SilverMallard

Ummm...whoever the $&^* you are, I didn't do that. I can only assume YOU did. I just deleted it. This is my LAST post on Ozark Anglers. Too many malcontent ne'er-do-wells around here for my taste. ...but obviously one of the moderators and local business owners thinks it's cool. I addressed all of this with Phil last night. And I've talked to several of my friends who participate here. This is not a "take my ball and go" thing. This is an "I don't like the crowd" thing. Y'all will probably cheer my departure. That's a good thing from my perspective. I do not WANT guys like y'all to like me.

What he did as a KID in school is hardly relevant. If we look at things that way, you can change that two decades I mentioned in the PM I sent you to 3 decades because my first outdoors "job" was as an asst. trip guide for large group backpacking, mountaineering, and white water canoeing trips when I was 16. And now I'm going to say it in public: I did nothing but disagree with your "junk" comment about all BPS merchandise. I did NOT attack you in public. And I'm not going to now. SOME of us around here care more about preserving and improving the natural resources, environment, and our sports than we do about this kind of crap. From Retail Traffic Magazine - "In 1975, Morris established American Rod & Gun, a wholesale company serving independent sporting goods retailers. More than 7,000 sporting goods stores in the United States and several foreign countries now stock Bass Pro Shops products." So you are quite right. You can buy that same "junk" anywhere...almost EVERYWHERE.

Ah, day late and a dollar short! Let's here it for the gov't! LOL If we don't follow the money, Bill, there's no way to prevent a recurrance. A decision like that is ALL ABOUT $$$! We will have to take that into account in any meaningful plan to stop it from happening again. What we have to do is find win-win solutions for businesses and the environment. That is our ONLY real choice. Everything else leads to train-wrecks brought about by the law of unintended consequences. This is why the adversarial mentality (us vs. them) is so poisonous. In fact, it may be more poisonous to the future of our environment than those septic tanks and chicken farms! I rest my case! LOL Maybe you wanted the exercise, to hang out with friends, or to demostrate to your kids the concept of "good citizenship." I have no idea. Maybe it just made you FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF to think you did something good for someone that you would not directly benefit from. Even if feeling better about one's self is the ONLY personal goal, it is still something we do for OURSELVES. Like I said, true altruism (doing a thing for ZERO personal gain and 100% personal sacrifice) is VERY, VERY rare. I'm not even sure it actually exists. There is a rumor that the son of carpenter over in Palestine did it once upon a time. Other than that, I think we're all selfish and that all of our 'good works' are as filthy rags.

Bill, I know you do a LOT of good with a LITTLE around here and I respect the heck out of you. So don't take this the wrong way. But you made a good point and then didn't illustrate it. You said that ALL of our "charity" is mostly double-edged: wanting to do some good AND get some benefit at the same time. I agree. When you "donated" those stumps and brush from the land you cleared to build YOUR business, that was TRASH that was going to cost you money to dispose of for the most part...right? Or did you have a timber buyer lined up with a cash offer in hand for the 20% usable material who was going to clear the 80% for you as part of the deal? I FOR SURE think you should have been acknowledged along with Bass Pro. That's the media's fault...and PR people from MDC's fault. But you made a darned good point about altruism: it is actually EXTREMELY rare. When most humans choose to do "good," we choose to do it because we can accomplish our PERSONAL goals by doing so AND maybe help someone else without too much sacrifice. It matters not whether you're rich or poor. What happens...and what you are alluding to in all of this...is that other "little people" like the folks at MDC and the USACE "suck up" to these big shots and make most of the errors when they do - like when you got dissed and Johnny got all the credit, and when they never even bothered to do anything but say "No problem, Branson Landing, we'll drain the upper end of the lake for you!" Everybody wants something. Everybody is working some angle or another. And companies like Herschend Family Entertainment, HCW, and Bass Pro Shops are seen as the kinds of folks you do "favors" for hoping someday it may come back to you. Finally, Johnny Morris built Bass Pro Shops from a mom-n-pop bait and tackle shop on Hwy 13 that was only a small corner of a gas station. He is a "super successful" mom-n-pop sporting goods store owner. So at what point to we wish Chuck Gries, Phil Lilley, Bill Babler, or Stan and Carolyn Parker LESS success? At what point to do we turn against THEM out of petty jealousy? I actually heard some of that sort of hatefulness and small-minded sour grapes when Stan and Carolyn recently won the Orvis Fly-fishing Outfitter of the Year award. And that sort of crap makes me sick.

