Pursuing Winter River Walleye

[MOsmallies]

Just an awesome account of walleye fishing in the Ozarks Al... The balloon part is especially interesting.

Good luck tomorrow LRF... Hope you hammer em!

[Smalliebigs]

Good luck tomorrow Bret..post a report

Al that is an awesome read, I could read about stuff like that all night. That's awesome that Yer buddy tied the balloon to the eye....hahahahaha classic. 17 and 18 pound eyes are sick!!!! Wow the Black was quite a walleye fishery. ..what a bummer it couldn't have held up.

[Hog Wally]

Good info! I can't believe I have a work trailer behind me instead of my River pro. Maybe I shag out early. Al, your post makes me want to head south. I spent 2 days in doniphan last spring but I purposefully left my poles behind so I wouldn't abandon my wife and kids.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, go to Keener now and there's a little pothole at the spring that always has a half dozen boats surrounding it, and the hole just downstream will have a half dozen more, sometimes more than that. And that hole isn't all that big, either. And the real problem is that every one of those people keep every legal walleye they catch. The genetics are still there to grow those huge wallleye, but they all get cropped off before they can get to trophy size. The streams of the Black River system (including Current, lower Eleven Point, and Spring), along with the probably extinct strain in the St. Francis, may have grown as big walleye as anywhere, and still could with a fishery managed for trophy fish. If you wanted to pursue a world record fish in Missouri other than a catfish, those walleye could have been your best chance if their true value was accepted.

Back in those days, even the locals didn't fish for them much. There was just a small group of guys from the area where I grew up that had gotten each other interested in it, and all made the nearly two hour drive down practically every weekend from November to mid-February, so back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, you knew just about everybody you saw on the Keener Hole, even though there might be a dozen or more people fishing it. The resort at Keener Spring was open some winters, closed but you could still get in if you asked permission ahead of time other winters, and then it closed completely and became a private real estate development. For a while you could drive in on the opposite side where the gravel dredge operation had been, but then that got shut off as well. That was back in the days before jet boats, so for a while there wasn't any easy way to get into that hole, and although once in a while we'd put a canoe or a small johnboat with an outboard on it and run the 4 miles up from the Highway 67 bridge to the Keener Hole, most of the time we'd just fish at the big gravel pit hole at the 67 bridge. We even found a spot we could park along the road leading up the river and hike across a big bottom field to get to the Keener Hole right at that perfect point, and got permission to do so, but then the land changed hands and the new owner put a stop to that.

I may have been one of the culprits in getting more people, and more local people especially, interested in fishing for them. In the late 1970s I wrote an article in the River Hills Traveler about that walleye fishing. That got Bob Todd, the publisher and editor, interested in walleye fishing, and in the next few years he wrote several more articles about his adventures in trying to catch one over 10 pounds. After a bit, he got a long letter, really a long article, from an old guy from Doniphan, Carl Dudley. Dudley was apparently THE expert on catching them out of Current River back then, and he basically outlined just about everything he could about what he knew. I still have a copy of the letter that Bob gave me, and it's classic.

[Hog Wally]

Wow! That's amazing Al. I can only say that I have little luck in the winter. I have figured out where the fish go as soon as they spawn out. It's a crazy bite too. There's know way I would post every detail though. The thought of a half dozen boats on a good hole makes me shudder. It makes me rethink what I've told guys. I can say the locals where I live know nothing of the walleye fishery we have. Gigging is really the only way they can get em consistently

[MOsmallies]

Wow! That's amazing Al. I can only say that I have little luck in the winter. I have figured out where the fish go as soon as they spawn out. It's a crazy bite too. There's know way I would post every detail though. The thought of a half dozen boats on a good hole makes me shudder. It makes me rethink what I've told guys. I can say the locals where I live know nothing of the walleye fishery we have. Gigging is really the only way they can get em consistently

I would also urge you to keep your spots, stretches, and exact tactics close to the vest. The best way to ruin the fun you are having is giving too much detail about it on the internet. I know of a particular smallie creek that was ruined by this.

[Hog Wally]

All this talk is revving my engine up. Gotta go hit a winter hole

[Hog Wally]

Lures are tied on I'm going to valley park tomorrow to try some tactics that I'm not fond of and some I'm good at. I should be on water by 11. Will post results in detail. Good or bad.

[Hog Wally]

The bourbeuse River was chocolate milk for some reason. It mucked up everything from Moselle down. Caught one big white bass below gravois bridge at the top of the George winter hole

[Hog Wally]

I forgot the details. Water was 37 degrees.