Anyone in The NAFC  in the state of Kansas,....According to my US Army Corp of Engineers daily computer release reports, Perry is currently over 5 ft high and they are releasing just over 4,000 CFS [cubic feet per second]. I am sure the rain today will make the lake higher and water release should continue for several more days. 

 

This should make it awfully good fishing below the dam for several days as long as 1,000 CFS or better continues to be released.  If you have been yearning to go, now is the time to try that first trip of the year.

Crappie, Walleye, White Bass, Channel Cat, and Flatheads should be the best ones biting.

 

One will catch an occasional Carp, Drum, or Buffalo as well.

 

Take a dip net, stringer or fish basket, and good fishing if you go. I should be out there Sat 4/3, or Sunday 4/4, and maybe a few days next week myself.

If it were not so far I would be there with you, I have been working on cleaning my little boat, I would like to test it out before the meet so if it needs anything I can try to get it before hand.

If you do go out I wish you well, have a good day !

Rusty

It does not matter if you are a Gazell or a Lion if you are not up and running before everyone else you will either go hungry or you will become food!!!

Perry Res. update. 4/4/10

 

I went fishing with NAFC member MATHYOU both Sat. and Sunday. The water release has been increased to 5000 CFS.  But the incoming water has only allowed the US Army Corp of Engineers to let out about 12 inches of water from the Res. so far. They are still around 4 ft high. And more water could be on the way into the Res. Should still be releasing water for at least 8 more days.

 

I have fished below Perry Dam since 1968 [age 11] and this weekend is the first time I have ever fished, not only one, but [2] days in a row and never caught a single Crappie or Walleye.    Usually I have at least one or the other within 30 minutes of starting. I did not see One Crappie caught by anyone [at least 60 others] over the 2 days of fishing. It's like they all disappeared, or it was the worse case of Crappie Lockjaw I have ever seen.

 

Seen two guys with a nice stringer of young Channel Cats, [8-10] but nothing went over 4 lbs. from what I could see.

 

MATHYOU caught very little on Sat. [a wind burnt face and arms]   but made up for it today with a nice healthy 14 lb. Flathead Catfish. 

 

I ended up with a wind burnt face too.!!!!

 

Over both days, I hooked or snagged by accident over 30 fish on 6 and 8 lb. test line. [Carp, Drum, and Buffalo mostly]  

I did hook one large White Bass and maybe one young Walleye, [couldn't tell] but never got either into the net. Had my lines broken several times too. A few fish hooked[somehow] were very big and hard to bring off the bottom and the way they fought,.. could have been a catfish of some type. Only God will ever know. 

 

I hooked and played many fish for several minutes only to have my hook pull out and the fish swim off before I got to see it.

 

I plan on going back, hopefully the Crappie / Walleye will start biting by then, // but it may be Weds and Thurs. 4/7-8/10, as rain is in the forecast Monday and Tuesday.

 

 

Had fun fishing with Steve but like he said the fishing pretty well sucked but had fun fishing with another member and getting to share tips or secrets. Here's some pictures of the flathead 14 lbs so not too bad. Last pics has my boot by it kinda gives you a size comparison.

Thank You guys for the report, I am sorry to hear of the bad luck but you know that a bad day fishing beats a good day at anything else------almost!

I can not understand how everyone fishing out there could have had such bad luck when it came to the Crappie and White Bass, I talked to a couple of friends that went out to Fall River Lake and they came home with over 30 Crappie and they said they were up in the creeks already.

Have a good day and hope to talk to you all soon!

Rusty

It does not matter if you are a Gazell or a Lion if you are not up and running before everyone else you will either go hungry or you will become food!!!

Another update.   

 

Phoned The US CoE office today, and they are going to reduce the outflow at Perry  from 5000 CFS to 3000 CFS.  This will be for part of today, and is supposed to continue all weekend.

 

I am going back both Sat. and Sun. I will be by my lonesome Sat.  but MATHYOU will be with me on Sunday.

