Tim Smith

Yeah, that would be the easiest. Looking at the dam works too but not only do you have to account for any excavation, but also for how much silt has refilled it.

In some states it is illegal to take crayfish alive out of their native waters, for instance here in Colorado. Not sure about that particular lake in MIssouri, but non-native crayfish introductions have caused problems with crayfish extirpation and lost of vegetation in the Upper Midwest. Some of those outcomes are almost impossible to predict, so if you care about the lake where you fish, do your best to take crayfish bait from the same lake or at very least the same drainages. A good minnow trap baited with a strip of bacon and left out overnight in the right rocky shoreline can get you what you need. In the right spot, a few minutes with a dip net will do the job. Legal or not, local bait is generally the best way to go.

Not sure about sinking rate, but (theoretically) if you can cast to the same spot twice with a heavy sinker, you can use right angles and trigonometry to figure out the depth. Mark your fishing line for the distance at the surface cast and measure the length of that line. Then cast again to the same spot and measure the length of your line after it hits the bottom (you'll have to pay out line freely so it sinks straight down and doesn't move back toward you as it sinks). Once you know the length of two sides you can use the Pythagorean Theorem to figure out the length of the third (a2 + b2 = c2). In this case, "c" is the length to the bottom and the length along the surface is either "a" or "b". It won't work if the line bends or lays across anything on the bottom or if the line touches the bottom anywhere but the weight....and you'll still have some error due to the bend of line (unless you can cast a stinking heavy weight). I confess I've never done this...but it should work.

Name calling yes. But SINCERE and ACCURATE name calling....and if I'd really lost ya, you wouldn't have posted would ya. Sounds like people are ready to call a spade a spade overall. Thanks for restoring a tiny bit of faith in the world at large, folks. Really.

I almost posted this in the adjoining thread about destruction of public property, but maybe it fits better in its own space. Clive Bundy, 20 years in arrears for his grazing fees on BLM land (that's US government land...land to which you and I currently have access), recently managed to stave off an attempt at enforcement of his grazing fees. Mr. Bundy is still at large and unaccountable not only for his use of public lands without payment, but also for his role in fostering the subsequent armed uprising...which included two participants recently killed during a terrorist assault on Nevada police officers during which they are reported to have shouted "This is the beginning of the revolution!". I suppose there are those out there who could find more sympathetic ways to represent Mr. Bundy's position, but I am certainly not among them. To be perfectly honest, it is hard for me to find terms dark enough to portray this man's actions. I see him not only as a thief of public land, but as the plain spoken representative for a group of people who have decided they do not answer to society at all. Mr. Bundy is the unraveled thread, the thin wedge of destruction already driven well into the wood of public life. In him it is as if the adolescent "A" for anarchy has stepped out of the graffiti of the bridge abutments and settled itself into the national news. Not only do they intend to deface public property, they intend...and in this case already have...to grab it outright. Using an impenetrably stupid argument that their ancestors "owned" the land (a fact not borne out in repeated court cases or any non-intoxicated reading of history) they have set aside their public responsibility, invented "rights" (to OUR land) that they do not possess and put their individual interests ahead of the public interest and the law. I suppose if there is even the barest hint of a fig leaf available to defend his actions, it would be that he feels his grazing fees are too high and that fee increase was related to the listing of an endangered tortoise that lives on "his" (actually, yours and my) property. I am sure there is someone out there who is sympathetic to Mr. Bundy's views. If you'd care to defend him...with something other than a gun and a meth addled sense of neo-Nazi indignation...I'd dearly love to see how that's possible.... What do you say, OAF? Are we ready to start giving up public lands to anyone who has enough fire power to intimidate the authorities?

The Gardner itself is wall to wall with them, but I suspect they will soon be killing out stretches above migration barriers to put the cuts back in. Here's a guy pretty high up in TU who has a pretty strong opinion on brookies in the west: http://www.eatmorebrooktrout.com/

This is one reason the brookies were a positive alternative. The restrictions were much less on this species. The policy there is pretty much "take my brook trout please" and there is a long term policy in place to gradually replace the brookies with native cutthroat.

I actually ended up in Yellowstone about this time and while my fishing time ended up being family time, that actually worked out pretty well. The Gardner, though high, was still loaded with naive, aggressive brook trout and I was able to take an army of fly fishing newbies from the family (ages 10-76) and hook them up with their first catches ever on the dry fly. Not a bad day fishing among the elk and bison (at a distance). We even had a family of bears walk in on us at one point...pretty exciting. High water did seem to be an issue elsewhere. Snow pack was still high and rain was coming in almost daily. Grebe Lake was not easily accessible as Wolf Lake had overflowed onto the connecting trail. My camping neighbors tried Slough Creek, but high water made that unsuccessful. The Gibbon was fishable, but again, only brook trout were available there... I suppose a plate full of brookies doesn't really compare to the juggernaut browns in the Yellowstone or Yellowstone cutthroat on the main lake, but for kids and novices, it was a pretty good time.

But not too big a hole. A 3 foot hole is a great ambush site. Jerry's technique works best for me. Pull the fluke over the pad to the edge of the hole and then pull it over the pad and in. Braid is also essential and yes, there are some monster bass in there.

Maybe all that stuff that happened back then is just now marching it's way down the river to your doorstep. It takes a long time to move gravel.

