Tarpon fishing in Kansas!!

[slabby joe]

In trying to get some fresh fillets for an upcoming fish fry I deceided to give "FAILSDALE" a shot on Tuesday and even took another fisher(JLuber) to help with loading the boat....well it was a slooowww day until the clouds rolled in. We were able to pick up a few in the bigger trees in the hedgegrove below the little bull bridge but as always more dinks than keepers. Minnows on 1/32 white jigs in 12-15fow was the best, the water was the clearest I've seen in awhile but didn't seem to help the fishing much....11 keepers and 3 catfish...not what I was hoping for sssoooo it was off to Pomona on Thursday where you can keep huge numbers and no length limit...just what this fish fry needed and Lee,Jake and I had been catching some really nice fish the last few trips but hadn't been keeping any so surely I'd be rewarded for being a conservationist (Lee really thinks I'm a meat hunter) and we caught 2 nice fish pretty quick but then nothing and the east wind picked up with some small white caps forming...not looking too promising. We moved further back into the cove and began to see shad flipping and the feeding frenzy was in full swing....the Kansas tarpon were everywhere, all sizes...cruising along like torpedos looking for a target...we tried to dip stumps but bam!! you'd have a tarpon on and the fight was on, making several runs and blasting out of the water and tailwalking before the little 1/32oz. jigs would come out of their toothy snouts. We couldn' keep them off our hooks and even going from one tree to another you better not have your minnow dangling in the water and you better not set your pole down! Now all this was fun for awhile( I think Jake would've prefered to keep catching the tarpon) but it wasn't putting meat in the cooler so we had to leave that part of the cove and did find a few more nice slabs but not what I was hoping for...13 keepers for the day 4-8fow on the bottom,again a white jig tipped with a minnow seemed to work best. Ok Ok I guess I should've called it GARpon fishing but in Kansas this is as close as I could get

[kscrappeye]

Sounds like your at least catching a few fish. I haven't had the boat out to fish in about a month! Did end up catching a few trout on the Arkansas River on vacation last week in Colorado. Heading up to Pierre S.D. next Friday to fish walleyes and Smallies on Lake Oahe and Lake Sharpe for four days. Hope to bring back a few. Hope to see you, Lee, and young Doug out on the water this fall. Thanks for the report.

[walleyecrazy839]

Oahe fish as deep as 50 sharp 7 10 fow. starting depts we were in july fished 30 fow on Oahe.

[crappiedoc]

Good read Slabby, had me going trying to figure out what you was catching