fishinwrench

They are fine boats, kinda like StarCraft, I've never seen one that was falling apart.

Speed limit?!!! What say you?! You must have just made that up, or bumped your head. I've never heard of anyone getting a speeding ticket on the water, and I know A LOT of boaters. 🤔

I don't think any of us that are outside have a choice. But if by "watch it" you mean....sit in a lawn chair with welding goggles on and stare at the sun for 10 minutes? Uh...No. 😎 I heard that the Menard's in St.Joe have rented their parking lot to a large group of couples who intend to concieve during the eclipse. Now THAT would be interesting to watch ! And the audio would be priceless.

I appreciate you stepping up and telling everyone about it. Seriously. I've caught myself doing it an night but only to avoid cutting a shallow point too close. The result could have just as easily been the same though. So Thanks.

Y'all mess me up with that "14mm of the Glaize" crap. That idiocracy was started by real estate agents back in the late '90's and has now become so common that nobody knows how to properly describe locations anymore. What you really mean is the 33mm on the Glaize arm. Mile marks are meant to indicate MILES FROM THE DAM regardless of which arm of the lake you are on. Each arm of the lake IS NOT its own lake, and shouldn't be considered as such when speaking about navigation or directions. When you do it the Real Estate Agent way then once you leave a tributary arm you have no idea where the hell you are.....unless you know the REAL rules of navigation and are already familiar with which mile marker the tributary mouths are all at. Make sense? This is why people are running around watching their mapping screen instead of watching where the hell they are going, and running into breakwaters, bouys, the shoreline, and other boats. The 14mm is Lodge of 4 Seasons, and nowhere else....unless you're a Real Estate agent.

I'm not sure what it is about a #16 Coachman Trude (not "Royal") but I have caught a lot of fish on that one, and it does well everywhere, even on NFOW where trout "don't eat drys". #18 black ant, or a #14 foam over peacock herl Beetle is a deadly one too, even in the Winter when no ants or beetles are around.

In no way do I intend to belittle you, but the fact that there are people out there running around guided by their mapping program is disturbing as all get out. An anchored fishing boat got creamed here several days ago in broad daylight. The guys in the fishing rig saw him coming, waved their arms, yelled and screamed, but he just kept coming. They jumped from the boat just before impact and survived. Seemingly intelligent, and successful dude with an intelligent and successful career in the medical field was just running down the lake watching his Navonics screen. That just blows me away. Remember that the next time some doctor diagnoses a condition and schedules you for treatment. If you promise to never do it again, and spread your story far and wide I'll buy you a new hat and get one for myself while I'm at it. Phil, send me the bill please.

This is a place where guys gather to talk about fishing...and stuff. The fact that anyone who wants to can eavesdrop AND JOIN IN is kinda cool I think. If any of us give away any info that you have been holding tightly under your hat then you might need to up your game a bit. If a 50 fish day is merely average for you then how has this "disrespectful sharing of Intel" affected you or the places you fish? I've had the cringe effect several times when someone "blabbed" something that I was kinda keeping to myself, but honestly as I look back I can't say that the so called blabbing has ever caused anything negative to happen. Not even once.

It was fun for awhile but I've had my fill of messing around with gar. It's kinda like carp and buffalo.... the pursuit of them just doesn't scratch my itch.

Yeah my test tank is full of peepers and assorted little frogs. If they can live in that pool of nastiness then they can live anywhere. There's enough oil and gear lube in that water that a mosquito can't survive, but those little frogs don't mind it one bit.

I'm not gonna buy into the chytrid fungus BS because that's obviously something that some biologist came up with so that he could tie it all in to global warming or some other agenda. Every time a biologist opens his/her mouth I wanna shove my soggy wet wading socks in it. It's an attitude well deserved IMO. I can't shake it and I'm not going to apologize for it. I'd love to blame the frog and aquatic insect disappearance in LO on the wave/wake action or on questionable water quality BUT there are sanctuaries in the backends of coves and in the upper reaches of tributaries that should still have good frog habitat since other critters that have been proven to be more sensitive than frogs and dragonfly's to diminishing water quality are doing quite well. I mean if you have an abundance of water pennies, caddis, and mayfly's then the habitat should easily sustain frogs and dragon/damsels flys. Frogs don't thrive on bluff walls or in close neighborhoods with groomed lawns, they inhabit backwater swampy areas, and there are still plenty of those type areas, even here on LO. You don't see many frogs on Truman either, or in the tailwater areas below Bagnell/Truman/Pomme/Stockton/Taneycomo, and we all know why that is.... it's the constantly fluctuating water levels. So if I had to blame it on anything then that is what I think has relocated the frogs. Not some BS virus that some biologist, who has become so smart that he lapped himself...and is now stupid again, came up with.

I think it's just something they can get next to and jump out and grab shad when schools of them pass by. No different than a limb on a tree, with the added bonus of even more shade.

There is what we call a "crossbar pattern" going on right now, and what that amounts to are fish that are hanging on the cross braces that span the openings of some dock slips. If you look at the front of a dock you can see whether or not it has cross braces, they are down about 4-5ft. Pitch a swim jig or a swimbait into the slip, let it sink down just deep enough that when you swim it out you'll bump the crossbar. The bites are sneaky sometimes, you really have to pay attention. It's a quick easy way to get bit by 12-16 inchers but you aren't likely to catch a toad doing it.

You can pretty much do whatever you want right now. There are fish shallow, there are fish deep on the bottom, and there are fish suspended out in the middle of nowhere. Roll the dice and just go for it, you'll probably do pretty well if you just stick with it awhile.

I'm not sure. All I know is that they used to be here...and now they are gone. I only see the little skinny black damsels now, and even they are scarce. What seems to have replaced them is a big giant gray Midge (almost an inch long), and some Craneflys. The big burrower Mayflys still hatch in the backends, and that should start happening any day now. I miss the frogs the most. My wife misses the dragonfly's.

Surely you don't expect to live on a good fishing lake and not have some critters around. We've already lost all the frogs, the dragonfly's, and in a few more years the few remaining damselfly's will be gone from Lake O. It's funny that nobody notices a critter (or the lack of them) unless it causes what they perceive as a "problem".

Not that mine's any better 😁

This still cracks me up. My wife and her narrative.

My wife goes through that every month, it lasts about 3 days then everything goes back to normal.

It actually is a "fishing" boat, it has built in rod holders, a live well, and a bait well. In all honesty, for having 3 duece and a quarters.....it is a bit of a slug. Never GPS'd it but I don't think it'll hit 65.

Nice ones! Good job fellas. 👍

but if you can still find some flooded grass there are some good ones still holding in it. Got a few to eat a hollow bodied frog. Couldn't get a single bite on a spinnerbait. As soon as I started burning a Lipless crank through the grass things livened up considerably. Caught 4 nice ones in no time, and now I really want it to rain (POUR) again.

A #6 clouser is pretty effective at snagging that nose.

My boy, Orion, turns 3 next month. Then... And now... His weakness is flip-flops. The wife and kids have learned....if you leave them on the floor they are fair game. The only thing he is afraid of and will never eat again is FLY LINE. He almost didn't live through the second one, and he fully understands now. 😎

That would be awesome. Bring it on!!!