gonefishin, It's a pretty simple answer you seek. This is America! $$$ talks and BS walks...always has...always will. The folks who have it purchase the right to make those decisions. The rest of us who do NOT have it cannot afford to make those kinds of purchases. But the real point about Johnny Morris is this: it's very easy for us lesser mortals to villify these people every time they do something we don't like. But the reality is that they...like us...are a mixed bag of good and bad - positive and negative. But money is like a big ole magnifying glass: it just makes everything about you BIGGER. BTW, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Dale Carnegie, Betty Ford, Oprah Winfrey, The Dahlia Lama, Billy Graham, ...I could go on and on for days like this...these were all people who met/meet your definition of "super-successful" or "super-rich" or whatever it is you think you're talking about. Yet, on par, most folks wouldn't accuse anyone on that list of being an overbearing SOB except Abraham Lincoln. And most people think he was a saint IN SPITE of the fact that he was an autocrat who trashed the Constitution in order to save the Union. (that means a guy who doesn't give a crap what anyone else thinks is important or how things should be done, and just forces everyone to do everything his way) The point I was trying to make is that you are over-generalizing. Saying "all super-rich people suck" is like saying "all black people steal." It's bigotry. You gotta expect to be called on the carpet politely when you say something like that. I would completely agree with you if you said something more like: one of the big temptations of success is falling into the trap of thinking your priorities and your ideas are ALWAYS superior to those of others; or if you said: SOME super-successful people forget that they aren't always right and become overbearing and insensitive to their own detriment and the detriment of everyone else around them. But that's not what you typed. Your statement clearly implied that ALL super-successful (revised version) people are like this. And that is an untrue and unfair statement. I'm sorry you see me as a pain in the posterior. Perhaps if you typed stuff that was more accurate and true and less offensive, narrow-minded, and full of bigotry I wouldn't bother you so much because I wouldn't feel compelled to point these things out to the other readers. But I REALLY DO try to take it easy on you. LOL

So only losers (Unsuccessful people) can be trusted to do the right things? Johnny Morris spends millions of his own dollars on wildlife conservation and ecology programs. Without the success of his stores, he could not do that. And if his stores were full of "junk," they woudn't be so successful. Sounds like a lot of sour grapes to me.

Johnny probably personally ordered it, MrDucky. Y'all need to realize that as long as the USACE is the org charged with issuing these types of permits, they are going to do stupid stuff from an eco standpoint. They are all about BUILDING THINGS in the water. They cater to industry, transportation, and agriculture; and fisheries and the environment come WAY, WAY, WAY down their list of priorities. But you can bet the farm that when HCW, Johnny Morris, or Pete Herschend decide they want something done around here; it's going to happen. This is a virtually unchageable reality for the foreseeable future. So we might as well get used to it and quit being "shocked" and complaining about it. Because the FIRST thing that would have to change is to get the USACE out of the environmental protection business. And that's a BIG, NATIONAL job.

I'd make sure and take her back bream fishing again before trying trout again...or someplace else where she can catch a lot of fish with daddy. Then...take her to Rainbow Run or a trout park. That's what they are good for. $5/day per person is cheaper than bait! Throw small spinners as mentioned above (and a few others) on ultralight spinning tackle. RR is 100% C&R I believe. And there are a LOT of 5 lb trout in there from what I am told by some wise grandparents who are teaching their grandkids to fly fish at about your daughter's age. Bait fishing is S-L-O-W to a kid most of the time. I wouldn't do it. And drifting bait is just as slow as sitting still with bait. Another advantage of spinner fishing is that that the kids don't have to set the hook. The fish do that for them by striking a tight-lined spinner during the retrieve. One last thing...ALWAYS finish up with an ice cream cone or something like that.

