Winter Fishing - Oh what a weekend! (With Photos)

[Mark Hofman]

Friday:



Got to the Lake at 3:00. On the water by 3:30. First fish of the weekend elicited this response from Junior:

 

[Mark Hofman]

Saturday:



Temperatures climbed into the lower 60's. We picked up several nice fish drifting from Lookout Island down to Fall Creek. Ross shows off a typical rainbow from that day:

 

[Mark Hofman]

Junior even hooked into a throwback Brown. They have to be over 20 inches to keep them. Still, it fought hard and was a nice looking fish. We were using spinning rods, 4 lb. line, and small maribou jigs.

 

[Mark Hofman]

Finished the day out after it started getting dark. I boated my nicest rainbow right before we headed in.

 

[Mark Hofman]

On Sunday, the sky was sunny with a record temperature of 71. We anchored the boat and caught four fish each (all keepers for dinner). I had the camera out, and snapped a picture of a MASTER fisherman.



This bald eagle (arrow) sat in the tree for about twenty minutes. Junior commented that he'd love to see it snatch a fish off the lake. The bird took off and appeared to head up-lake and out of sight. It flapped a half-dozen times, went into a glide, circled twice and then dove at the water. It leveled out, extended it's talons, and took a fish out of the water. The eagle flew uplake a couple of hundred yards, landed in a tree and began to eat. Just AWESOME!

 

[Mark Hofman]

Monday morning, the Corps was finally running water through Table Rock's generators. We drove up above Lookout and began a quick drift back down. Ross tied into a 19-inch rainbow that probably went three pounds. It was then that I discoverd that the camera was still back in the room.



One more drift produced ten fish (five each for Junior and Ross, none for me) before we went in for lunch. By then it was very windy and cold. We pulled boats off the lake at 1:00.



On a final note, I snapped a shot of the boat sitting in one of the four "large" boat slips. This is the same dock that broke my decket and required me to replace the infamous "jack nuts" as I powered in at an angle, fighting a strong current. Boat wakes also pulled my rub rail loose.



(I'm sure glad I got the Tracker and not the Crestliner, which is nine inches WIDER than the Tracker).

 

[Rob LaMoy]

Sweeeet! Man, and to top it off seeing that. I count myself lucky just having seen two bald eagles in my life. To see it catch a fish is just plain awesome. Nice trout too. Those 'bows have some vivid color. Man, I gotta head south some weekend and fish! LOL

 

[Mark Hofman]

Yeah, it was a blast and was just the right medication to cure my Cabin Fever. I'm sane again.



Junior brought along his GPS unit, so I was able to get some good performance numbers on the TV-18.



Propeller is a NEW Mercury Black Max 14x23 3-blade. Water Pressure at WOT was 12 psi. Tach maxxed out at 5,100 rpms (couldn't get them any higher). Speedo was reading 57.



This was on a speed run with just me, full livewell, full load of gear for one person and a half-tank of gas.



The GPS topped out at 51.7



The water conditions were choppy, wind gusting from 20 to 30 from a steady 15. Air temperature was 46. Water temp was 42.5 on the depth finder.



It was disappointing and frustrating, especially since I couldn't get the RPMs up into the ideal range of 5400 to 5800.

 

[mike chip]

Sounds like a great trip. Being up here near dc we take eagles for granted we almost forget how special they are.

 

[Mike Levesque]

Wow, way ta go Mo!

Sounds like a great time and seeing an eagle to boot, awesome! egMike

 

[James D.]

good pics MoFish. sure looks like pretty country and can't think of a better thing to do on a warm day. looks like that boat slip was just made to fit your boat.

jd

 

[TOMMY RICH]

Damittt there MO! Your makin' me drool...just had to wupe the slobber off my chin. I AM JONES'n SOOOOOO BAD!

TEE

 

[Tim King]

Good job MO!! Those Eagles are some awesome birds!! I was driving around the lake Saturday looking at the very thin ice and saw five of them!! Two of them were sitting on a log right beside each other and looked like they were just hangin out chattin about life. It was pretty cool!