 

I may have lost my 42 year streak of catching either a Crappie or Walleye below the dam last weekend,  so I'll just have to start all over again.

Today was much better at Perry below the dam.  

The amount of water being released is approx 3000 CFS. It makes a difference for sure compared to 5000 CFS last weekend.

 

The Crappie have moved in.   Some are nice, but many little ones too. Very few of the Crappie had eggs in them though. Mostly caught on minnows 2-3 ft deep under a bobber about 8 ft out from the bank edge. A lot of White bass also bit the minnows.

I also seen many small Crappie and White Bass [and a few nice ones] caught on Red/Chartruese tube jigs. I landed [3] nice Crappie and a bunch of small ones. Most keepers were in the 3/4 to 1 lb. range.

 

No Walleye were caught that I seen from any person fishing.

 

Several nice Channel Cat and a few young Flatheads [under 6 lbs] were also landed today. Most of them were hooked and landed on artificial baits surprisingly. Very few bit bait on the bottom.

 

The number of fish snagged and fouled hooked like I did last weekend went down considerably. I think I only snagged or foul hooked 7 fish today, vs. 20 last Sat.

 

I am going back with NAFC member MATHYOU Sunday 4/11/10, and see if we can't catch him a nice mess of Crappie and whatever else he likes.

 

I'll make another  progress report Sunday night or Monday.

All I can say is "What a day, you should have been there"

 

MATHYOU and I arrived before 9 AM, and started fishing.  We weren't catching much at first, but MATHYOU took a walk upstream, and watched others catching Crappie and other fish further up the bank closer to the gates.

 

We moved to a vacated area near the action, and immediately MATHYOU caught a White Bass, and I caught a small Crappie. We continued to catch fish occasionally, but they seemed to leave and return. [to me]

 

Eventually I figured out the depth, jig and tube jig colors, and location of a pool of Crappie, and we started catching fish on a consistant basis.

 

Surprisingly, compared to yesterday, many more Crappie were caught today on artificial instead of minnows.

 

MATHYOU had plenty of fish, so we gave away many nice Crappie [at least 36] to others nearby. 

We also caught and gave away several White Bass, Drum, and Buffalo.

 

All the Crappie caught were the White Crappie species and several of them did show some signs of eggs in them.

 

We seen only Two Catfish caught today on artificial. One may have weighed close to 5 lbs., the other was only around 20 inches long.

 

Walleye again today did not bite at all. Did not see one caught all weekend while fishing there. 

 

One thing I must warn my fellow NAFC members, BEWARE of loaning your fishing rod to MATHYOU

I loaned him one of mine 3 times today while  I  tried to untangle his or get his baits loose from the rocks.

He caught a fish [3] times on the first cast using my rod. 

For a while, he even had the biggest Crappie of the day using MY ROD AND REEL. But I finally caught a much bigger Crappie than his later in the day.

 

I had to laugh at this though really.  

I guess I will always have to wonder if there was any "Magic" in my rods that would allow him to catch a fish on the first cast after borrowing it.

I am very glad to hear that you had a good day! this should teach you not to loan out your fishing rod but to keep a spare close by with old dried up worm on it for bait!

Wish I could have been there though !!

Have a good day !

P.S. I left an update in MEMBER MEETS on the main forums board about camping fees in the park!

Rusty

It does not matter if you are a Gazell or a Lion if you are not up and running before everyone else you will either go hungry or you will become food!!!

Aw,... I'm too nice a guy to give an NAFC member a rod that isn't that usable.

 

Besides MATHYOU and I had the same baits and colors on, I am just better at getting jigs stuck between rocks and rip rap out and back into use again. 

 

So I lend him MY POLE for a few seconds [or casts] and he catches a fish on the first cast [3 times].   Once he caught [2] fish in three casts.

 

Really I could care less.

Just joking about it. MATHYOU is a great guy to go fishing with. I'll be happy to go with him anytime he's available. Same with other NAFC members too.

