Our usual crew of misfits headed back down to Lake of the Ozarks last Thursday to kickoff the 2012 Missouri Spoonbill season. We invited a fellow MissouriWhitetails.com member Nick (Bowhuntks) down for his first spoonbill action and it didn't take us long to get the action started.
Brian, Big Nick, Little Nick, and myself were on the water by 1:45pm Thursday and within the first 30 minutes Brian had already landed two nice mid-50lbs fish. Big Nick didn't have to wait much longer before he hooked into his first spoonbill ever, which was pushing the 60lbs mark.
After coming out of the gates hot the action slowed down for the remainder of the day. We did bang out a couple of small chippers and I landed a decent 35lbs fish late in the day.
Friday morning we awoke to temperatures in the low 70s and blue skies...what we didn't plan for was the 87 degree temperatures and scorching sun all day...it was a little hot and we may have gotten slightly sunburned!
The action Friday was pretty slow right out of the gates as we ran up to the 66MM, but Little Nick got on the board around 11am when he landed his first fish of the weekend.
We headed in for lunch and sunscreen around 1pm and were back on the water by 2:30pm and ready for some action. I changed into my "Mullets" t-shirt for good luck and as we were leaving the cove I informed the boys that the "Mullets" shirt was a spoonbill magnet and we'd always caught fish when I had it on. About 10 minutes later line started ripping off my reel and after a good fight I landed the biggest fish of the weekend when this +70lbs sow came into the boat....go MULLETS!!!
After heading in Friday evening for dinner Big Nick decided to wet a crappie line, but he wasn't expecting to pull a 30lbs blue cat out...but he wasn't complaining either!
Saturday morning our group came our swinging and between four boats we landed eleven fish in the first 90 minutes of fishing. I hooked into this fatty 65lbs sow right out of the gates!
We got run off the lake a couple times because of the thunderstorms that were rolling through, but we managed to make it back out on the water for the last couple hours of fishing...and it was worth it! We all landed good fish, but the trip was capped off when Big Nick's reel started screaming around 5pm and he landed his second fish of the trip and the 2nd biggest when this 68lbs sow came aboard. I put the icing on the cake ten minutes later when I pulled the 3rd biggest fish aboard; a nice 66lbs sow.
The Killing Crew...after tying up the last two keepers!
Big Nick had to drive to Wisconsin and back Sunday, so him and I headed home late Saturday night but not before we took some group photos...it was a great weekend as usual and we're looking forward to getting another late season trip in....FISH ON BITCHES!!!
