Devan S.

If your kid is a youth, and you have the cash ($550). The lifetime license at that point in time is a pretty good value. Especially if you think they have any interest in the outdoors.

Nope the reason is that I never really water trapped at all. Everything we ever did was in the woods or pasture. Rumor has it that mink/rats are fairly easy. We will see. I've seen a lot of mink where I'm set so I know I'm where they are. Just pocket sets along the bank...only time will tell. The one time I did set a water trap a buddy said he seen a Beaver go in a hole so we tossed a 330 over it and caught one right away.

There definitely caught from time to time(Missouri Trappers group on Facebook shows them fairly often). Considering most of my trapping is within 5 miles of the Arkansas border I doubt very seriously it happens. Most likely is mid to northern Mo.

Did you have the nose pushed to the end of the bump board? You just trying to turn yourself into the river legend? I kid...I kid. Nice fish and sounds like a heck of a day.

Nice! I put some steel down yesterday. Been awhile since I've been able to really put in some time. Have all week off but wanting to fish everyday and still needing to run traps runs me short on time real fast. Goals for this year were to catch mink and a rat. Wanting an otter but outside boat dock checking I don't have a good spot without burning some gas. Got several furs on the wall but never have caught a red fox, mink, rat, or otter. One of these days I'll stumble into one of each. Also want a badger but at this point wont ever happen.

Yeah I'm sure there's some good ones left there just need to find them. Don't want to spend a ton of time running below houseman if it doesn't do me any good. Need to explore more above spider creek. I figure the shocking has to take place between Bertrand boat ramp and the ramp at the dam most likely. Saw some facebook images for some big ones that were shocked up this year so I have hope.

I am happy with the one walleye. Just when it happens so fast your always hopeful for a better day. BTW @rps roughly how far downstream can one stumble into a decent chance at brown trout? I'm looking for big browns and walleye so don't want to keep pushing downstream much past houseman if I'd be better off constantly going upstream. I haven't run into many trout down from houseman but I'm not really fishing for them. Just throwing jerkbaits and trying to cover both fish types.

Rolled out of bed and saw the water was off although generation scheduled for 9am. Got to the access about 6 am and while night wading at Taney is an interesting experience, parker bottoms takes the cake.....its dark, really dark...isolated and lots of animals rustling in the brush. Decided to fish downstream. Had lots of follows and saw quiet a few walleye in the deeper pools. Only managed one but it was a tank and tried to rip the rod from my hand. I didn't measure him but would guess 20-21" based on the size in my net.

Launched at 930 and headed upstream intent on starting my adventure around the hole at the 62 bridge. Got to the shoal just upstream from houseman and noticed the water was shallower than I remember and I could easily see bottom water was about 4 ft. deep. Concerning since they have been running 2500cfs non-stop for 3-4 days. Got there and on my 2nd cast with a minnow tipped jig I caught a nice 19" walleye. Shortly after than something changed. Water that was fairly clear started to have a bit of trash.....drifted on back down to houseman without a bite. Took off from there and went working my way down to cow patty flats and the next bend in the river. Nothing....nada...zilch. Water was 49-50 degrees. Pulled the boat out and headed down to parker bottoms. I wanted to see how the flow looked that they had been running lately to see if I could find some marginal wading this weekend. Got there and it looked like quite a bit of water. Pulled up the corp chart and it looked like between 8-10am they cut flows from 2500cfs to nothing and then bumped it up to 3800 cfs for the rest of the day. Only thing I can think is the on/off/on really screwed them up. Also several spots I wanted to fish I struggled with boat control. The area around cow patty flats had the wind blowing hard the exact opposite way of the current and it made it incredible difficult to stay in one spot and get good drifts with minnows or work a jerker. Spent most of the day drifting either 1/16 or 1/8 oz jig with minnow(out of the wind). Threw a jerkbait below houseman. Even gave the Arig a workout for a bit on the steeper chunk rock stuff where the wind gave me trouble.

How do you know she is educated.....because she knows what's in the box without looking?

