First Cast

[Trav]

Wasnt going to go fishing today, but got a phone call and was pleasantly surprised. It was Phil saying he was at my dock. So I gathered my gear and went down to meet him.

I caught the first fish on the very first cast. Phil said it was a jinx to do that. For awhile there I almost believed him, but we busted that myth.

I will let him do the actual report. Just wanted to say Thanx. I had some good conversation. Its always nice to get know people better.

We must definately do it again.

[Phil Lilley]

Coy and I only had a few hours to fish this afternoon after shopping and such and a chamber dinner at 7 but really wanted to go down and fish with Trav below I left for Alaska next week. Got to his dock (thanks to our new map) at 3:30. Because of the rain yesterday afternoon, all the major creeks were muddy. The system that drove Trav in his closet dumped an inch of rain north of Branson but not a drop on us south of town. So we headed downstream.

Fished Duck Cove (see map). It's a cove I had fished I bet 15 years ago and caught crappie there. Trav said we should fish shallow water - 1 to 2 feet deep. We wanted to see bottom and we could at 2-3 feet. First cast Trav caught a 14-15 inch largemouth. I kiddingly said that's a bad sign... how many times had I done that esp white bass fishing and not caught another fish. Did we catch another fish in that cove? I think Coy caught another bass on a sinko and Trav had another blow-up on his blue/silver rebel. He was working it like a top water plug- twitching it real slow.

We headed to another cove- Sunken Forest Cove (Had to look at the map). Tons on blue gill here- nice ones too. Coy caught another bass on his sinko and missed a couple others. Trav caught another bass (pic) but as he pointed out, the first one was bigger. I ended up resorting to my fly rod and a red humpy- yes I caught 3 blue gill. It wasn't as easy as you'd think... those buggers were spooky and hard to fool. Would love to go back and fish all day for them. It was fun.

Great time for just 2 hours of fishing. As Trav says- we'll have to do it again.

[Trav]

I had a good time. Thanx again. Not to be critical but I think we were behind Sabre Island. Sunken forest is down by the condos. Just clarifying to our readers.

And phil, if you liked that bluegill action, you have to go up in bull and fish the east shore while the water is high. Once you get past all the docks a bit there are literally thousands of gills.

Best of luck to ya in Alaska. Wished I was coming along.