I've pretty much lost interest in bass fishing. I mostly fish for catfish. Also like to fish for carp. If I'm wanting to do more "active" fishing like one would do for bass I concentrate on bowfin/dogfish. They get much bigger than bass and fight much harder. They can flat out destroy a spinnerbait or crankbait. Sometimes they'll tear one up so bad you can't use it again.

I was more into bass fishing a few years ago but it becomes almost boring. In my area a 8 or 10 pound bass is a fish of a lifetime. Mostly you catch 3 or 4 pounders. When fishing with live bait in a river you can catch anything under the sun. Catfish, carp, panfish, buffalo, eels, drum, white bass, yellow bass, stripers, bowfin, gar, pike, walleye. You can catch fish weighing 20-40 pounds fairly regularly and even have a shot at record 50 pound carp or catfish. It's kind of like Christmas morning because you never know what might be on the end of your line and it could be huge. When you're bass fishing you know it's going to be a bass and it most likely will be under 5 pounds.

I don't eat fish so I don't care how they taste I just enjoy the challenge and the fight.

 

Ahhh...river fishing! I love it! We have small mouth in the river near here and pound for pound, those things put up a great fight! Especially when they get in swift current. I like all forms of fishing though. Anything from the competition of a bass tournament, to kicking back on a lounge chair with a beer...fishing for catfish, to concentrating on that huge brown laying under a log jam. Just getting out and enjoying the outdoors with my kids has become one of my favorite ways to fish though!

 

Another MO fisherman here. High Ridge, south of St. Louis. I fish most of the lakes in Missouri. All species, a few bass tournaments, and a couple trout tournaments on Taneycomo near Branson. Also, lower Maramec and Gasconade rivers.

 

I like to fish for Dolly Varden or Char and Sockeye on the fly pole. When the Dollies and the Sockeye (red salmon) are in the rivers around here the fishing is absolutely awsome!

For gear for the Dollies any flesh fly or egg pattern fished below a strike indicator is excellent. I have also taken to using beads of different colors (egg colors).

I have also recently taken to fly fishing fishing for Arctic Grayling. I am doing this to teach my daughters 15 and 9 how to fly fish. Grayling are very hungry and eat almost any dry fly you can put in front of them. Also, if you are new to fly fishing and have a habit of either waiting too long to set the hook or setting it too early the Grayling are forgiving in either case and usually allow you to get a hook up.

I have fun going back and forth in my float tube between my two daughters netting grayling for them. I sometimes don't even get to fish and we absolutely have a ball.

I would highly recommend we take a kid fishing. If you don't have any kids either make some, or borrow some. When pursuing the right fish you will have nothing but fun.

SJ

 

Absolutely. When I was a kid there was a time when I simply didn't have anyone to take me fishing or the ability to get anywhere myself to fish. When someone took me fishing with them it meant the world to me. I can remember every single time someone took me.

It may seem like a small insignificant kindness but it might be something that kid remembers his entire life.

 

My daughter (almost 4) is dying for me to take her fishing, she already tells everyone that she catches bigger fish than me hahaha. I tried to take her once this spring already but she got bored cuz we were only fishing from the dock so she started running around and fell in the lake so that attempt was cut severely short.

 

Sidewinder500, even though your trip was cut short I would bet she had fun, would go again, and will remember it for a long time.

I had a similar event with two of my neighbors kids. Took them fishing in a canoe. They caught some fish and were so excited when we got near the launch that they both jumped up at the same time to get out of the canoe, although they had been told not to. All I had time to do as think of how cold it was going to be before I was upside down in 2ft of water! Good thing was they went the other way and took a swim themselves. At least they didn't drop their fish! Took a few minutes to find all the poles though. Good fun.

SJ

 

I recommend taking a kid fishing for their first time to a pond/lake/river that is stocked full of fish. Just about every cast your catching fish. They dont have to be big, just a bluegill/perch pond or something. This way, they dont get bored quickly. You may not be able to fish much, but its so fun seeing the lil munchkins having a blast!

 

Saturday is the opening day for bass season here.... So I'm gonna go chasing some bows n browns

 

I like taking out friend's kids and showing them how to do it. The look on their face when they catch even a bluegill is priceless. It's even more fun when they catch a "keeper". Speaking of canoes; even though I've canoed most of my 46 years I'm still known to pull a boneheaded move every so often. (And this is after several whitewater canoe trips) I pulled up to a river bank to let some kids out onto shore and to go get some lunch. I looked down on my right and the water was only 6 inches deep. Thinking the left side was about the same (left side of canoe was closer to the center of the river than right) I carefully stood up and put my left foot out and down. Imagine my surprise to discover 3 foot deep water. I just fell right in all the way. The kids thought it was great. I live down the river from where the "Shot heard round the world" was fired. Lexington, MA for the non-history buffs out there. I was canoeing near the North Bridge when I saw two teenage girls and a younger boy loading into a canoe on a steep bank. It was evident that the boy was one of the girls younger brothers that they didn't want with them. One girl held the canoe steady while the boys older sister got in and got back to the stern seat. She started to tell the boy to get in the canoe and he said, "No, I'll push you out". This went back and forth a few times and the older sister was pretty ticked off. Just as she was getting up to get him and bodily heave him into the canoe, he decided to push off. In she went. We almost died laughing after she started sloshing out of the river and screaming at him. The last we saw of the boy (more intelligent than he looked) he was running away and trying to outpace her.