 

Perry has cut back the CFS to 2188 as of today. Since the management of my Apt. complex is resurfacing the parking lot Weds. 4/14/10, All residents must remain all day in my bldg., or must be gone by 8:30 AM and cannot return until 5:30 PM.

So back to Perry Dam I'll go. No use wasting the day when I can go back and  have fun fishing there again.

I am trying to contact MATHYOU, but so far can't get him by/on his cell phone. If I don't get him by 10 PM tonight, I'll just go alone.

Another great day of fishing below Perry Res. Dam.

Apparently the CFS has been cut back to 550 from 2188 yesterday. But it made little difference.

 

Caught roughly 20 nice keeper Crappie, and a lot of little ones. At least 50 more.  

All were White Crappie, but many were females with fat bellies full of eggs/roe.

 

Caught my first walleye like fish of 2010.

Hooked it and after getting it out of some rocks & brought it in. However this fish had black spots in its top fins. I figure it was a Saugeye, and if not, then a Sauger. It was only 14 in. long.  

Legal Length limit is 15 in. or better, so I released it.

 

Hooked and released many small White Bass  [at least 30]  And gave away several nice keepers too.

 

Also caught a few drum. One I brought in on someone elses broken off line I snagged  with my jigs while reeling in, and felt resistance. I got it in and seen that it had swallowed a snelled hook.  I cut the line as deep in the Drums mouth as I could, and released it.

 

The main lures fish bit today were a 2 in. fire tiger power twister by Berkley // Black and Chartruese tube jigs,/ Black and Pink tube jigs,/ and a green body - pearl tail tube jig.

 

1/16th ounce lead heads seemed the most effective, as I would cast then count to 5 slowly, then start reeling in. Many times I got strikes just after starting to reel in and many strikes came about 20 ft. off the bank at the top of an underwater ledge that must have been just over 5 ft. deep and the fish were laying there waiting to ambush whatever they could.

Another great day below Perry Res. Dam.  I believe the current release is 300 CFS.

 

I went with MATHYOU again, and we started fishing around 9 AM. Fishing was slow at first, but we both picked up on a pattern and location of Crappie and caught them nearly all day long.   We quit fishing with them still biting around 5 PM.

 

We located the Crappie around 5 ft. deep in maybe a 30 X 30 ft. square out in the middle, & they were biting on tube jigs, /////  black/chartruese,  red/ chartruese, black and pink, green and pearl, and the Berkley 2 in. Fire tiger twister tail. 

 

We did catch several female White Crappies with eggs/roe in them, and several male Crappies whose tails were starting to turn  black for Spawning.

 

All in all I am sure we caught a good 150 Crappie, 10 of them were very nice, we gave them away.  

And we probably had another 10 that were border line keepers, which we tossed back for another day.

 

We also caught [2] Drum and MATHYOU hooked a Gar and eventually broke off and. lost both his jigs to it. We also seen one 13 in. Sauger caught and a few Catfish.

 

I suspect that unless more water suddenly hits Perry, that they will reduce the CFS sometime this week to 15-30 daily. Should I go back, I'll make another update.

 

 

AN UPDATE.////  Both Perry and Pomona Res. are holding back water to prevent flooding down below in rivers and other Res. After this weekends scheduled rains, fishing should become great below both these two locations for maybe another 2 weeks. 
I will update the post when I find out what date the US Army Corp. of Engineers starts the release at either location

 

Perry is now over 4 ft high and rising, While Pomona Res. has now raised to over 6 ft high and and could easily reach 10 ft high,   Both will continue getting higher as more rain is expected this weekend. [5 /15-16]

Sometime next week or by the weekend [5/22-23] water should start being released again if the CFS [Cubic Feet per Second] release won't flood anything downriver.

Fishing should be fantastic for several days at both, and I expect Pomona to release 2000 to 25000 CFS  for a while, then eventually reduce it down to 1000-1200 to finish off all access water held back.

