fishinwrench

Have we spoken of calamari yet ?

Shhhhh ! I still have boats to winterize. Yikes!

If it's low and clear at Parker then it's low and clear above TV too. LOL Lower and clearer, actually. If they moved up it's because they were lonely as hell, ran out of places to hide, and could smell all those other fish up there.

The lower end of Mountain creek campground on the Niangua.

Yeah that's where I'm at too. I actually had a very tense coyote incident this last Summer that kinda changed the way I always felt about THEM. I still wouldn't shoot one just for being a coyote, because a lone coyote is no threat to anything other than a chicken.... But we were camping with a couple that had a fussy baby, and a group of at least 7 came in on us and we had a genuine Mexican standoff that had me kinda freaked out for a minute. Two of us guys standing there yelling and throwing rocks wasn't doing the job, and I wasn't packing a gun. They wanted that squalling kid, and that was freaky to me. Made me rethink all the times I have let the kids go off and play by themselves (but within sight of course) on the gravel bar, or whatever, while camping.

Cougars are possibly a victim of propaganda as much as anything, and I don't personally know a single person that has had a bad cat experience. But you can't sit there and deny that seeing one in the vicinty of your deer stand, and knowing that you had a 1/2 mile walk back to your truck wouldn't "worry you" considerably. What if you were bird hunting with your dog ? Would you kill the cat before he got ahold of ol'velvet ears? Don't make me drag up that old Pit bull thread to see who all was "pro-kill before attack" on THAT issue. LOL

Hell Yes! Glad you are back home, Bro.

Shooting it didn't make him a glory hound. If anything..."Reporting it" did. But I don't see it that way. He was alone in the woods with a cougar, he shot it. He could have made up a big tall tale so nobody could dispute his choice, and to ensure that he wouldn't get in trouble... but he didn't. Hell, he could have said he thought it was a trespassing Labrador retriever.... and not gotten in trouble. The cat was coming toward him, it scared him, and he took care of business. That's not the type of story usually associated with a glory hound.

Well, that wasn't so bad. I've got worse wounds from playing with my puppy dog.

Good point, and spot on comparison with the snake, kinda. I ain't used to seeing mountain lions though, and I would probably be concerned that it would wind me and take to the tree I was in. I don't wanna fight a cat in a tree. Gun or no gun. Don't wanna be nervous on my way back to the truck either. Define "threat".

Pretty sure I would have made the same choice. Surely there will be no charges filed.

Oooh, Snap ! And back to the garden we go....

Well my number never came up, so I guess we'll never know.

Yeah after witnessing the Veitnam ordeal as a child, and watching the impeachment of an alleged crooked president with a recent one behind him being murdered and news of the current one from Hollywood being shot at.... I really didn't feel in my heart that our "leaders" truly had their $#it together, so there was no way in hell that I was going to freely enlist as one of their pawns. But I was forced to register with "Selective service" (called "the draft" back then) during early middle East conflicts and thoughts of having to go give my life to them stressed me out pretty good for awhile. I'll never forget those "commercials" being repeated on TV. "Uncle Sam wants you".... Yeah I bet he does. "Be all you can be".....Noooo thanks, I'm good. To the guys my age that enlisted; Y'all were either crazy, absolutely hated your life, or you are just total badasses. I'll assume the latter cause I love ya

There was a time when you could rip 4-5" streamers and jerkbaits around spots on the upper Current and roll some really nice browns. I don't hear of that happening much anymore. What became of that ?

And you could probably get 300.00 worth of use out of it. I wasn't trying to jack up your plan, just giving my .02 You could throw 300.00 at fixing up the Yammie and pass it down to your kids. (Maybe)

To be fair..."the river" isn't. Just a 8-10 mile stretch of it is... It's a fairly long river

The old East wind thing I can't debunk, I always have a slow day (regardless of the species and regardless of whether I'm fishing river/lake/pond) when the wind is coming from an easterly direction. And hard wind from any direction is a bite killer for me most times. When it blows so hard that I can't find refuge anywhere then I might as well go home. The old "windy point" rhetoric that I hear all the time just does not hold true for me. White bass and catfish are tough for me under high clear skies, but other fish I can usually figure out. I'll take a crystal-clear calm day for river smallies anytime, I've had my best days ever smallmouth fishing under a mid-day scorching sun. Trout seem unaffected by just about everything "sky/weather" related until the water color and/or CFS changes.

They are good outboards until they need parts (other than a water pump impeller), or until an issue with it requires technical assistance....Then it's just a pile of scrap metal shaped like an outboard motor. After Suzuki went all 4-stroke they decided to shut the door on the past and offer NO tech info and very few replacement parts for their previously manufactured 2-stroke units. Parts were only available while "supplys last".... Which has already been exhausted on commonly needed wear items like seals, head gaskets, manual starter components, tiller linkage parts, ect. Suzuki, Honda, Nissan/Tohatsu, and to a great and growing degree = Mercury (surprisingly) have become terrible about doing that. They come out with something "new & awesome" and immediately turn their back on everything they sold beforehand. Pisses me off in a big way! It hurts to throw Merc under the bus with Suzuki/Honda/Niss-Toh in that regard, but they are becoming just as bad about doing that crap. Some critical parts are NLA on Mercs no older than 7 years. And that is just freaking rediculis IMO. Johnson/Evinrude, and Yamaha are the only 2 outboard makers that still feel it is worthwhile to continue offering a reasonable list of parts (and at a reasonable price) and tech bulletins on engines they designed and sold in the past. I respect and adore them for that, and so should their longtime loyal customers.

"Acid Rain". Now there's a media term I haven't heard in a long time... How did we stop that.... or did we just quit hearing/talking about it? OR are we simply calling it something else now? Is there a more PC word for it nowadays?

I'm with you on the broad pen legislation thing... Felt soles, bottled beer, paddlefish eggs, crawfish, ect. rulings are rediculis BUT the reasonings are pretty solid, and how else can the problem areas of each of the above be kept "in check" other than a full scale ban? At least until "new facts" are uncovered/discovered. I get the impression that your interest is centered more towards the commercial arena than you indicate. Your posts read far to eloquent and in-depth for someone who is unable to afford a Happy Meal. (No offense intended there, just openly spilling my thoughts) How would you suggest that control of invasive crawfish impact issues be dealt with ? Or should they just be ignored for now?

Yep^, on a sizable body of water there is always "a bite". And during times when it seems you can't buy a LM bass you can easily load the boat with crappie, cats, or whites. It's almost as if the species take turns being the star of the week.

I'd put the bucks towards freshening up the yammie. You are selling a better motor than you are replacing it with IMO.

Sounds like she has lived a pretty hard life. Honestly? 150.00 as/is. If you are selling it to raise money you might do better by parting it out.

Nobody knows. The American Fisheries Society hasn't received enough donations for funding to find out yet. Phil has a link where you can donate.