kevthebassman

I used to do glassing for a living, I've done it colder than that my friend, just got to mix it HOT HOT HOT! If it looks like it's about to catch fire in the cup, it's almost hot enough to glass on those cold days! Of course that sort of thing is easier to stomach doing when someone else it paying for the resin, glass, and MEKP, and you're glassing on a vault that's going to get buried in the ground anyway. I've done some very beautiful fiberglass work, and some very, very ugly fiberglass work that got the job done. Go to this page and look at picture #'s 34 thru 37. Link

Maybe others can chime in, but I have never, and I mean NEVER, had good luck on the Meramec it's self around St. Louis fishing for cats. Too much fishing pressure, too many assholes who will cut your limb lines and steal your trot lines, and it's just a general mess. That's just my personal opinion though. If you can find a quiet slough or some strip pits, you can hook up with some quality cats. I would recommend live shiners, the biggest you can find. Bluegill will work, but not as well as shiners, from what I have seen. One thing that works in warmer weather is whenever it rains over central MO and the river is on the rise, casting big night crawlers a couple feet off the bank.

Is that the daily limit, or total possession?

If you can't argue politics with somebody, then enjoy a discussion in a different part of the board on the virtues of rebel craw over wiggle wart without dragging the politics into that section, YOU (not directed at anyone in particular) may be the problem. Shutting down a thread or two every now and then is going to happen on any board. Discussion leads to disagreement, disagreement leads to debate, and so on. Lock 'em down and pull the dogs apart. If people make a pattern of it, there are ways to solve that problem. I don't know how this forum's software works, but on other boards I've moderated, it is possible to lock certain people out of certain sections of the board. Some people just can't handle debate, and need their pee-pee slapped every now and then.

Tell us more about these Catawissa strip pits?

In my intemperate youth I regularly snuck onto the local country club's course to fish in the evenings. My friends and I were a wild bunch, the big fat greenskeeper once tried berating a buddy of mine by the water's edge, and he ended up taking a swim. After that, they just called the cops on us. Being mischievous teenagers, that only upped the ante. We would fish until the greenskeeper ran down on his cart and told us that the cops were on their way. We would pack up everything but a single rod and be on the far side of the lake, so that when the great big fat cop came puttering up with the greenskeeper on an overloaded golf cart, they had to get off and come huffing and puffing around the lake to try and write us up. Well, we were teenagers. We weren't about to be caught by 350 pound officer glazed doughnut. We waited for him to get about 30 feet away from us, then bolted into the woods, leading the fat cop and obese greenskeeper on a chase through underbrush, brambles, swampy mud, seed tick beds, poison ivy patches etc. We always snuck onto the course by parking in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood that was separated from the woods by a half mile or so of woods. There was a nice trail that lead to the course, but we would never take that trail back when being pursued, much more fun to bushwhack it! They chased us a dozen times or more, never caught us though. To this day, I wonder what those numbskulls were trying to accomplish by waddling through the woods after a few teenage track stars.

Good price, but if they didn't fit a melon-head, I know they won't fit a bucket-head like myself.

I couldn't fish with that many people. My trip to the Current last weekend was a prime example. The first few hours were wonderful, my fishin bud and I were the only two on the river. On towards noon, a group of six walked up through to fish a hundred yards above us. They were polite and made their way on up without any incident, but it still irked me to have to share "my" river. I think I may be antisocial.

If you're like me and had to use a 12 pack cooler as a football helmet as a kid because your head was so dang big, the Oakleys are going to be too small. Maui Jims are awesome sunglasses.

Is Don Paradise any relation to Bill Brasky?

I think if I were paddling by as that let go, I would need a new set of trousers!

I haven't floated the area in question, but I'll throw in my two cents. Depending on time of year, you could be limited in how far up or down from the access you can go due to low water. Other times of year, the water could be too fast for something like your pontoon. Really I think those are best used on ponds and the slow stretches of river between riffles. If it were me, I would add a one man canoe to my fishing arsenal.

