How's the Lower Illinois River?

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makeithappen

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That's some quality ice, Swampratt. Look at the defined edges. I imagine you paid a premium for such cooling abilities without needing a power outlet. Nice fish too!
 

swampratt

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I found i like the smaller ones better.
I fillet the fish and remove skin and pan fry in very little oil..like a pancake.

The small ones i do not need to remove the pin bones.
And they taste better.
A buddy supplied the ice.
I used to not eat trout..i did not know about the pin bones and when i fixed it like a catfish fillet i was PO from all the pin bones.
I had put carp and trout on the same list..trash fish or bait fish.
Or grind them in the meat grinder and make fish patties.

I have since learned.
 

Johnny

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I personally have never had good luck trout fishing on the LIR. Then, last time I was there (1-2 years ago) I saw that the water was barely trickling by. I learned that there had been repairs to the dam which "fixed" the leak which had previously maintained the flow downstream, and that the Corps of Engineers didn't want to allocate any water for the trout fishery. So, what's the status of it now? is the trout fishery still viable? Is it in danger? I have caught lots of trout in the lower Mountain Fork River, but now I have a boat at Pine Cove Marina which is right at the Tenkiller dam, so I need to start trout fishing there!

Is Mar-Val still a good place to fish?

You just have to fish it to learn it. Things have gotten better there. They have put in a system that puts dissolved oxygen in the water during the hots summer days. Right now with colder weather the fish are really spread out everywhere. I posted this video a couple weeks ago.http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iVRVaiTSyCY&desktop_uri=/watch?v=iVRVaiTSyCY. Fished about 4-5 hours and I landed 32, Russell probably had that many as well.

Also the corp was suppose to raise the lake level a couple of feet to ensure there was water to run down the river on a regular basis. I don't know if it happened. I know this past summer they generated at least one unit for 2 hours a day every day.
 

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