fishinwrench

I have on the Mississippi. We had a flathead once that had bad meat on it, it just smelled "off" and was very noticeable when I was cleaning it. It had a 8" piece of rubber weather stripping in its stomach (like the stuff around a car door). You are what you eat, as they say. I bet your channel cat had eaten some kinda nasty business that didn't set too well with him.

Mike isn't nearly as much fun since he quit drinking. Maybe if you're lucky he'll have fallen off the wagon. Tell him the Sims Marine crew says hi. I haven't seen the river since it rained. Hopefully it got all the snot flushed out for ya.

And just for the record, OP was just razzin' Trophy. I know this because he rags on me the same way. If I had been authoring this thread I would have been subject to all sorts of skunk jokes.....and may have even had a few delivered to my doorstep. It's called friendly sparring. It's sad that when someone attempting to be playful gets kicked in the nuts because the other party either fails to recognize it, or chooses to capitalize on the opportunity to be a victim.

Who (besides OP) from the "LOZ gang" are you getting unkind vibes from on this thread ? What is your deal, WettinLine ? Are you seriously still carrying a torch because I joined in the razzing of you looking to aquire other folks taxidermy....like 2 FREAKIN YEARS AGO ? Really ?

Looks killer! And should drift into tailouts real sexy-like. I'll be giving that a try.

Good man. The buzzards are fat, the world already has enough dead things on it.

Nice healthy looking coon. No need to kill him, just take him for a drive.

They typically don't fight as hard in the Winter when using tiny stuff truly pays off. I've landed rainbows up to 18" on 7x and never over-exhausted either of us.

7x flouro has a definite place in MO trout fishing (#22-24 Drys). I can still manage 7x on a 5wt for park trout. 8x is uncalled for IMO unless you're big on 2wt. micro-midge fishing in the Wintertime. I got into that for awhile and it's fun. Everyone should at least try it long enough to learn the technique. You can't really consider yourself "well schooled" until you have spent some time micro-fishing.

A feather-light foam sock that would easily compress yet fill all the voids might work to keep gravel out of almost any shoe. Probably wouldn't last but a single day but that stuff is cheap enough that you could buy a case of them.

I'm thinking it would cost more than .10/lb. to transport them to the place. Not sure that's enough incentive to keep the supply coming in, which is gonna result in the plant closing before November and never reopening.

Well all I have to say about it is that MOST TIMES a fella isn't gonna break&enter unless he can do it quickly and quietly. It would take some serious balls to walk down to a dock and start ripping the gunnels out of a bassboat with a sawzall just to see if there was any thing in there he could use or sell. Hell, if a barking dog will deter most theives (and it will) then how could they feel confident whipping out power tools, wrecking bars and sledge hammers? Y'all have let your imagination take you to paranoidville.

I bet that place smells lovely.

The dry crusty corrosion that I see on Jap outboards doesn't respond to heat worth a darn. I have a machine shop on retainer...so if the fasteners don't play nice with the usual tricks I just bust them and let my machine shop deal with it. I don't have the time or patience to spend 30-40 minutes removing a single bolt unless I'm getting paid for it, and who wants to pay ME 45.00 to fuss with a stuck fastener when the machine shop can repair it good as new for about 25.00 ? It's just a hassle that slows down the completion of a part swap and costs the customer more than it should.

Wal-mart, Ace hardware, ect. carry 12 or 12.4v and 12.7v cordless drill battery's and chargers (Skil, or B&D is fine...and cheap enough) that with a little creative configuring will power up a LCR just fine without adding weight or taking up much space in a yak or canoe. You can maximize charge life by keeping the screen backlight and digital depth display turned OFF. It's easy enough to determine depths using the screen scale. Having the Digital depth display ON constantly will eat up a lot of power so choose a unit that allows you to switch those options off. Most Lowrance units do.

I've never been into trapping but I ran with a bunch of guys that were, and I can't ever remember anyone mentioning catching a skunk in one.....although I'm sure it does happen. As many as I see dead on the roads I'm blown away by the fact that I never see them in the woods. I really don't even know much at all about their habits other than they suck at crossing ribbons of asphalt.

I talk to a lot of people and I've yet to hear anyone say anything positive regarding the BSSP "improvements". What an epic fail !

I thought brookies were supposed to be the answer to the copapod thing? Whatever. They remind me of my 5y/o explaining why she couldn't eat her dinner but is going to certainly perish if she doesn't get to have a brownie.

That's news to me ! Honda and Suzuki are about the only outboards that I commonly spew derogatory comments about. Yammies are darn fine machines until you have to remove a bolt.

You most certainly did NOT make a "critical error", you did the RIGHT THING! You were most likely about 10 seconds from having a voltage regulator fire, not something anyone wants to deal with while out on the lake. You weren't gonna make it back to the ramp anyway. Good move ! I high-five ya for watching the guages and not ignoring what they are there for.

After a Spring high water event the fishing on the "dry stretch" can be "OK". But I can't get too excited about it now.

All I really have to go by is the smallmouth population in the Salt river watershed back in the 70's and early 80's, as I never wet a line South of I- 70 until after then. I recall catching 15-17 inchers very regularly up there growing up, then when I started fishing "Ozark" streams the average size went down dramatically. I actually wondered what all the "ozark stream" hype was about because aside from the pretty clear water and nice firm easy to wade bottom the smallmouth fishing kinda sucked in comparison even though I never laid eyes on a 20 until I moved South of I-70 Maybe I'm happy catching what y'all consider mediocre sized smallies because more of THEM reminds me of the "good ol' days" as I remember them. When I started fishing the Ozarks it seemed loaded with 10-12 inchers, but maybe that's just because down here you can SEE them.

No denying that big smallies are awesome, but in all reality do more bigger fish (over 15") do a better job of keeping a river system balanced than a bunch of 10-12 inchers? I consider any 14-17" river smallmouth a darn fine fish, and plenty of sport on the tackle I use, but I get the impression that more and more of you are really becoming hung up on the whole 20" thing. You just can't get enough of them. Is it possible that your expectations of a "great day" have been altered by studying forums such as this one where you hear about 18-21 inchers being caught almost weekly year-round ? Maybe it just isn't gonna get much better than it is now, and if it doesn't are you gonna be OK with that ? Just thinking out loud here.

Yeah, allowing kids to ride PWC's on waters known to harbor flying carp is endangering their welfare. LOL

OTF, Yeah I dunno about that as people give their fish to others all the time. I guess that would fall under the "possession limit" regs. It's kinda hard to tell (for me) what is bass and what is goggle-eye in that pic.