[RRMan]

Congrats again, you had a much better day than me on the Mo river! We only had 2 and 2 missed bites, but that’s par for the course on the MO around me…
You’d have been in some decent money in the Alton tournament the next day!
Ol broke back:
View attachment 229121 View attachment 229123

Backyard, where are you at on the mighty mo? I was thinking about going this next weekend but the river is was low in the KC area. What do you look for this time of year? Do you fish behind the dikes or channel? I'm pretty new to the river fishing but I'm hooked.

Thanks rrman

 

[RRMan]

I'm just a little west of STL. Seems like there's great fishing up your way though!
The river is low here too, which I like. Wintertime I'm not really in the main channel. Usually fishing the current seam at the end of dikes, particularly the hole at the end of L dikes. I also try the upstream face of dikes, back in the dead water behind the dikes whether it's deep or a couple feet deep, or in the holes where there's notched dikes by the bank.

Pretty much use side imaging and sonar until you find fish on the bottom and put fresh cut bait in front of their faces for 15-20 minutes at a time and move on until you find feeding fish!

The biggest struggle for me this time of year is finding fresh bait, and it matters.
Shad, mooneye, and skipjack are king in the cold water, but there's proof in pics above that they will eat carp in 37 degree water too! It was 43 degrees where I was on the MO.

Awesome info I appreciate it greatly, I literally just filled the freezer with skipjack last week in anticipation of getting on the river, I was thinking going this weekend depending on weather sounds like another snow storm coming the end of the week and I get to work those so time will tell. Keep after seems your doing great!

 

[RRMan]

@BackyardBandit

Took your advice today and found a couple the pic is a 45lber my fil is holding for me and he landed a 10lber. He also Lost a 20ish at the boat. I bite was decent today had 6 solid hits plus the 3 that were hooked. Thanks again for the info

 

[RRMan]

Heck yea congrats! That’s a dandy!
Wintertime blue cats are some of the best eating fish you’ll eat, period.
What bait did you use?

We were using skipjack for bait yesterday, we had lots of little hits, that I would describe like little bluegill chewing on a crawler just tap tap tap but plenty of big hits to keep us entertained. We were using pretty big chunks 3inch long by the width of the Skippy. Probably to big of bait but seemed to work just fine.

Definitely hooked on the winter blues

 

[RRMan]

Don't be afraid to use just a 1x1 chunk of skipjack along with the bigger hunks to see what they are preferring that day.
I will cut a steak of fish then cut the top half from above the backbone up, and also have the gut pocket. My skips might be bigger than yours though, around 12".

My skips are running about 12inches also I was getting 4 baits per skip. I'll try some smaller ones, the biggest thing for me is getting my boat set up for river fishing, I'm running a fiberglass bass boat and need to come up with more pole holders, I currently have 2, we were only running 3 poles yesterday for 3 people I have the extra poles just need to get properly set up to handle the extras.

Last year we would troll the channel with some bigger poles and had decent luck, 3 outings and 4 fish caught just winging it not knowing what I was doing the biggest being about 25 and the others between 10 and 15 but the poles are almost to big for casting so I am using medium action stuff behind the dikes.

 

[RRMan]

Sounds like a good day at the office, I plan on being back out Saturday, this work thing gets in the way

 

[RRMan]

Where's the pic of the one below fish? That's a monster shad of a bait!!!!

Been pretty slow around here for me, between work and the kiddo I haven't been out until yesterday chasing the walleye spawn been skunked 2 days in a row don't know what the deal is, I found them they are just tight lipped and the rain tonight wasn't nice but I'll be after them tomorrow, and back to the river next weekend hopefully with some more hero pics

 

[RRMan]

The one below showed up finally, that would be a fun fight. Awesome catching!!

 

[RRMan]

Bit of a slow day but we did put 3 in the boat and got this young man his biggest fish to date an 18lber!! The other 2 we're smaller in the 5 to 10lb range, all in all a decent day to play.

 

[RRMan]

And a hero pic once we got him home

 

[RRMan]

Very nice, I don't get to play again for a couple weeks but I'm excited to get out there again. Put a 27 in the boat a couple weeks ago

 

[RRMan]

How do you anchor in the river? Seems like you would still be forced down river since you're essentially a big bobber, do you use it to slow you down and still drift for say?

 

[RRMan]

Do you loose many anchors? Seems like it would grab ahold of something good and never get it free. Just curious how do you tie it onto the boat? Off of a cleat? I have much to learn🤔

 

[RRMan]

Good info, thank you sir

 

[RRMan]

That's a nice haul!!!!! I've got nothing exciting to report fish wise, I've been on the struggle bus and couldn't break 25lbs all summer long, I feel as though I am doing something wrong but can't figure it out. The most I can haul in is 3 fish a trip and that's a long day of fishing.

As for fishing in general my days are numbered for a while me and the wife welcomed a young man into this world last Saturday the 6th so all our energy is in him for a while. I'm super excited to get him on the river one day to get pics of fish bigger then him but we are a couple years out from that.

 

[RRMan]

How about winter blues!!!! Had a nice day on the river today the fog was a little rough but that didn't stop us. In KC it seems to be about 8ft low by my eyeballs but we managed a 5,16,17,23, and a new personal best for the boat of 52 and I'm proud to say my wife got to wrestle the big girl to the boat. I think it was the pink shoes that brought us the luck today hahaha

 

[RRMan]

Congrats, looks like lots of fun..

water here was right at 32 and outside temps were 55 so the fog on the river was so thick there was a boat 30 yards from me and it would disapear, an neither of us caught anything.

Water for us was 36 and outside temp started at 45 at 8 and was 50 at 2 when we got off. The fog was just as thick for us if not worse. I let the electronics guide me back to the ramp at 2 because you couldn't see anything.

All fish were caught behind the *****, kinda a odd bite today, we'd find the bait fish balled up and couldn't buy a bite under them, but we moved away from all the bait fish just in random holes and there they were.

 

[RRMan]

I hate those little guys, never fails I always get stung.

We went the weekend after we caught those from the post before and couldn't buy a bite in a about 6hrs and haven't been back since. The water had rose about 4ft in that week difference so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Need to get back after it, got 3 bdays all tied up in the end of January and it's screwing up my fishing.

On a good note I think I got mama worn down into letting me buy a new boat 😁

 

[RRMan]

Very nice fellas I'm ready to get back after it

 

[RRMan]

That's pretty interesting, makes you wonder how many blues are actually down there when you see the fish balled up on the bottom like that. Explains all the nibbles and no takers that's for sure, they can't get their mouths around the bait