Perry may release anything between 1000 and 5000 CFS depending on how full it becomes. Then lower the release amount to finish off all water held back.

Hope to see/meet other NAFC members there if they get the chance

Today Perry Res. started releasing water around noon. It is currently at 2412 CFS. And the Res. is 5.50 ft. high. Should be releasing water for a good week anyhow.

I suspect it will take at least 24 hrs to draw fish up from the Kansas and Delaware rivers below the dam to check out the flow and food situation.

The only thing that will be of concern is any unusually high unexpected rain amounts/ local flooding, // that might fall in the area forecasted for Weds. and Thursday. 

Otherwise I would say one should be able to catch some kind of fish by Weds. afternoon and most certainly by Friday when the expected temp. for the day will  be around 79*

Pomona Res. is just over 7 ft. high and was only releasing 15 CFS.

That has been raised today to 123 CFS, but should increase much more if  the release waters combined  from Pomona, Melvern, and Hillsdale  Res. [all [3's]  water eventually go into the Maris Des Cygnes River] won't cause flooding on the Maris Des Cygnes river or as eventually it flows into and joins with the Marmanton and Little Osage rivers and becomes the Big Osage River which empties into Harry S, Truman Res.

Again local rain and flooding should be the only concern on Weds. & Thurs. and if nothing appears to cause any danger downriver, then Pomona should be letting out much more CFS  here shortly. I expect it to be good fishing there by this Friday and the whole weekend.

I will update things daily after the daily release posting come out at noon.

Get them rods and reels ready. The next 2 weeks should be good fishing below these 2 Res. for several species of fish. =  ESP.  CRAPPIE.

Perry has increased its outflow from 2412 to 3500 CFS and has dropped from 5.50 ft high to 5.03 ft high. Apparently there is no threat of flooding down river at this location. Don't know if this will be the top outflow or if it will be increased again. Will find out more Thurs. just after the 12 noon postings.

Pomona has increased its outflow from 123 CFS to 416 CFS. I am sure it will increase the outflow much more [anywhere from 1000 to 2500 CFS] before much longer.

Apparently there is still concern about local rains and contributing to any flooding on the Maris Des Cynges River, that the release water goes into after going down 110 mile creek.
Pomona has dropped from 7.03 ft high yesterday to 6.95 ft high today.

UPDATE.... 5/21/10 =  Perry and Pomona have each shut down their gates to minimal flow due to local flooding.

I went with MATHYOU on Friday 5/21 to Pomona,  and we caught only a few small Crappie and a 2-3 LB Channel Cat which was released. / CFS was 15. /  We stayed until 11 AM, then left going to Perry.

When we got there we were disappointed to find it at low flow. [25 CFS] We tried fishing for 4 hrs. and caught only a few small Crappie.

Monday 5/24/10, Perry and Pomona finally start releasing water.  MATHYOU and I went to Pomona first, [CFS was 1700-2000] again catching a few small Crappie and one 7 in. Walleye. We left again around 10:30 AM going up to Perry. [CFS is around 3500] We caught several White Bass, A 12 in. Crappie, and a few Drum. I also caught a Sauger about 12 in. long and released it.

Tuesday.  MATHYOU and I went back to Pomona hoping the fish had moved in. They hadn't.
We caught one 10 in. Crappie and a few small ones. A couple Drum, and one 1 lb + largemouth. We were going to stay until 2 PM, but left at noon.

I can't figure out [so far] any pattern to catch fish consistantly at either location. Tube Jig Color, size of leadhead, speed to reel in, and depth fish are at. I hope the fish move in before Memorial Day Weekend. I am sure many folks want to catch fish this weekend and Monday 5/31.

Perry and Pomona Res. still continue to let out water [3500 CFS] at Perry and [2000] at Pomona.  And the fishing is Absolutely terrible for reasons unknown.

