current river smalljaws

[mulelipper]

went today for about 4 hours.. only caught 3 undersized smallies and 1 nice largemouth in the channel,, very surprising!.. fish arent in the prespawn yet, not even adjacent, took most on grubs one crankbait. doniphan is a little bigger and dominate smalljaw water. fish and water warm and spawn here first. gonna jackfish in the morning,,c ya.....

[ColdWaterFshr]

jackfish in the mornin?

jack salmon

or

Jacks Fork?

[mulelipper]

there hittin now! though i do believe the flood last week washed out the spawn, i see alot of empty beds. the fish are movin into the faster water as soon as the boat traffic picks up memorial day, they will be hard to find, except during the week. i do fish tournaments and they are always on saturday, love the tourists. if they would only cleanup after themselves,,most dont. cathin alot of fish on plastics, a few on topwater.

[Terry Beeson]

OK... again, mulelipper... What is "jackfishing?"

And... I GOTTA hear the story behind your alias... "Mule Lipper?"... That's gotta be a good one...

[Al Agnew]

Terry, it's fishing for "jack salmon", AKA walleye. I used to do a lot of it on Black River and some on the lower Current...though I always fished from November to mid-February. The walleye of those two rivers seem to spawn earlier than anywhere else, and usually were spawning by late February and scattered. They were easier to find in the winter.

[Terry Beeson]

Thanks, Al... Now where did Mule Lipper get his name? (I've "lipped" horses and mules in years past to get them to "mind their manners"...)

I've never heard them called "Jack Salmon"... new one for me...

[porter57]

terry,

its kind of a missouri thing. all the church fish frys used to serve

em. now i think they use whiting. at least thats the way it is and was in st louis.

[Terry Beeson]

AAAAaaaahhhh... Reminds me of a co-worker who along with me and a bunch of others were sitting in a "fancy" Italian restaurant in Chicago. Our "fearless leader" (a New Jersey boy) had ordered Calamari. Lloyd asked what it was, but Rob just said "eat it... it's good!" Now keep in mind, Lloyd KNEW what it was, but wasn't about to give Rob the satisfaction. Being the two "ignorant Arkies" in the group, Rob figured we had very little culture and would frown if we knew we were eating squid.

Well, in a few minutes after enjoying several of the calimari, Lloyd elbowed me in the ribs and said, "watch this..."

He looked across the table at Rob, who was engaged in a conversation with a customer, and proclaimed, "HEY ROB! I KNOW WHAT THIS IS... IT'S FRIED CATFISH LIPS!!!!!!"

(Hmmmm.... NOW I know what to do with the Giant Man-Eating Taneycomo Killer Squid!!!!!)

[mulelipper]

big largemouth-----------hawg

big smallmouth-------------mule

born and raised 3rd generation on lower current...riverbilly talk..

[Al Agnew]

Hey, Mulelipper, did you ever hear of a guy named Carl Dudley, from Doniphan, who was one of the best jack fishermen in the area back in the 1950s-1960s? He once wrote a long, rambling treatise on walleye in the Current and sent it to Bob Todd after Bob had written an article in the River Hills Traveler about fishing for river walleye. Bob never published it because Carl asked him not to share a lot of the info with just anybody, but he gave me a copy of it, which I still have. A lot of biologists could have learned a lot from it, about when and how the walleye spawn on the lower Current and how they spend the rest of the year.