Thirty-two teams fished last weekend’s season-ending Angler’s Choice tournament at Wappapello Lake.
At the end of the day, the team of Paul Henderson and his son, Kason Henderson, topped the field with a five-fish limit of 17.02 pounds. For their efforts, the pair earned $1,630.
Randy Jackson and Scott Miller took second place with a weight of 16.53 pounds, good for $1,040.
Third place was earned by Justin Mosier and Matt Allison with 13.08 pounds, and their payout was $635.
Grabbing the fourth spot was the team of Rob Williams and Michael Williams with a stringer weight of 12.61 pounds. Their winnings were $390.
Wrapping up the top five was the team of Jerry Carpenter and Jeff Slinkard with 11.91 pounds and a paycheck for $230.
The big bass of the day was caught by longtime teammates Ron Carnahan and Don Hampton and weighed 6.54 pounds.
The second-largest bass was a 5.39-pounder caught by Garrett Rhodes and Donald McDowell.
For river anglers, the Current River Smallmouth Association will host a club tournament Saturday, based out of the T.C. Steel ramp at Doniphan.
Fishing will kick off at 7 a.m. and will continue through 5 p.m.
This will be the last regular CRSA tournament of the season before the organization’s annual Classic, scheduled for Oct. 9.
For information, call Randy Sullivan at 417-252-4400.
The Wappapello Bass Circuit will wrap up its 2021 season this weekend when it hosts its annual two-day Classic on both Saturday and Sunday.
Based out of the Redman Creek ramp, fishing Saturday will kick off at 6:30 a.m. and go through 3 p.m. On Sunday, fishing hours will be 6:30 a.m. until 2 p.m.
As always, the pre-event meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at the Wappapello VFW, off Highway D, to assign boat numbers.
For more information, contact Justun Buchanan at 573-429-6312 or Matt Allison at 573-778-6969.
Missouri’s archery seasons for deer and turkeys are just a week old, but given the numbers, it looks like there hasn’t been a lot of effort put forth so far by hunters.
It’s still very early and it means essentially nothing, but every local county is down from where they were a week into the season last year. That could be because more people may have been out of work last year and were able to hunt, the weather has been too hot or a number of other reasons.
Statewide, 3,043 deer have been taken so far by bowhunters compared to 5,539 last year.
The harvest in Butler County is 15 deer so far, compared to 48 a year ago.
In Carter County, 41 deer have been arrowed, below last year’s 53.
Dunklin County bowhunters have tagged two deer, down from five last year.
In Reynolds County, the harvest at this point is 29 deer, down from 54.
In Ripley County, 21 deer have been arrowed compared to 56 last year.
Stoddard County bowhunters have killed 28 deer over the last week, but last year in that same period, the total was 65.
Wayne County bowhunters have taken 41 deer so far, down quite a bit from the first-week total of 109 last year.
There’s still plenty of time to get things done, with the season going through mid-January, minus 11 days in November.
The turkey harvest also is lagging a little behind last year’s, though I have heard from multiple landowners and hunters that they’ve seen more flocks of hens and poults this fall than they have in several years.
So far, 144 birds have been taken statewide by bowhunters, down a bit from 177 last year.
Locally, one bird has been taken in Butler County, three in Carter County, three in Stoddard County and one in Wayne County.
Paul Davis is the outer editor for the Daily American Republic and can be reached at pdavis.dar@gmail.com.