Smithville dam

[cook]

I see they are letting a wee bit of water out-Thinking of making the drive mon. morning,working all weekend.I think 2-3 forty pounders would be nice,anything else would be a bonus!

[brad kilpatrick]

I take it you do pretty well there below the dam? have you heard if they are catching fish there now? been pretty slow on the Ks/Mo rivers lately, one bite in two weekends. thinking of trying something different

[cook]

Haven't heard any reports-but like most of the time-some days are great,others don't get a post.

[AC1108]

I was up there on Wednesday and saw some huge shad along with some monster carp. Didn't really try to fish for anything though. I just chucked a lure out for 5 minutes and got it snagged. No takers on it.

[cook]

Hopefully I'll post a report by 3 mon...if not.....well,draw your own conclusions :cursing:


AC-how did the water look?(don't take the easy route and say wet :D )

[AC1108]

The water was actually a lot clearer than I would have thought. I was expecting really murky and almost muddy water. There was a lot of action as far as fish jumping around but I couldn't see what they were. I forgot to mention in my earlier post about the school of 1 1/2-2 ' gar. I would guess that there were probably 10 of them. Wish they would let the water flow good again. I'm ready for another monster or two out of there.

[cook]

I hear ya!!Gar give the local yocals something to Ohhh and Ahhh over

[AC1108]

I know there are a couple of guys up there that get pretty excited when they catch one and then toss it back. I would have to toss it on to the bank if I caught one. They destroy the fishing there.

[cook]

Andi-I ain't trying to be a goody two shoes,but throwing any fish on the bank just is nasty.Stinks for the next people,and a bad example.I'm not preaching,do what you want,just not my style.

[AC1108]

I've never caught a gar there and if I did I would put it somewhere that people wouldn't be bothered by it. I should note that gar are the only fish that are bothersome to me. The rest are released without harm but gar and turtle are in the same category. If I'm out on the river in a boat I'll toss it to a place where people would never find it but the critters would. A couple of guys caught a 38lber in the spillway tonight and said they had a ton of other hard strikes. I guess the big ones are still hiding up there.

[cook]

Dis you see a guy with a truck that had mississippi plates?Talked to him in the day as he was leaving,he said he would be back at nite.Never seen him before.He told me he used a aqua-view(underwater camera) there in the spillway,marked a few big ones.
I was drooling,would have loved to see what it looked like underwater!!He didn't seem real friendly,so I didn't bother asking.

Keep me updated.

[AC1108]

He was there for a short while but I don't think he caught anything. His buddy was the one that was bringing in the big one when I got there. Today is the last day of my vacation so I might have to head up there and give it another shot before I go back to work.

[Mr.T]

Never been fishing below the dam - how close can you get to the spillway? It sounds like they'll let you get right up next to them.

Below Truman dam, they've restricted it so you can't fish within 200 yards or so of the spillway/power plant - the fishermen used to have R/C boats that would haul their lines right up below the spillways and drop them, and apparently it was really devastating to the catfish population.

[cook]

AC-thanks for the report

Mr.T-its a very small spillway,about 100 yards long and 20 yards wide.Not many cats unless they let out water for a while(3 days at least)
You can fish straight down from the top walk way,or walk along the edges,its all concrete and sidewalks.

[GaryF]

Yeah, you can fish as close as you want, if you have a big enough sinker, otherwise it's kind of like taking your bait waterskiing. When they aren't releasing water it is just a stagnant puddle. I've not had much luck there myself, but I've seen some nice flatheads come out, and a couple of decent spoonbills. I would have liked to have seen those camera images, too.

[AC1108]

I went up again on Tuesday night and the fella with the Miss tags was up there fishing. Him and his buddy came up empty this time. They still believe that there are big ones in there holding out. I know there are some monster shad in there. I would imagine it would be fairly easy to catch one with a good sized shad. There are more than enough up there for the pickings.