Wappapello
Bassmasters
Sixty-two teams fished Wappapello Bassmasters tournament recently, which was hampered by a little fog early on.
"We had a great weigh-in," said Gerry Robinson. "Any time you have five fish that weigh over 21 pounds, you had a great day on the lake."
Winkler and Ladymon were the top anglers with a stringer weight of 21.75 pounds. They also had the day's big bass, weighing in at 5.91 pounds.
Second place went to Toon and Taylor with 20.56 pounds, while third was earned by Boyd and Nicholson with 17.49 pounds. They also had the second-largest fish of the day, weighing in at 5.7 pounds.
Batton and Kearby grabbed the fourth spot with 17.17 pounds, and Stevens and Stevens took fifth with 14.35 pounds.
Longtime fishing partners Holmes and Young took the sixth spot with 13.86 pounds, and the Hutson brothers, Ryan and Adam, got seventh place with 13.65 pounds. The final paying position, eighth, was earned by Manion and Manion with 13.3 pounds.
Smallie Tourney
Despite high and muddy water, the first Current River Smallmouth Association tournament of the year was a success.
Williams and Kram were the day's winners, hauling in 9.41 pounds to the weigh-in. They were followed by Dougherty and Sisco in second place with 9.35 pounds.
Third place was earned by Hampton and Towner with 8.87 pounds, and fourth went to Carringer and Rutledge with 8.46 pounds.
McCaulley and Rommel took the fifth spot with 8.01 pounds.
Towner had the day's big bass, weighing 3.21 pounds, while Joe Dougherty had a 2.99-pounder.
Strong Showing
Poplar Bluff's trap team did well recently at the SCTP Championships at Linn Creek, Mo., with the junior high A Squad (Jaydon Everts, Garret Cooper, Austin Stoner, Trenton Patterson and Jakob Valenzuela) earning a third-place finish in its division.
Stoner also earned second place in the junior high division with a score of 194 out of 200.
The high school's A Squad (TJ Abney, Hunter Seal, Hannah Cash, Andrew Miller and Hunter Turner) shot a perfect round, only the second time it's ever happened for the school team.
On top of all that, Tayler Hillis earned a scholarship to attend this summer's Mizzou Trap Academy.
Timber Thinning
If you utilize the Pool 9 timber unit at the Coon Island Conservation Area (lots of duck hunters and some bowhunters do), you'll likely see some big changes starting this fall.
The Missouri Department of Conservation will be selling off nearly 700,000 board feet of timber from the unit, which is scheduled to be cut over the next two summers.
"It's going to be selective harvest and thinning," said MDC Resource Forester Mark Pelton. "We're trying to improve the habitat and species diversity."
The timber thinning, Pelton said, will result in a better canopy diversity instead of the unit having a single-layer.
"We want gaps to have multiple levels," he said.
The operation, Pelton noted, is similar to another sale on the property four or five years ago.