My wife, kids and I are headed to Branson Monday morning for a week or R&R. We are planning on renting a boat for a few hours and would love to catch a few crappie ? Just curious, plus Im bored at work.

The neatest thing I saw at Branson was behind Table Rock Lake. The fish hatchery for trout. I am talking about big trout, not the 10-12 inchers that TPWD releases for us to catch. You might try to trout fish behind the dam. Crystal clear water. See the bottom in 15 foot of water.

Lake Taneycomo runs right throught the middle of Branson

Taneycomo runs right through it. My family went there for vacation one year and we actually caught some good crappie. I believe the lake is better know for its trout fishing but the crappie fishing was good.

The best spot was the little boat dock at the motel we stayed at. It was small maybe 10 slips. I remember being able to see the crappie suspended under the dock in the clear water. We caught them on 1/32 oz jigs.

Stockton lake north of Springfield is a good lake for crappie.

If you haven't tried the trout on Tanney Como you gotta give it a try. It is fun to say the least.

We camped one time right on Tanneycomo. I loved it. The trout fishing was fun there. One thing though, we had to fish early because later in the day we usually heard the horn and that meant the release of water from the Table Rock Dam and within ususally 15 minutes the water would rise. One more thing, the trout there had a red color on their bottoms if I remember right and when we asked about it at the hatchery, they said it was I believe their diet that was shrimp that gave them the more pink or red color.

There was also a campground in town that was right on Tanneycomo, I think it was a public city park. Anyway we went there also and fished on the Tanneycomo.

We also fished on Table Rock, there are some nice fish in there. It is a very deep lake and we did best back in the little coves.

Table Rock has some of the biggest sand bass you'll ever catch. I dragged my center console up there for a week and fished the flat across from the dam and where the big paddle boat is docked, trolling a Shad Rap SR-7 on 6 and 8-lb. test line. Caught a few smallies in the same area, too. We stayed at Indian Point Resort...rented a cabin for the week and docked the boat there.