September 24, 2022

 Visited our son at Truman State University for "Parent's Weekend".  Had just a bit of time early Saturday morning to squeeze some fishing in.  Right across the highway from the hotel is a MDC-owned pond I've fished before.  I was greeted by this sign:

Ugh.  Plans demolished.  I took some pics of the drained pond, so show where the brushpiles, rocks, etc, have been placed...for future reference.

There's a lake about 20 minutes away that I've wanted to visit, but hadn't yet.  It has muskies...and I want to catch a musky on fly...so I went.

I only had about an hour to fish before I needed to head back to the hotel, but I flyfished from shore for muskies and for bass.  I didn't catch any or see any.  I didn't want to get skunked, so I downsized and fished off a floating dock.  I caught about a dozen white crappies and black crappies, a couple small bass, and somehow managed to land a crayfish!

September 18, 2022

 Re-checked out one area of the swamp for possible fishing areas.  Water is really low, and no fish were spotted, except in a large pool, where I saw a gar.

Took a long walk and checked out some other new-to-me areas.  I caught 3 bowfin in one small area.

A couple of them had better looking fins than most of the ones I've caught recently.

Finally, I caught one that had an "eyespot" on its tail (male), although it was a bit faded.

At a new spot nearby, I caught a Warmouth (could be a hybrid):

I caught a 4th Bowfin at a spot I've fished before.

While walking between various spots, I saw this big Softshell Turtle.  It saw me approach, but didn't run away like most do.  I took some pics and continued on my walk.

There were 3 Viceroy butterflies on this pile of dung.  One flew away before I took this picture.

I accidentally foul-hooked this large Snapping Turtle in the tail.  Fortunately, I was able to free my fly with my rod tip so I didn't need to beach the turtle.

I believe this is a Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar.

And some sort of katydid.

September 10-11, 2022

 Flyfished with my buddy Hamilton, who came to visit from Arkansas this weekend.

Fishing was tough in the places we tried, due to many factors.  I ended up catching:

4 Grass Carp (2 biggest were 33" and 30"), 2 Shortnose Gar, a Bowfin, 2 Channel Catfish, a White Bass, a Common Carp, and a Freshwater Drum.

Viceroy Butterfly (Monarch Butterfly mimic):

Snake eating a frog:

Big snake!:

September 3, 2022

Went to a new spot... it was nearly dry.  Only some small fish of some sort were seen.  Went back to where I fished the previous weekend.  Water remains super-muddy.  I used scent on the fly again.  I think it helps in this situation for Bowfin.

I started out with the Erny's Full Metal Jacket fly I caught a couple bowfin on last trip.  I had 2 BIG bowfin on, and both shook free.  Disappointed, I switched to a black marabou-tailed sculpin-type fly pattern with a trimmed deer hair collar behind the conehead weight.  It was a fly I purchased, so I'm not sure of the name (possibly a Conehead Bow River Bugger?)... appears to be a #2 or #4 3xl streamer hook. (picture of the fly is included below the bowfin pics).

I ended up catching all 7 of the next Bowfin strikes!

I used that same fly to drop down to a common carp that was working shallow water near shore.  Getting the hook out of the fish, the shank broke.  Time to switch flies again.

The next fly worked just as well for carp.  It was a black-and-chartreuse microjig about 6" beneath an indicator.

Seeing some activity in the shallow water on the other side of a shallow "bowl", I thought maybe it was bowfin.  I put on a Double Barrel bass popper to see if I could get on to eat on top.  Whatever it was struck repeatedly, missing about 1/2 dozen times.  It finally caught the popper.  Shortnose Gar!  Nice fat one.... 26.5".

Saw lots of turtles and grass/leopard frogs again.  And quite a few snakes.  This one practically crawled across my shoes.

The Fishing Spider showed up.  Good-sized.

I believe this is a baby Alligator Snapping Turtle (?).  Its shell seemed bumpier than a Common Snapping Turtle, but I could be mistaken.

The snake below...I couldn't see the entire snake, just what you see here, and down to the tip of its tail.  Very large body, though.  What you see here was about the diameter of my forearm!