good anglers, and anyone who fishes the Ozarks can learn from these tournament tested guys. Endicott and Barker esp. should be can't miss opportunities. I hate that I live over 200 miles from there!

A guide needs to know what the client wants. Then go from there. Some like me to fish and others want me to get out of the way and put them on fish. Better anglers need only that type of help, but others need lots of teaching of techniques and reading the water. Even if the client wants me to fish, I really want him/her to cast to the better places. In a day's float we pass hundreds of likely looking targets esp. in the warm water period. Lot's of fun and lots of action.

Ehrough the 70's 80's I didn't get out much during the spawn in rivers. Lots of lake fishing amd tournaments then for me. Teaching school sometimes demanded that weekends were for preparing for school the next week. Add to that all the messed up high water conditions we often get inspring and I really can't tell you much about spawing smallies before lots of jets hit the streams. Sorry. I ahve seen smallies spawn in June given high waters throughtout April and May.

I don't see nearly as many smallie beds in rivers as I see largemouth beds. Mostly brownies bed a little deeper than largies. Once in a while, I'll see single fish beds, but I'm convinced that many smallies will use a very small area to congregate and bed. I've caught too many that had gangs of big bass within 30 feet of one another. Kind of like bluegill when they bed in large numbers fairly close to each other. I never see goggle eye beds either, and they bed very near smallies in some cases and about the same depths, just out of sight. By the way, on Monday we spotted one huge largemouth sunning beside a log suspended in about 12 inches of water. I figured she was near, or on a bed. The water was just too murky to tell. Anyway, B Man casted toward her and got struck hard. Unfortunately the buck on that bed bit immediately, not the large female of about 6 pounds or so. We left her alone at that point. By the way, the theory that the big bass spawn earlier was borne out by my findings this week. Both 19 inch smallies, presumably femal, were spawned out already. We caught several more from 10-13 inches that had eggs ready to deposit. The moon will be full in a few days, and this will signal the height of the beddinbg for the year.

Clark, These fish are caught in Eastern Missouri streams. All of our streams have good smallie populations. Yes, I'm being coy about specifics mainly becasue I don't want to see crowds on my favorite stretches. I don't mind sharing techniques and fish habits if it helps some guys become better anglers.

Pretty rare to get this low and clear water in our streams in April and the smallies are bedding now. Often I find just one real bedding community every 10 miles or so, even on a well populated stream, and this week I located two such places. I was fortunate to find them with B Man Monday and Tuesday of this week. With the water temps holding from 58-61, I was a bit surprised to find big males and females crashing my trusty topwater in these areas, but they were. Often I use the topwater to locate big smallies for clients. The smallies will come to look at it, and I can usually kill the bait enough to have them lose interest until my guest casts a soft plastic into the bedding area. We quickly release them to go about their family business. I would also recommend a barbless hook for inexperienced anglers when smallies are super aggressive as they are now. No need to throat hook a trophy with a barbed hook using a soft plastic offering. These "spawning bedrooms" often have 5-10 adult smallies that usually go 13-20 inches with both males and females vulnerable to just about any well placed lure. Obviously, around cover a weedless offering such a soft plastic is a better choice. Better bets depend on water clarity and mood of the fish. Incidentally, The topwater bite died each day around 11 am, just as the water began to heat up. Go figure! These spawning areas can vary a little each year as the rivers change from flooding. A bedroom may shift over a 1/2 mile away, and they do because the bass have found a better more protected area for spawning. Often siltation and removal of old logs makes the bass seek a better spot. Let me tell you right now that smallies do not prefer any newly downed timber. They want to bed in piles of logs that have remained unchanged for several years, and these spots are pretty hard to find after the last two years of flooding. The timber that has remained nearly stationary since the 93 floods is prime for looking for these spawning communities. In two weeks the spawning season will be over, and by opening day the meat fishermen shouldn't find many easy to catch smallies protecting fry as was the case with last year's late spawn. B Man and I caught 9 or 10 (we lost count) over 17 inches and here are two of the better fish. Enjoy. One last tidbit of interest. Nearly all of our big smallies have had lampreys attached over the winter. None of these good bass this week had them. Theory time. I think the other spawning bass are killing the lampreys in these "bedrooms." They are very aggressive at this time. My .02 worth. .

The Eakins jig is pretty good, but for those who don't fish with us, it's about twice the size of my little jigs. Tinier is better in cold and clear water. By the way I like the way you showed me the Yamamoto craw that complements the Eakins so well!

