Missouri Crappie Camp 2011 Truman Lake

Tom (Tomtom) and I left Grenada Mississippi to go to a Crappie.com event at Truman Lake Missouri. We left first thing in the morning (after taking down the tent and all) and the plan was to arrive at Truman around 5pm. The trip was supposed to take 8 hours or so according to my Garmin. Well, with all the flooding taking place, we ended up taking a 2.5 hour detour in Arkansas, and there was another small detour in Southern Missouri. The flooding was unreal. This picture does not do it justice. There were places where left of the road was flooded, and water pressure pushing through the culverts created white water rapids 50 yards from the right side of the road. Now that's a lot of pressure. I was nervous just driving on the road. Farmhouses, and farms were completely flooded as far as the eye could see. We felt so bad for them.
We arrived and set up camp. Yes, we pulled the Tracker Pro 16 with a BMW 5 Series. I know I need to get a truck, but for now, this is what I got. It's actually is not bad, I get 20 mpg towing, but if I was not towing I'd be getting 30 mpg. I own a BMW because I know how to work on them. I used to work for a dealership. This one turned 100k miles on this trip. I was not at all worried about it or it's tranny partly because it's a stick! In my care, this car will go another 100k easy, but still, I'll need a truck for future trips. Tom and I had the car packed to the gills!

The next morning we went to the Marina at Bucksaw Resort to get minnows and our fishing licenses. We asked about putting up our Crappie.com banner, and they had no problem with it at all. You can see it wire tied to the rail at the front of the Marina.
We went out fishing and caught some nice fish. Seems like a real nice fishery here, we caught some nice crappie, but we also caught a lot of Stripers and Bass. Heck, even though we were crappie fishing it seemed like we caught equal amounts of each! We did not keep any fish as we soon found out that the live well pump was not working. Later we found out, with the help of Speck, that the pump itself was bad. Thanks Speck.


I even caught a Sauger:

Friday night was the barbecue. My buddy Tom pitched in and helped grill. I pitched in by bringing Tom a Diet Pepsi!
"The BBQ was a great success due to the efforts of bwillaub, Rugs, Tom and the tommyg with the excellent pork. " Buckwheat1

Above: Tom checking grill in foreground, and the rest of the crew. Great food, great conversation.
We knew Saturday was going to be busy on the water, our crappie tournament, and another Bass tournament on the same day. The forecast for Saturday was windy also, so I chose not to go out on the water. Tom went out with JackB who graciously volunteered to take him with. Don't know if he'll ever do it again, but this is what he said:
"Had the pleasure of meeting Slab and his friend Tom who fished with me on Saturday. If any of you were wondering if there was a male version of CN, this guy is it. He is from Illinois, and as soon as he found out I was originally from Chicago, it was a CONSTANT blah blah blah. I was hoping we would run into some turkey hunters so I could borrow a gun to blow my brains out. Just teasing you Tom, we had a great day and you are welcome to fish in my boat anytime. " said jackb

This explains why Bugman and Tom got along so well. I don't know how either got a word in edgewise.

The fish fry took place Saturday late afternoon. Buckwheat1 had his industrial strength fryers on hand. Thank you so much for all your effort and hard work Buckwheat1. We never would have been able to fry up that much food so quick. Those fryers are awesome. Pictures by Badaxed:


We had some special visitors come to the fish fry on Saturday. I think they were hungry and came because they smelled all the great food.

Pictured above are John Mason (left) and Paul Alpers, from Crappie Masters. I had met them in Alabama when I attended the Crappie Masters Alabama River tournament. They were gracious enough to allow me to place a Crappie.com decal on their trucks. Just shows you how supportive Crappie Masters is to the Crappie fishing community. Thanks Paul and John, it was a pleasure chatting with you.
Also in attendance was Tony Edgar of the Ozark Rod Company and Edgar's Outdoor Sports (Versailles, MO), pictured below:

We took a picture of the whole group in attendance. Wow what a big group, the picture turned out great:

Here's a short list, of some of the attendees, I'm sure I missed many but I thought I'd try my hand at a list:
1rookie
badaxed
Barndog
bigby
Billbob
Blueskeeter
Buckwheat
bugman
buzzmanmo
bwillaub
cookieman
Crappie Princes
Double D
Drfishjd
frog
gunner1911
Hardhunter2
Hookedonfishing
Hookin&Cookin
jackb
Jerkey Log
Jigging15
just jiggin
Kit Papermouth
moquack
Namgrunt
nojoe and rugsrme
olesilverside
OnTimeDelivery
Smitty79
Speck
Tommyg
WantinCrappie
If you attended and are not on the list, please PM me and I'll add you.
Buckwheat and Blueskeeter, they had it set up restaurant style. Probably better than most restaurants.

Speck and DrFishID enjoying some good conversation. Give these guys credit for coming up from the Mississippi event the week before:



Here's Billbob, participating in his tradition of taking pictures with all the Women of Crappie Camp. He also attended both the MS event and the MO event.

What a great idea, especially for a guy like me with a bad back (no that's not me). An Ironing board picks up your fish cleaning so you are not bending over as much. Olesilverside took this picture.

Rugsrme showing off some good ones:

Secondary use of a boat, came in real handy:

Secondary use of a tail gate:

I'd like to thank Bugman, Jiigging15 and Buckwheat1 plus the many others that contributed to making the event successful. You all did an absolutely wonderful job. We had such a great time at Crappie Camp. If you have never attended one, you will not regret it, take the time and plan on going to the next one, in any state. Missouri would certainly be a good choice as the folks here really know how to have a good time. Thanks all, and see you next time.
We had already left, but here's a pic Speck took of bwillaub Sunday, the day after the fish fry just to show you all how big the Crappie can get on Truman Lake. That's a beauty. Good job guys.