Boswell Trout Tournament, 2014

[Phil Lilley]

Take off was at 7:30 a.m. this morning. Thirty seven boats in the friendly contest. Most anglers are from the St Louis area. Private tournament, fishing here since the early 80's.

Good fish caught in practice the last 2 days. They had a big trout contest yesterday- I know of at least 5 rainbows and one brown (legal) over 3 pounds weighed in. 3.9 pounds won the contest.

Weigh in is at 4:30 p.m..

[Phil Lilley]

Some of the guys I talked to before Saturday morning's start were pretty confident they'd found the mother lode of lunkers and were going to do well. It looks like at least some of them were right. Evidently, MDC stocked some 3 pound brood stock not too long ago off the MDC ramp below Branson and they were holding up around the dock where they keep the stocking boat. That's where 4 of them were caught yesterday.

Otherwise, yesterday was slow for almost everyone I visited with last evening. The weights were what I'd call light except for the 3 teams who caught the bigger stockers.

Anglers said they were biting light, very light, when they bit. Thursday and Friday's bite was good. You'd think looking at weather conditions it would have been just opposite. Thursday and Friday were sunny- Saturday was cloudy with a front moving in.

Fish were caught on a variety of lures and baits from worms, minnows, Powerbait but mainly they threw jigs. The lunkers were caught on jigs.

No one fished above Fall Creek - this group decided years ago to close off the trophy area to all fishing during the tournament.

[Phil Lilley]

Trophies were made by Curtis Viscardis, our do-all, go-to guy here at the resort.