Tim

 

[Mark Hofman]

Bob:



Hey! I did see you! Holy smokes, guy. We got up on Saturday morning and saw all you guys lined up for start. By the time we motored out of the dock, they called out "SEVENTY FOUR!!" We were, like, "Geemaneez, that's a LOT of boats!" We got up to Fall Creek and it was just amazing to see all those boats clustered together. What was even more amazing was to actually see the Missouri Water Patrol out pulling people over for running WOT through clusters of boats.



It's funny that you mentioned the confusion about the weekend. I thought the RAW Tournament was the weekend before. Our signals really got crossed.



We kept seeing the guy with the 185 jet. Did you see (and HEAR) the white/yellow/blue Scorpion jet? That's what that Gator is going to sound like! Hope you get a free set of earplugs with it when you pick it up. Nice boat, though.



Here's a funny one. We were up above Fall Creek, close to Lookout Island, when this guy in a tiny fiberglass tri-hull powered by a 40 h.p. Johnson goes screaming past us. Problem was, we were right at the edge of the shallowest part of the lake. He hit that shoal, grinding his lower unit and prop on the rocks. But instead of stopping, he just advanced the throttle and kept going. The next day (Sunday) when we were anchored above Short Creek (where I took the picture of the eagle), we see him screaming down the lake going the other way. This time, instead of going past us on the channel side, he goes the opposite way, runs across the lines of two people bank fishing, HITS THE PRIVATE CONCRETE BOAT RAMP, ends up on another gravel bar, and does the same thing - stands on the throttle to get himself off. We about fell out of the boat laughing in disbelief. We surmised that he owns an outboard motor repair shop and can just "fix it and forget it".



So, how'd you do in the Tournament? What did you guys use for lures/bait? We did the best on 1/32 oz. brown maribou jigs fished tightlined. The next best was the same lure, but under a float about 3 feet. I read that olive worked like a charm too.



I didn't see another Tracker TV-18 on the lake that weekend. There was a Lund that looked similar, but if it said TRACKER in big, bold white letters up the side, and there were three guys in it (one in red/blue, one in cornfield camo, and one in green/black with a black baseball cap) that was US.



We'll be back down there the last weekend of January/first weekend of February in 2004. Those dates are already set. If the RAW tournament is that weekend, we should hook up. Come over to Lazy Valley. The beer is free - even for us.

 

[Marke Cicero]

Mo,



That just aint fair...



Marke



PS,

That 150 doesn't look so big from 18' away...LOL

 

[Mark Hofman]

Marke:



You should seriously think about taking your family to Branson for a vacation. It is very kid-friendly, and not unbelievably expensive like Disney World (well, Silver Dollar City can put a dent in your wallet, but there are lots of other fun things for kids to do that easy on a family budget). And, now that you're a high-volume boat salesman, you could arrange to tour the factories on the way down!! If you ever think about going, give me a yell. I may even tell you to leave the boat home and just meet Rachel and me down there.



You're right. The 150 doesn't look so big compared to a 225 either!! LOL! And your suggestion to Cass about the 135 Opti is a very GOOD choice. If I could do it over, that's exactly what I'd do. Now that I've GPS'd the 150, I'm pretty down about it. I'm saving my pennies to put a SS prop on it, but the 135 Optimax is, in my opinion, THE motor to get for the TV-18. If a guy want's more speed that a 135 will buy, he should buy up to the Avalanche.