This one. As exciting as it is to see big fish jump, it's more exciting to land them. The only ways a fish is going to get off a good hook set is to either break the equipment (not likely if your gear is in good shape) or create slack in the line, which is highly likely during a jump. I lost enough good fish to acrobatics to decide I'd rather land them than get excited about watching them get away. You can't always stop them from jumping, but the less they do it, the better your chances. When I feel them rushing toward the surface I drop the rod tip low and put on a little extra pressure try to persuade them to make another choice. I do agree a jumping fish is pretty awesome to watch... ...for me it just doesn't outweigh the negative of having your lure spit back at you.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php/topic/1949-redbreast-bluegill-hybrid/ This looks like your fish. The group here was similarly divided, but the guys who seemed to have the most experience agreed with redbreast-bluegill hybrid.... ....or... ...a redbreast pumpkinseed hybrid.

There will be reparations based on the number of fish killed. If you don't make those guys pay, they'll be spewing ammonia into streams all night and day. Beef is pretty good too.

Locks and dams are typically hard on blood and bladder gasses in fish, and spring mortality is pretty common too. The sad part is, all those dead fish are probably just a drop in the bucket compared to what's still in the river. It would be nice to see the commercial harvest interests gain some traction on this species.

Check Peter Bayley's research on this. Electrofishing has known error rates, and they are indeed pretty big. Very big fish and very small fish are under-represented and day to day variability in conditions can skew the catch rates too. You have to do a lot of shocking to get a solid feel for what's happening in a system. Most people don't have the resources to do that.

Stunning logic. But to really make your point you needed a few more "blahs". Then you'd REALLY be right.

Another way to say that is "Everybody calm down because the elk are doing fine." ...and... The wolves are doubling the amount of predation caused by established predators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYGSPPl_mc I know, right?

It's not hard to get exponential growth upward from "0". I'm not from Montana either but I've lived in the west for a while now and I've made several trips back to Yellowstone over the last 35 years, hopefully including this summer. Even in Gardner where most of the economy comes from tourism you'll find plenty of people with nothing good to say about wolves and plenty of hatred for the people who reintroduced them. I don't get the impression it's really "wolf management" they have in mind. "Extermination" is probably a more accurate word.

I think I agree with all of this. It also appears for the time being we're doing better and better in the modified environments we have. We've had our issues and problems lie ahead, but most species in North America are holding on or gaining ground. In other places the story is a complete mess. Africa, Asia, South America, Mesoamerica and the oceans are in free fall.

That says it pretty well, although that idea of "balance" has just as many limitations as "normal". At least by preserving some parts...especially the ecologically influential parts like top predators....we give what's there a chance to behave and interact in a way that managed to get us this far at least. It takes longer than the age of civilizations for nature to come up with "new" norms...and the blink of an eye for us to wipe out the old ones. We may decide to completely rewrite the rules of nature, but I would hope that in places like Yellowstone we can at least agree the old rules should be given the best possible chance to play themselves out. Here's a bit of data: http://www.cascwild.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Northern-Yellowstone-Elk-Herd-Trends.jpg I don't see the original citation for that. Loved the NOVA program as well.

Managers definitely make mistakes and the world is always more complex that we realize, but without those "morons" we would have already lost wild turkey, white tailed deer, ozark trout, bison, every fishery in the eastern US (and most of them in the west)...and a limitless list of other resources. The options are to intervene or watch the natural world decline to little more than rats, raccoons and cockroaches. Go to China and see if you like what they've settled for in their country. You may be right that it's arrogant to want to avoid that. If so, thank God for arrogance.

So why are Defenders of Wildlife suing the National Park Service for refusing to consider introducing wolves into Rocky Mountain National Park to reduce the overabundant elk population there? And why do the people who managed the reintroduction of the wolf take credit for the regrowth of willow and forests in Yellowstone due to reduced overgrazing? No picture is ever simple but the Yellowstone elk herd is just now returning to the size it was when wolves were removed. Even a 15% take of calves added to the pre-existing background mortality is a pretty big bit out of the population of an animal that can only replace itself once a year. And does the presence of another predator make it easier for bears to capture elk calves? Facilitation between predators is pretty common, but no one has looked at that. These numbers also don't take into account the adults elk that are taken by wolves. I don't see the point of apologizing for wolves to people who think elk are the functional equivalent of cattle. Yes, the wolves contributed to the elk decline. They were supposed to do that. There are still plenty of elk. And ranchers.

If you're interested in economy, keep an eye on Nissan this year. They're supposed to introduce a small diesel truck that is supposed to have 1/3 better gas mileage (high twenties). The four wheel drive models of small diesel trucks made for Latin America by Ford, Toyota and Isuzu are durable, economical and have plenty of power for towing. I guess they figured out how to solve the emissions issues for the US market. If these trucks are as good as the Toyota Hi-Lux and the foreign market Ranger, they will be radical game changers in the US small truck market.

I visited there soon after the flood. Lily Lake was still chocolate milk last fall, but the Big Thompson looked fine. Estes Park took a hit during the flood. Minus the scouring in the golf course things seem to be back to normal there. If you haven't seen houses moved off their foundations or cars covered in heaps of boulders, be sure and drive up Highway 36 when you come visit. I'll be curious to see how many greenback are left in Lily or if Roaring River or similar high gradient streams lost their fishery, but overall things seem pretty much back to normal.