He measured but he didn't take pictures for proof. We're right back to the same situation. Nobody believes him without photographic evidence but he doesn't want to be that guy that takes a picture of every fish he catches like he complains about on here. Heckuva situation.

I read this.....and then questioned who slipped alcohol in my drink.

I thought keeper meant it goes home and you saw the sides off.....

I think it would interesting to hear from the individuals on how they went about it. Did they shoot the first legal bull they saw? How did they break down the hunt area? Lots of walking or lots of sitting? I would assume the landowner has a better idea about the elk movements and locations and maybe is waiting for a better opportunity? I doubt some of the random drawing guys had really much information on where to go up until they started hunting.

I thought they couldn't hunt the peck ranch area specifically? I'm not totally familiar with the area so could be wrong. Just seems random to have a photo alongside a dirt road anywhere let alone publicized by MDC.

Pretty cool to be #1. I signed up for the drawing. Never hunted elk but thought what the heck toss my name into the ring and hope to be one of the first. If nothing else and I won would be an opportunity for meat in the freezer at a discount vs. travelling. Alas I didn't win. Any one else notice the picture is on the side of the dirt road?

Funny story....because I think it fits here. The guy I fish with the most....when we started running to Taney and doing the night deal in September we decided we needed a simple way to get ball park measurements of fish to compare to each other(in the dark within a reasonable time). We have the same net and we marked from the end down the handle 18", 20" 22", 24", and 26". We told each other what we were doing and did it separately but would meet down at outlet 2 and fish in the dark. After several fish and comparing "Size" we had come to the conclusion that something on our nets didn't add up. We laid them side by side and sure enough one was longer than the other. Immediately I was accused of stretching mine to cheat and add length. We're both engineers so the assumption was that someone was cheating. There was zero chance we made a mistake in measuring....After a bunch of checks from multiple tapes mine was certified as "good" and his well.....he screwed up and was 1" short on every fish he had measured for the last month.

Quick question...... Is the game wardens tape the golden rule?

Well in the name of quality control.....

Milli is as far as I go......when we start talking in Microns I get that nervous feeling someone will call bs.

Why did you choose metric vs. imperial? What is your measurement uncertainty? Do you have results of a GR&R?

Got news today they kicked water on....looks like its an open spillway, maybe. Not sure how "wade-able" things would be but hopefully it stays this way for a couple days. I'm off work Friday for over a week so I'd like to catch it right after it drops out and hope the higher water level makes the bigguns a bit more eager to bite.

I honestly didn't need the waders...although they were nice to have as cold as it was. Interestingly enough the water has been off for 4 or so days. I do know I've been down twice to explore with water on and could see how 1 unit can easily make it too deep for wading.

I wish I would have felt more comfortable with the drive from there to Cassville in the snow. Would have liked to kept fishing until about noon and explored more. I had a bunch of nice little browns chase all the way back to me......just needed time to figure out how to make them commit.

Photo 1- in a line of canoes during the MR340. Sunset on day 1 somewhere about 70 or 80 miles in. Hot miserable and thankful the sun was going down. Somewhere between Waverly and Miami. 2/3- Ice fishing this Jan. at Leech lake. Maybe a mile offshore. 4- Taney boat to the dam. I feel like I always have to take a picture when I boat to the cable. 5- Below Powersite fishing from the bank. 6/7-Are fishing Lilley pads on Lake Fork this May. 8- Big Thompson River in CO. Between Drake and Loveland below a water diversion dam. Private water fishing and I managed to catch a 24" rainbow right below this. We actually fished for a couple hours on the rocky outcrop between the 2 falls on the left. Caught a lot of fish here. This was over labor day and the Cameron Peak Fire exploded why we were there. Spent most of the day with ash falling like snow. Fire ended up getting perilously close to this area but I believe it was ultimately spared. 9- Sunrise at Indian Creek boat ramp at Beaver lake. I have probably 12-15 photos almost identical to this all from different days. I don't know what it is about that location but it may be the best place I have found to watch the sun come up. I only carry cell phone. I really need to buy a good camera but in 99% of my photos I likely wouldn't have it with me. Most of these are spur of the moment memories.