I got 3" in my tent Friday night. LOL Seriously, I was out at Jolly Mill all weekend. Friday night we got 3" of rain there according Lee's gauge. It also rained most of the morning Sat morning. Capps Creek was up and muddy and just beginning to clear a bit by Sunday at noon.

If you really want to split hairs, then this discussion is very interesting, indeed. But CC makes a good point: native vs. wild is hair-splitting in many cases, and the monicker often becomes a matter of what point in history you make the native cut-off. Another GREAT point has been touched on. MAN is a native, but migratory species...and very invasive and persistent. We have expanded our native range to cover the globe and now into space. I submit for your rumination: If man is a native species (which he definitely is)... If wildlife species spread other wildlife species "naturally" (and they do)... If changes in climate and such cause wildlife species to alter their own natural range (and they do)... Then are not, in fact, species introduced to a new locale by man ALSO very natural? To ME, the whole notion that "human intervention" somehow negates the whole "naturalness" of things is intellectually naive, if not dishonest. It certainly seems arrogant...considering ourselves "unnatural" and somehow separate from the ecosystem and the food chain. Some fish carve out redds for spawning for propagation. Birds alter trees for nesting. Beavers cut timber and build dams. The mid-continent population of light geese is destroying its own habitat and that of many other waterfowl species (environmental damage..."pollution?"). Coyotes will wipe out small game populations and be forced to find a new home or starve. Dolphins fish and have sex for recreation. Pigeons and seagulls have become so adapted to human impacts on their environs that they now SEEK OUT population centers instead of remote places. Some monkeys make and use tools. Raccoons wash their food before eating it. Certainly man's manipulation of and adaptation to the environment is vastly greater than that of other species. This is why we are so invasive and persistent (successful at the prime mandate: betterment and perpetuation of the species). But...in MY world-view...we are "native," we are natural, and we are nothing more than one more species in the ecosystem. Thus, what we bring with us is the result of a natural process. For me, where fisheries are concerned, I only differentiate between the planting of hatchery-raised fish for sporting purposes and the wild reproduction of fish without regular hatchery stockings...much the same way I differentiate between shooting free-range pheasants or quail on a farm vs. shooting pen-raised birds that were released for sporting purposes only. Beyond that, it really doesn't matter to me and I think most of the hair-splitting arguments are silly.

I hear there is some excellent bass fishing in the canals, lakes, ponds, and bayous around Orlando to be had with the fly rod. There are guides in Orlando/Kissimmee who specialize in this. I've seen ads. That would be the closest/easiest. But you can get to either coast in about an hour to an hour and a half. And there is good fishing to be had in both directions. Do some research and pick your poison.

I have some composite reels that I know I could drive nails with and then take them fishing. But I don't believe in words like unbreakable, unsinkable, fireproof, waterproof, etc. These words are used in marketing literature in place of longer, less impressive, but more accurate phrases like "extremely rugged, exceptionally buoyant even when damaged, maximum flame resistant, and water-tight to X depth of submergence." A lot of folks poo-poo composite reels, but I am a HUGE fan of them for their durability, low maintenance, and low price tag when compared to fully machined aluminum. And I just will not buy a stamped reel. Loop reels are supposedly da bomb. But unless I was doing some serious saltwater fishing for high-speed fish, I just wouldn't even consider spending that kind of jack on a reel.

I think it's way cool, but I can buy 7 Okuma composite reels for about the same $200. I just can't get excited about expensive reels except for applications for game fish over 20 lbs. (salmon, steelhead, saltwater, stripers, etc.)

Well, I'm not personally familiar with Greer Spring. So I will defer to those of you who are. My opinions were very general and philosophical in nature. I'll have to go check this place out. Sounds very special.

twosets pretty much summed it up. I do not run a motor boat above the island below the old KOA unless they are running a LOT of water. The area's also lousy with fly fishermen most of the time on low water. And that's just dangerous and rude. They've got a very small amount of wadeable water compared to the boatable water.