bobby b.

Darn, I was counting on an answer from you. Bobby

I use a 1648 flat bottom Jon to fish up the rivers, over to Bull, etc. rather than pull my other boat from the slip down near the darn or drive on the water long distances. I am in the market for a mud motor to use on this Jon boat for duck hunting as I am getting too old for my small layout boat. Regarding the Mud Motor, I have two choices 1) get a long tail mud motor and exchange it seasonally with the outboard on the Jon or 2) trade the outboard in for a permanently installed shallow water drive Mud Motor. As I get older, option No.1 will get harder due to the weight of these motors (even with a hoist in my garage). In case you are not familiar with these mud motors, I’ve attached a pic of each. The long tails are direct drive and thus have no reverse and would be useless for fishing while the shallow water drive does have reverse and could possibly work for fishing yet not really as good as a traditional outboard. These are 25 hp air cooled motors producing noise similar to a lawn tractor. The Question - So if I opt for No.2, how much do you think my fishing would be affected by the engine noise or might it even be better as there is no exhaust thru the lower unit? Thanks for your thoughts on this. Bobby

I talked to a Suddenlink Tech that was doing some survey work on our street last week. He told be that Suddenlink has budgeted and already purchased equipment to do complete upgrades to their equipment in the Branson West area as they recognize their service is terrible. He claimed this will result in Gigbit speed. Interestingly enough, my bill went up again this month by $2.50 for something called "Network Enhancement". Hope it's true. Bobby

Mike, Thanks Bobby

ColdWater, at reasonable water level (after a good rain) would you think there is fast water or narrows, etc. too much for a novice canoe. How would you compare to the upper James, Current, Jacks Fork? thanks Bobby

Mike, can you give cost and speed info. Bobby

I have Suddenlink and when it works it's good but too often it don't - it cost $69.99/mo but they have deals for newbie. When it works I get 15 mps. The problem is that in the evening it is so slow that we can't watch Netflex so I turn my cell phone into a hotspot and that works OK. I been looking for something different and when I saw Bill's post I just called Total Highspeed - $100 for their Deluxe package 1.5 - 6 mps using cell towers. Bobby

So how far up from the mouth of Swan do most folks go for White Bass or other species? Thanks Bobby

You mean in the winter (loss of thermocline) , Correct? This would not apply to summer time vertical fishing, Correct? Bobby

Excellent - Are you willing to tell what kinda of ground you found fish on yesterday? i.e creek guts, main lake points, flats, gravel runouts??? I'm thinking the same type ground should work down near the darn. Thanks Bobby

Best Duck Receipt I found over the years: Fillet off the breast meat. Soak in milk for a day or two. Tenderize it with one of those mallets. Roll it up with cut peppers and onions with a little Italian dressing holding it in a roll with tooth picks. Grill for 10 minutes with the meat rare as said above. Easy and quick and pretty good. Although I shoot lots of ducks every years, I give most of it away.

Ok the following story is the full truth A few years back (about 2009) i was a part timer down here - had an old Cajun Fish and Ski on a lift with a boat cover. One winter day, I uncovered the boat and dropped the lift to go out for a ride/fish. Back then it was always just a ride as I rarely caught any fish. I noted a bad smell thinking I may had accidentally left the one fish I caught last year in the live well. I started to motor down the creek when a young coon crawled out from under the console, ran up my leg to my arm and jumped into the water. I'm not sure who was more frightened, the coon or me. I went back to the dock and discovered three piles under the front deck. 1) to the right a bunch of my torn up towels apparently used by the coon(s) as a bed, 2) the middle pile was lots of fish bones 3) the left pile lots of poop. I was impressed as to how they kept the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom separated. I had to climb under there with rubber gloves and scoop all of that out of there. Gross. Since then I leave the boat uncover unless there is a prediction of blowing snow or freezing rain like we had a couple days ago. Bobby

Where is that and what kinda of fish is there? Some years ago I would go with friends from Moberly to Thomas Hill in the winter. The crappie fishing was fantastic and the fish were good size? Bobby

Have been out in the late afternoon the last few days with poor to minimal success. Fish and bait are still were they have been the last couple weeks but were not cooperating like they did before Christmas. Taking the lead for a recent thread from Dock-in-it I decided to go out in the morning (not as early as he did) but early enough to be too cold for fishing. The bite was much better this morning. Caught fish in 40 fow on the bottom on the flats near the roll off to the abyss. There were others places were fish were on the bottom in 60 fow but these were not interested. The fish were tight to the bottom to the point that I only knew for sure they were there is when they came up to take the bait and I could see that on the graph. Used slab spoon only as I was not interested in losing the ice jig that close to the bottom. WT 46.2. Had to quit when the wind/cold increased and got to me. Bobby

Bill, it sounds like you know the duck hunters. Can you tell me about where they setup? Just curious. Thanks