Shoal Creek 8-24

[winstonone]

I fished off the bank of Shoal Creek for a few hours on Sunday evening with my 2yr old daughter. I was at the park just up stream of where the Joplin falls are. There was a great little shady spot where a huge tree was growing out of the bank and provided great natural seating and shade right over some deeper water with cover. I caught several small bluegill and such with my daughters Dora fishing pole. I even caught what I believe was a 8" Rock Bass. I'm not good at Identifying fish yet so I let em all go.

I was catching on worms, but didn't get anything on spinners or buzzbaits.

I was reeling in a little perch and right as I was getting him to the surface a 4 foot snake came out from under the tree started to eat my fish. It gave me the willies at first and freaked my kid out, but it let go after I lifted them both out of the water for a bit(the snake and fish, not my kid ). I even got the fish off and think it survived. The rest of the time we were there, I could pretty much get the snake to come out and attack my bobber just by splashing it on the water a little. The more we could watch it I think I got my daughter to be less scared of snakes, and fish.

[CDC]

I find that the soft plastic grubs tend to work better on that section of the creek but even then the fishing is somewhat slow right there (too many people fishing it all the time I think). Crazy about the snake trying to eat your fish. I once caught about a 15 inch smallmouth on Sugar Creek. When I let it go it acted a little stunned for a second and a 10 inch water snake came shooting out of the brush and grabbed a hold of it. That woke the fish up and she took off. What was that snake thinking anyway...there was no way it could have eaten that bass.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I haven't fished that section myself but have a nephew that used to fish it all the time from the low water bridge to the falls and back and said he always did pretty good.

Keep that girl out there. That is great.