I know with me it's cabin fever from a long winter, there's a dearth of fishing in my household, so I've got little to post about in the fishing area, and being the mischievous fellow I am, the mind wanders and takes posts with it. One thing that a HUGE guns/outdoor forum I visit does that I agree with, is have a "general discussion" board where the silliness and politics resides, and is left (mostly) to run it's course within some limits. The rest of the forum is OFF LIMITS to politics and the bad behavior that goes with it. I was chest deep in the thread that got locked down, but there isn't one of the guys in there that I would hold it against. In fact I was thinking that I ought to see if Eric1978 would like to make a trip down to the Current with me. He lives close by, and by carpooling the 2 1/2 hour drive down, we could save gasoline and reduce carbon emiss.......... DANGIT! There I go again! Seriously though, if you can't argue with someone one day, and turn around and enjoy a fishing trip with them the next, you need to change your outlook. We all have a lot on our shoulders, life is to short to carry grudges as well.

"The Topic That Shall Not Be Mentioned!" I love it OB!

Preach it brother! This winter has been a tough one for sure. I've had my fill of driving home from work at midnight in a blinding snowstorm. I'm ready to feel the sun on my skin and a warm breeze in my hair. Hell, I'll settle for just chilly, anything to shake this below freezing business.

Thorium is much more abundant than Uranium. According to wikipedia, it's about as widespread as lead, with India and Australia (both friendly democracies) having major reserves. If we can use lead to plink at tin cans and weight our trot lines, I imagine we can swing a way to use Thorium for our power plants.

I'm with GloryDaze, the only boat I'll have is one where the motor and the passenger are both named Kevin. I spent too much time and money catering to the whims of a two stroke motor.

Good lord, you fellas have sure strayed this one off topic. Eric buddy, three mile island, as I said before, had no measurable affect on anyone. The only reason we even remember that accident today is the fact that the movie "The China Syndrome" came out 12 days before the incident, and people panicked because of something they saw on a movie screen. Modern nuclear reactor design is totally different from where it was in the 1970's. Safer, more efficient, and with less radioactive waste produced. It's even possible in a Thorium reactor to dispose of many other types of waste produced. We will still need a permanent solution to the question of nuclear waste, but that is unavoidable. I cannot stress it enough. Nuke plants today are not what they used to be. If we want to be energy independent in the next 100 years, it's going to be through the use of some sort of nuclear technology, be it Thorium MSRs, or even fusion power, which has been 20 years away for the last 50 years. Solar and wind only give you so much bang for you buck. Neither can be counted on to provide peak power on demand, and both can let you down when you need them most, as there is no efficient way to store the power produced when they're generating at full capacity. On hydroelectric dams, fossil fuel powered plants, and nuke plants, you can up the juice when you need it. I'd much rather see our money invested in technologies that are proven to be practical, rather than chasing after the pipe dream of turning pixie dust and unicorn farts into cheap, reliable power sources.

Eric, you're jumping the shark with the Chernobyl pictures. Yes, it's disturbing. The difference, of course, is Chernobyl was built by the Soviets in the 1970's. The Soviets have never had a good record of safety. The reactor was built without any sort of containment structure. US nuclear reactors have always been safer. We had one little hiccup at 3 mile Island, and the general consensus reached by multiple independent studies is that nobody has ever been affected by it. That was 30 years ago, and we've learned a lot about building and running reactors since then. The reactors I think will be the wave of the future are not the old liquid water coolant reactors. They're cooled by molten salt, and according to everything I've read, much safer. Now, don't get me started on electric cars. The darn things depend on Lithium batteries. Lithium is a rare earth metal. Can you guess who mines 97% of all rare earth metals on this earth? China, that's who. Battery powered cars will be an interesting footnote in history 20 years from now, God willing.

