MO Snagging 2010 Opening Weekend

The MO spoonbill season opened on March 15th, so we headed down for our annual trip to LOZ on Thursday morning. The forecast was calling for upper sixties on Thursday and Friday, with snow and freezing temps on Saturday, so we wanted to get in as much good weather snagging in as possible.

The action Thursday afternoon and evening was slow. Brian managed to put three spoonies in the boat and loose 6 of our diver rigs in the mean time. The water temp was around 42-43 degrees so the fish hadn't really started to stack up yet.

On Friday morning Brian, Nick, and I  ran up to the 55 mile marker, but there was less action up the river than down by us so after a couple hours we headed back down river. I finally got on the board with a small spoony around the 49MM. The action picked up for the remainder of the afternoon and we ended up putting 18 total fish into the boat on Friday. I think the addition of Nate "FreakNasty" to team Big Fish Hunter put us over the top....

Andy snagged a 107lbs spoony Friday evening....it was an absolute giant of a fish and a true "fish of a lifetime".

We ended up fishing until about 2:15am Saturday morning, before the wind really started picking up. We hit the dock around 2:30am and within five minutes the rain stared, so our timing was perfect. The weatherman didn't disappoint with his forecast. We woke up Saturday morning to stiff NW winds, mid-30s temps, and a mix of rain, sleet, and snow. Derrick, Brian, and I decied to brave the conditions for a couple hours. Being on the lake in a snow storm as actaully pretty awesome. No to mention I was rewarded with my biggest spoony of the weekend a 60+ lbser and a true double snag at the same time. It wasn't until we started to run back up river in the driving sleet that we really started to regret our desicion....but we made it no worse for the wear!

All in all it was another great opening weekend of snagging. We didn't put as many fish in the boat as last year, but we still managed 22 fish for the weekend. Brian and I tied for the most fish with 7 a piece...the double was huge!!