Trophy area not-so die hard fishing trip report (14-17 June)

[Haris122]

I will caution, there's no pics taken of fish, and nothing as hardcore as Jester's all nighters. Me and my gf went down there starting Friday, and we got down to Branson late Friday night. Since this wasn't going to be just a fishing trip, we didn't fish that night. Saturday took us a while to get other Branson stuff done and since the water was running at full blast for a while, we only got fishing at 7pm. On the plus side, we stopped by Lilley's and I saw Duane, and said hi (or was that Sunday). He gave me some good tips that they were hitting early morning and late at night.  Saturday night we fished only for a few hours as my gf was not the "night fishing in leaking waders on her birthday" kind, fishing by the 2nd parking lot by the hatchery (the one between the upstream most one, and the one by the water discharge). Thanks to JesterHK's and Duane's tips we managed to get a couple in each, fishing with stickbaits, but said leaking waders, prompted us to leave just as the fishing seemed to be heating up. It definitely seemed like they really only started biting for us once it got dark.

Sunday night we were about to get going sooner at the stairs just downstream of the boat ramp, when the storm came through. Instead we waited for over an hour in the car, for the storm to pass. Finally we started back at it around sunset, without much luck there. I had one fish get off, and gf had a few bites in a few hours, before we decided that nothing was happening there. She seemed done, so I decided just to take a look again by the 2nd parking lot from the night before, and cast a few more times, at which point they kept hitting the husky jerk the way Jester mentioned. I netted one, lost another, and had another 3-4 bites in the 10 or so casts I made there. It was a bittersweet feeling knowing I couldn't convince my co-angler to continue fishing there instead. So that was that for Sunday.

Monday night we got to same parking lot around 8, and fished until 12. This time we capitalized on Jester's slow retrieve method, and I got 6 ones in, and gf got 4. Again, the bite seemed to heat up after it got dark. After a little while I started trying other stick/jerkbaits just to see whether they will hit other types too, and the answer was yes. However, after a little bit it's like they started learning, and their bites became much more cautionary as the rest of the night we mainly kept getting missed bites. I thought it might just be related to the different stickbaits I was throwing, but gf kept throwing the huskyjerk, with same results. By 12 the bite seemed to have died down completely so we left.

I woke up again Tuesday morning for a few hours, for one last attempt to hook into a monster, but the bite was definitely not like it was at night. After I went through a good chunk of my stickbaits, I finally even tried roostertails, spoons, and jigs, all to no avail. Eventually I switched back to the rainbow trout colored rapala I had got one bite on, and got another 2 bites, but couldn't keep any of them on the hook. Eventually it was time to head back home. On the way back we also checked out the wonder of wildlife aquarium. We didn't have the time for the other exhibit that day, but plan on doing it next time. I thought it would be underwhelming giving the steep ticket price, but as others have said, it was pretty cool, and lasted long enough to be worth it. I just wish they'd actually have more signs on their aquariums.  And not that it might matter much to most people, but it seemed like sometime they'd jumble fish together in a display regardless of where they were from. Really just nitpicking in that regard. It was pretty darn cool, that's for sure.

[Johnsfolly]

Glad that you guys had cooperative trout. Very nice! Would love to have some photos to go with your report. Regardless congrats on your success!

I will concur that I was put off a bit with the mix of fish from many regions all itogether in some of the big tanks. I think that I really liked the smaller regional tanks like the South American fish area better just because they were true to that region.

[JestersHK]

Nice job man!  Glad you were both able to catch fish.  Also glad you got to check out the aquarium.  I actually think I'll go back by myself and go through it backwards.  Start at aquarium and work my way back. 

I powered through a hole in my waders all last week so I get your GF's pain LOL.  Luckily it was just a pin hole but it still stinks and it gets cold down there at night.

Still hope I can sync up with ya at some point so I can show you a few holes.  Thats the other problem at night is you can't do a whole lot of scouting in the dark

 

[Haris122]

Yeah, I hear you. I had a little hole in my waders too, but by the 3rd night it seemed like it was leaking pretty good. I can definitely see how it wears on you when you're trying to focus on fishing, especially in that cold water. I hope to sync up some other time too. Usually only get the time to go down there only once a year, but I have been tempted to go more than that.