With regards to nuclear power stations being the target of terrorist attacks, I don't think that will be a serious threat. Smart design of the power stations and the current level of security around them (which is impressive) ought to be enough. If and when we start building these, and use the power to solve our dependence on petroleum, we can pull our troops out of the mid-east. Once we've gotten our big darn noses out of their affairs, there simply won't be the seething anti-American sentiment in the region that makes recruitment of suicide bombers possible. Look at history. We've only had a problem with Islamic terrorism since we've had troops there. An energy-independent America will be a stronger America. There's no arguing that fact. How we get to that point is the problem. If we didn't have government, whether driven by the lunatic environmentalists (as opposed to sane environmentalists, which I count myself as) who oppose anything that isn't powered by unicorn farts and pixie dust, or government driven by money from lobbyists for big oil and coal, standing in the way of progress, we could have the problem licked. Which is not to say that I don't believe that the government doesn't have a part to play in driving this forward. I'm just tired of seeing the leviathan of lazy and irresponsible government standing athwart the road of progress.

Eric, read a bit here about Thorium reactors. wiki link These things are not your old fashioned nuke plant. The US actually played around with these back in the 60's, but you can't make nuclear weapons with them, so we abandoned the program. They're safer, more efficient, cheaper, and use more plentiful fuel. I'd much rather live by one of these than a coal plant.

If you think that the right are "my boys," you need to go back and read my post carefully. I specifically call out the oil lobby and their cronies, including certain talking heads whom shall remain nameless.

It's not so much that I'm not concerned about the carbon. I honestly don't know what to think about the assertion that global warming is man-made and caused by carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. Both sides are frothing at the mouth, throwing around statistics that can be easily manipulated, and they've both got BIG MONEY riding on their schemes. I've made up my mind that it doesn't much matter who is right. There's nothing to be done with India and China, they are going to keep on burning fossil fuels. This big 'ole earth we're spinning around on will correct the problem, given time. Billions of people may suffer and die in the mean time, but on a geological timescale, that doesn't make a tinker's darn. I think all this hysteria about warming is overblown anyway. Fresh water and energy are going to be humanity's biggest problems going forward. If we get on the stick and get nukes up and running, we can desalinate water and have electricity to spare.

You boys are really bashing your heads against the wall on this one. In the end, it doesn't make one darn bit of difference if global warming is real or fake, man-made or natural. The US could change over to horse and buggy transportation, but there are two billion people in India and China, and those two billion people are growing their per-capita oil consumption by double-digit percentages every year. Those nations are NEVER going to cripple their economies by signing on to some greenie-weenie treaty for greenhouse gasses. It will not happen. Any mandated reduction of carbon emissions in this country is going to end up being like bailing water from the titanic with a teacup, with the added consequence of crippling our economy for a decade. Now, that said, this country has a SERIOUS problem with energy. Our dependence on foreign oil is a national disgrace. This national addiction has caused us to be involved in the middle east for half a century, propping up brutal dictatorships who's repression spawned radical Islamic movements. If we didn't have to buy oil from that cesspit of humanity, they could all go back to being dirt poor goat herders, and we could bring our boys home. To that end, there are many things we could be doing, but the leftist eco-nazis, the very same ones pushing for cap and trade, carbon taxes, etc, are blocking it. The darn FRENCH get upwards of 80% of their electricity from nuclear plants. Nuclear energy is safe, cheap, and green. We could be building Thorium reactors that are run on a nearly inexhaustible fuel, are inherently safe, and can burn our current nuclear waste. But the left won't have it. These things could provide the electricity cheaply enough to make a hydrogen fuel a viable economic reality. Or they could be used to extract the oil from the oil shale deposits that this nation has an ample supply of. Something has to be done about this, and that right soon. Nothing is going to get done until it's far too late if we allow business to go on as usual, like the oil lobby and certain other people would like to see happen. Likewise, if we let the environmentalists set the agenda, we're going to end up a 3rd world nation, because our energy needs will not be met, and the energy they do allow will be too expensive for the common man to afford.

One other thing to keep in mind is that a fiberglass boat is pretty easily repaired unless you really smash it up. It's dirty, itchy work, but glassing is so easy a caveman can do it.