fishinwrench

You can be sure that my finger is on the pulse of everything happening at Bennett and on the Niangua river. The girls most definitely take after me, you can count on that. Taught them everything they know.... But not everything I know. Yet. Until they can beat me at badminton I still rule the roost. ?

And then there's this.....

Nah. That's why I have to stay fit for a few more years.

OK ?

Something tells me this is about to get epic. ? That old broad that picked you up looks meaner than a snake. Yikes !

Not to sound racist, but as soon as I heard that dudes accent I knew better than to enter a cold water race against him. I think it's more about conditioning. At the beginning of Winter I can't stand anything under 60°, but by Spring I'm in a tank top and shorts at 55° .

No it wouldn't, it would be a literal paradise. ? Oh how I wish I could operate in the same fashion. I'd be filthy stinkin' rich, no cuts, scars, or bruises, and nobody's boats would leave my shop running any different than they did when they came in. My customers would buy me a fresh new truck everytime the tires got bald, and anytime someone complained about it Chief would tell them what a complete moron they are and threaten to slander them. What a glorious life I would have. ?

Oh it's lighter than it might appear. Yeah I enjoy the stuff MDC has provided. I also enjoy the gas that I'm "lucky enough" to have in my truck. Nevermind that I overpaid for it, I still should feel lucky to have some. Funny, and convenient for the government, how some brains have become conditioned to operate. I want to love and respect them, I really do.....But I have this independent thought thing going on.

BS. I seriously doubt that MDC was forced to do that. And if they were then it should have been voted on. The state reps (some of them) are the ones that were wanting their budget cut, so I have a hard time believing that they initiated that little manuever. They have a choice on how their money is spent, and on whose permits get suspended. What makes you think they don't?

Wrong. There's no hatred, I just think that with the amount of money they have at their disposal they manage it poorly. I'm allowed to have an opinion on that because I pay taxes and buy all of their required permits. And I also (as well as many others) spend a fair amount of my own time helping to improve/maintain MDC property, as well as other areas outside the MDC boundaries. I don't even get thanked, much less paid for it like they do. So if they wanna claim that I am ALSO a slacker with jacked up priorities.....Fire away! I'm prepared to argue that for sure. For crying out loud man, the MDC has suspended my hunting/fishing license before for being late on child support. You wanna claim, like them, that I was a deadbeat dad that shouldn't be allowed to fish because I was in a financial bind? Why do they do that? They aren't forced to do that, they choose to do that for some BS reason. As if child support enforcement needs their assistance.....Gimme a break! They claim that they want kids to fish......But ONLY if daddy is paying mommy enough money. Wow!

Pretty much. ? No I'd say that if you fell in, and stayed in for several minutes, then you'd likely loose your ability to climb out. But I've been tossed out of a boat into extremely cold water 2 times, fell through the ice once, and another time I busted through sheet ice into chest deep water to save my dog because his collar got hung up on some jackasses limb line. On all of those occasions it was like I had Super-human strength.....But I was only submerged for less than a minute. One of the times I had to swim about 25 yards. The water temp was below 40°/ air temp was about the same. No problem at all getting back into the boat, I pretty much leaped up in there like an Asian carp, but the battery had gotten tossed around when the boat nearly flipped and it wouldn't start, and I couldn't find the kill switch lanyard. It took about 10 minutes to get the battery hooked back up and I only had a short drive back to the ramp (less than 5 miles) while holding in the kill switch button. Luckily the truck was still warm, so as soon as the boat was loaded I got to get into a warm truck. I didn't start to shiver uncontrollably until I was almost home. I warmed back up in the shower and at the end of the day the only problem was that I lost my glasses. The lesson I learned was that BATTERY STRAPS ARE IMPORTANT ! Inspect them occasionally and replace when they are rotten. The other lesson I learned was SLOW DOWN !!!

The lake water was probably warmer than the water in the bucket. Any drastic and sudden temperature change is probably hard on fish, but they certainly can handle going from warm to cold way better than they can handle going from cool/cold to warm/hot.

Oh pfffft! Stocker trout will eat anything. ?

Oh, I get it now. So I am just an idiot that doesn't know how they operate. Thanks man for helping me understand. My sincerest apologies to you and the MDC for dreaming up such a rediculis assumption. Heck, they are almost as awesome as the MSA! If only that had more money....

I have some mink fur in my fly tying bin, it's worthless.

True that! Adrenaline kicks in and you won't even realize you are cold until you are safely back in the boat and quit panting. But after that it gets miserable fast and it hurts BAD. Frozen gills is sure possible but I'd think only with air temps in the teens or below, and nobody has any business fishing when it's that cold out. It isn't fun....And fishing should be fun. I do know that fish can be shocked by putting them into warmer water, but they can't be shocked by putting them into colder water. Rapidly cooling down a fish actually seems to help them, but rapidly warming one up will kill them deader than a hammer in no time.