 

[Mark Hofman]

Bob:



We sunk to the lowly level of Powerbait on Sunday. The only water that ran for us was on Monday morning, and it let me get up above Lookout Flats for one drift and one drift only. Man, I puckered as we ran over that flat. My eyes were constantly on the depth gauge, and I could see the rocks flashing past us underneath the water. But Phil Lilly told me that if the stump is submerged at Short Creek, a bass boat can run all the way to the dam. The stump was under (with one heck of an eddy around it), so I took the risk. Phil was right. I could've run all the way to the dam, but stopped at the MDC boat ramp for two reasons. First, I knew I could come off plane in that hole and not drag the skeg on the bottom and, second, I don't know the channel real well from that point on. At Rebar hole, I know there are pieces of rebar sticking up out of the gravel and I didn't want to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat.



Our group will be down there on January 21 (Saturday) and February 1 (Sunday). It looks like you'll be down for the RAW tournament on February 7. If I can jog my brain cells loose, I'll try to remember to let you know what we used that worked (hopefully not what we used that DIDN'T work!). I'm going back the last full week in March, and we may take one other weekend trip down there in the summer or fall.



As far as the eagle is concerned, the one in my picture was one of four that we spotted in different areas of the lake. Another was up near Lookout Island. One was across from Lilly's in the trees below the college. We even saw one down near the powerlines near the Branson bridges. It's amazing to think that twenty years ago, the only eagle you could expect to see was at a zoo or wild animal park.



MO

 

[Adam Murray]

Thanks for the pic and the stories, MO! Sure brings back alot of memories (especially when you talk about the rebar hole).



I graduated from SMSU and fished Taneycomo at least 3 times a week. I only had a duck-hunting boat at the time, so I learned to fly-fish and waded around the dam. My bass fishing buddies said I was catching sissy fish with sissy baits, but they had no idea what a 3lb. brown feels like on 5x tippet!



My last semester was spent student teaching at Ozark Middle School. I would leave school at 3:00, race to the dam and fish all night. My girlfriend lived in Nixa, so I'd run back to her place, grab a shower and get back to school.



There was a guide there named Marty Babuska (sp?) At one time he held the state record for a German brown (21.75, I believe). I would watch him "stalking" trophy fish for days and would pick his brain as often as possible.



One snowy night, I was fishing the rebar. The only other person out there was at the hatchery output. No water had run all day long. Every once in awhile, we'd meet up at my truck, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and talk about the fish we were catching.



I was drifting scuds through the small channels running through the rocks. At the end of a long drift, I picked up my rod tip and felt something heavy, but no movement. "Snagged again!", I thought. Just as I started walking towards it, though, my drag started screaming and something pulled off about 25 yards of line. I stripped as much line as I could while walking towards the fish. I did NOT want this fish getting to the main channel!



That was about the extent of the battle, though. Very anticlimatic, or so I thought! As I approached the fish, I turned on my Mag-Lite, held it in my teeth and looked down at the biggest fish I'd seen in my whole life! She looked as long as I was tall. I laid my rod on the rocks and gently scooped up this beautiful brown trout. All I could think about was how good she was gonna look on my wall!



Just then I looked down her body and noticed a stream of eggs and goo coming out of her. It was then I decided she should be let loose to continue spawning. I yelled across the river to see if my new friend had a camera. He was gone...I thought I'd heard him yell something much earlier.



I had an old de-liar scale in my vest and I attempted to weigh her without injuring her. The scale showed 18lbs. but I was still supporting her quite a bit...who knows how big she really was.



Both elated about my catch and sad to see her go, I released her with a small, frozen tear in my eye. I looked at my watch and it said 3:00 am. Decided to go home and catch a little sleep. I only fished there one more time after that night before I graduated and moved back to Georgia for the Army. Haven't been back since, but hope to someday.



After moving to Texas, I said I never wanted to live anywhere else. Seeing ya'lls pictures and hearing your stories makes me wonder if Branson wouldn't be a great place to settle down.

 

[Mark Hofman]

Bob, you're right. I guess I should tell the (fisherman's) truth:



A-hem, everybody?....There are NO fish in Lake Taneycomo.



All of this was an elaborate and well-executed hoax to get the goat of people living in the snowy nether regions of the north.



Do NOT plan ANY trips to Branson - especially in February.