Al, I agree with you on warm water jigs. In the 70's fishing was so darn easy that many of us relied on the brown rubber jig with the #11 pork frog. No need to change for years! Then with increased pressure and fewer easy to catch bass, we started going towards alternates such as tubes, brush hogs, craws and senkos to fish along the bottom. The larger jig is still deadly esp. in darker waters, but like you, I switch to soft plastics in clearer waters. Today my client and I whacked them pretty good on watermelon craw on a shaky head when the jig proved to be not near as good. The river was fairly clear and low for April, a rarity indeed. They were in their bedroom spawning communities, not easy to find, but heaven when one was located.

I probably shouldn't get into this without being there, but did your wife beckon directly to anyone for help? In a potentially life threatening situation, I think that it pays off to really let people know that help is needed right away and be direct about it. If you and your wife were ingored after asking for help, then that is terrible! What seemed obvious to you in this situation may not have been to those who were there. So sorry that you didn't get any help. Could you have used a cell phone right away to try to get help? I'm not familiar with that area, and don't really know the options there, but if you have a heart condition, I think I would be very prudent be in range of a cell tower.

Below. I really believe that if a tourney had been held Friday some good bags would have been weighed. It wasn't a numbers game; it rarely is in high/murky water. But big bass can be fooled easier; my buddy Al L. caught 3 bass and they averaged around 4 pounds each. I brought up the rear with runts that day.

Can't pass this up but maybe I should. I took an old friend out from TX and we fished the Meramec Friday. Only caught 16 bass, but the biggest 5 would have weighed a good 17 lb. Just one of the bass was a smallie if that makes you feel better. Here's the pic of Al L. with his bass. There was a pattern to the larger bass, but the smaller ones were spread out shallow sand somewhat out of the current. Didn't mean to ruin a bad catching day for most of you. With the rain we got last night, I calling off a trip on Monday. You can see by the background that this is not your typical smallie water. Nick

Al, like you I've fished thse streams for many years, and in the mid 70's we started fishing the Meramec with Arkie jigs with a #11 porkfrog. The bass had never seen anything like them. I would just take two different baits to the river, one 1/4 oz. jig and 3/8 oz. jig. I believe that many days we released over a 100 good smallies. In the early '80's just about the time the river accesses became more numerous along with the advent of jetboats, I began to take lots of big bass with Spook type baits. Didn't like their poor action, so started manufacturing my own. It was common to see as many as four good smallies chase that bait back to the boat. Those were rip roarin' days. Maybe my skill level has gotten better, and I have much more time to winter fish, thus the greater number of big fish have been taken the last fe years. Most folks now release their bass, so that's good, but a few lawbreaking giggers have a way of decreasing our lunker potential as you have written about previously. Also, you have to take the blame for this Guru name deal. I think it was you that started this, and others picked up on it. Zipstick is really just plain ole Nick, and many anglers out there are as much as a guru as am I. Good luck at your seminar and let me know if you want to go north this summer.

Guru went to Lake Ozark to fish the American Series of FLW last week. Some of the competitors there located and caught some fine smallies up the Glaize to finish in the top ten. I worked the jerkbait too much in the Niangua and barely managed a check. And so it goes in March for me. This month has the stream smallies scattering quite a bit and much they are tougher to catch consistently. By mid April, we'll start back up with big girls again.

Not surprising that you received no answer from Heartland. Communication with anglers has never been a strong point with them.

The trout was caught on the Big Niangua next to Larry Gale ramp from the public dock. It was caught last Thursday by a piranha fisherman (just kiiding about the piranhas, not the trout.)

I was on Lake O. last Monday whe a fellow fishing from a public dock caught a rainbow trout. Hope the trout haven't eaten all the piranhas. I'd like to catch one.

Not really. On Lake O. when the water is clear enough, about 4-6 feet vis., then the deepe3r jerkbaits will pull bass from deeper water tbetter than han shallower running ones. If its dingy color water as it has been this year, fish all jerkbaits close to the banks. Having fished all last week down there in the clouds and sun, all the jb bites that I know of came rather close to the bank. And it wasn't easy most days! Deeper jerks get stronger with increased clarity, not just colder situations.

Heard that R. Fitzpatrick won it with about 17 pounds and 4th place had about 14. Some jerkbait, some jig. Some didn't catch fish at all. A buddy of mine who's a good stick bait man, didn't get a single bite yesterday fun fishing in the lower lake. Water temps were still 36 according to his thermometer. Hurry up, warm rains!

Spinnerbait can be real good esp in the dingy water. Cold water temps dictate a very slow approach and bass may have a preference for color and blade configuration. That's why we buy so many! Don't be afraid to upsize the blade. The big gizzard shad that work along the bank is the reason for the big blade.

Got George into the lunker column Friday. The hair jig is still doing its thing. Guru