He is cutting the line 3 times, so in all actuality he just tied a standard clinch knot with a dead piece of line tangled within it. The doubled line going thru the eye of the bait is useless in this case. It may be acting as a cushion of sorts but I don't like it. I liked GS in the beginning, but his ongoing "reality show star" schtick has become annoying to me. I kinda wish someone would go ahead and give him a spot on Moonshiners or Duck Dynasty so he can further his desired career.

Chief, you must have missed the part where I asked if I understood correctly, and gladly accepted being corrected. Unlike you I don't pretend that I have an accurate understanding of things until I'm reasonably sure that I do. I get it that it bothers you that I claim the MDC wastes money like crazy, because everytime I mention it.... HERE YOU COME to claim I'm just too stupid to understand how they operate. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I had a reason for thinking that? I have spelled out a bunch of those reasons on here in the past, and I don't recall a single instance where you declared any of those reasons invalid and then explained why they were invalid. If you had I would have given it a rethink.....And possibly thanked you for setting me straight. You never do that though, not for me or for anyone else that I've seen. You disagree with me on EVERYTHING because I have some dirogatory feelings about the MDC, and that's fine, IDGAF, but it would be cool if instead of just calling me an idiot every time I post something that rubs you the wrong way, you'd take the time to explain why I'm wrong, and actually make sense while doing so, instead of just making a post that just says "Wow you are a retard". Yeah I know...."Your time is too valuable to waste on educating someone so ignorant". To me that's a chickenshit copout, because there's always plenty of your time to waste repeatedly reminding me of my alleged ignorance everytime I express having even a hint of frustration with our lovely Dept. of Conservation. So here's one for ya, since I've been corrected on my snap assumption of that little graph (that I initially only used to crack a joke about Pete killing Minks). The MDC obviously published that article in order to point out "Hey, look, of all the money in the state budget we only get a tiny little sliver...Boo hoo!". Well if that tidbit of propaganda was important enough for them to publish then why are they pissing so much away by inventing rediculis and ignorant ways to spend it? The hog thing is a stupid waste of money, the CWD thing is a stupid waste of money, the Spoonbill thing is kinda debatable, it would be cool if they weren't dumping millions upon millions into it and then regulating so that so many of them rot on the banks and guys get sent to prison over the stupid eggs. The LO Walleye project is stupid as heck, and I know you deny the fact that the gigging of gamefish is a problem....but you're wrong, it is. And there's plenty more points that I'll save because I'm getting tired of typing. Larry D. comes across as a bit of a kook but I'd say that the dude knows a few things that he just can't blow the whistle on for fear of.....use your imagination. True enough, the MDC has done some good stuff that I truly love, but declaring complete satisfaction and pissing in the face of anyone that doesn't is like demanding thankfulness for the abusive parent that pulled your hair out and broke your ribs 14 times during your childhood because...hey....they fed you enough between those times that you didn't starve to death. Yay! What really set me off was when they threatened to gate off a bunch of access areas if their budget ever got cut a little. Those access areas have been bought and paid for MULTIPLE times over, by us, and to make a statement like that just freaking wreaks of a nasty rotten government screwing. The fact that they even mentioned doing that makes me want to spit in their face. And it makes me really skeptical of everything they do....And don't do. If they want to close accesses then they need to pay us back for them, as well as the equipment they use to maintain them, and fire the agents in charge of overseeing them. It's only right.

Oh OK....Whew! I thought that was strictly the MDC's budget. LMAO! Wouldn't have surprised me, but Wow. Now I understand why they published that.... They are whining for more money. ? So health insurance, meetings and party's. That's where our tax dollars go.

Isn't it ironic that the Missouri dept. Of Conservation only uses 0.6% of their money for Conservation ? Why are they not called the Mo.dept. of Health and Social Services ? Since that appears to be what they are best at. They spend more on trucks and fuel than they spend on natural resources and conservation combined. Or am I understanding that wrong?

Don't you know that if you shoot them they will just get pissed and start screwing like Minks (not a pun), and before long you'll have minks EVERYWHERE statewide. They have to be trapped by professionals and paid for within this here budget. It's the only educated way to deal with such things.

Mink lives matter !

Oh it can be a part of it alright. You just gotta spend enough time here to know who can handle it without getting their wittle feewings hurt. It also helps if what you call them is reasonably accurate. ?

It might be water movements. Pay attention to the generation schedule and see if there is a noticeable pattern to how the schools of shad react to the amount of water being pulled through the dam.

Funny thing, to me:. I see thousands of boats with Keel guards but have never seen one with even the slightest scuff on the guard, except for my own. Makes me wonder if there is a market for a Keel Shield Shield, because nobody wants to scuff their shield. I guess then you'd need a Shield for your Shields Shield. Boat owners are certifiably batshit crazy! ?