 

In April [11-16] during Perry's release of water, fishing was fair to good, now it has gotten to a point that most folks below the dam aren't catching anything. A friend of mine was there Sat 5/29, and fished for 2 hours and observed over 16 other folks fishing. Not one fish was caught by anyone. There were no Sea Gulls in the area diving for baitfish as usual either.

I fished Pomona, Friday 5/28 and 5/30. I caught 4 keeper Crappie and several small fish [inc.] Drum and a small Walleye] on 5/28, and on 5/30 only [1] keeper Crappie and a few small fish [inc.] Drum and a Walleye.

It seems all the fish in these two locations have a very serious case of LOCKJAW, //// 

OR on a wild guess, someone has stretched a very large net across down below both the Deleware River [Perry] and 110 Mile Creek [Pomona] somewhere in a strategic location, thus not allowing many/few fish to come upriver to the dam areas and the released water. Both places [from past experience] should be packed with thousands of readily biting fish.

There is absolutely no amount of fish below these two areas as there should be. People should be catching hundreds, if not thousands of small fish and many nice sized keepers as well, and many folks should now and then accidently be snagging into all kinds of fish  as well when it is packed with them. [even Shad].  

Posted By scasteel on 05 Jun 2010 08:04 PM
Today MATHYOU and I fished Pomona, starting at 8 AM today, sadly the US Army Corp of Engineers had lowered the 2000 CFS last night around 5:30 PM to allegedly 688. I say more like 300 CFS observing it today.

MATHYOU  caught a lot of Crappie and Drum and a few White Bass up in the release  chute and gate area, He stated he seen one lady fisherman catch a 3 lb Walleye.  

I stayed in the lower section of the pool and whirlpool area, catching only one Crappie and a 12 in. Walleye [both were released.]. We left just after 11 AM, as the weather was getting hot, and most fish had nearly quit biting completely.

We did observe a couple fishing on the opposite shore from me, catch 3 Channel Cat in the last 15 minutes we were there.

Perry Res in the meantime has shut its release gates from 3500 CFS down to 25 CFS.
The lake has came up about 1/4 of a foot, in small amounts the last two days. I suspect that either a large rain storm hit the area within the last 72 hrs. near Perry, or a large amount of run off water is expected from drainage areas North of Perry. [No reports on what fishing is like below the dam currently from anyone I know]

MATHYOU and I went back to Pomona Res. early Sunday morning 6/6/10. We fished at the end of the chute area in a small pool of water. We started fishing around 7 AM and quit by 11 AM.

MATHYOU caught several nice Crappie [5] and several small ones. He also caught at least [2] White Bass, and also landed [2] real nice Wipers that went around 5 lbs ea. He lost a very large Catfish [maybe 3-4 ft. long] that looked Purple on top and white underneath. A Blue or Channel Cat??  
We believe he also lost one Walleye at the shore and rocks around 7 in. long.

I caught [2] nice Crappie [lots of little ones too] and roughly a 3 lb. Channel Cat and finally a keeper Walleye just missing 18 in. long.  We gave all our good keepers to a lady fishing next to us. Except the Walleye.

We both caught many small Crappie and Drum of all sizes while there. It started getting hot between 10:30 and 11 AM. For reasons unknown, my Walleye struck my chartruese and black twister just after I had looked at my watch showing it was 10:35 AM.

After my Walleye was landed, a senior Service Veteran and his wife who had been watching for a short time from the sidewalk behind us, stated he had been camping below Pomona for almost a week, and had failed to catch a keeper Walleye. A large hand towel rag was on the ground near us. I picked it up and wrapped it around the Walleye and gave it to him. He was very happy and thanked me. We left after that as it was getting hot.

Pomona Res. was still 2 1/2 ft high on 6/6/10, and was letting out 200 CFS. I suspect that unless another large run off occurs very shortly, Pomona will continue letting out the rest of the remaining high water at 200 CFS.

Perry Res. still has low flow [25 CFS] and is now back over 3 ft. high. Don't know what they are holding back for.

Could someone tell me how far (drive time) Perry is from Olathe? Tom