Blazerman

Nice pics and nice fish! I know it was supposed to be warmer Sunday but to me it seemed colder. Cudos for getting out there and going for it. Even trimming trees it felt great to be outside by the river.

Back when I first started fishing for trout I was in the same situation as you- coming from mostly bass, crappie and catfish fishing. On the White way back then, we used to throw White roostertails spinners, leo cleo spoons, plus floating rapalas in silver and coutdown rapalas in gold. Also shad raps in brown. If you have fished with jigs for crappie you can try a smaller jig, on an ultra light rig for trout and usually pick up some fish.

I was down at my place for a little while today trimming trees and the river by me was open. Had an eagle hanging out by the river when i first got there.I am sure it was fine upstream but cold. Going home the river by the bridge at Pacific looked pretty frozen. I could not see any open water there.

i thought i saw on there you could do a monthly thing where you don't pay for the whole year. i was thinking about doing a couple months now before the Big Bass Bash, They seem to tailer a lot of the info towards that event. Saw where guys are posting where and how they caught their fish that won them some money.

More from STLToday Smith introduced a bill in the U.S. House to decommission the national park and transfer it to state authority. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/fight-over-ozark-rivers-isn-t-waiting-for-park-service/article_4660fb5c-f7d6-5f5c-8358-c40eab1421c4.html

I bet you could say that about a lot of critters. And birds too. I would think this winter has been hard on quail for sure. I feed the birds at my home and it is amazing how much food they have been going through this winter.Two winters ago, after we had a bad ice storm, guy down by us on the Meramec found three dead dillos under his canoe that was upside down and leaning against his porch.

Hw, I usually try and visit my place every weekend when there is nothing else going on. Winter is a good time to tree trims and stuff. But the way the weather has been, I haven’t been there as much this winter. What abouit you? Got your ramp open yet? The last time I had the boat out a couple weeks ago, there was two other boats running and one of them was a RiverPro. I thought it might have been you or your brother. This last weekend I was spent both days getting my fishing stuff ready for our White river trip which will be next week- Wednesday to Sunday. I think we will have about 24 guys in our little tournament and I know of another group going with about 15-18 guys. Gonna be a lot of guys from St Louis down there next week. The pic was taken by the guy who has the place right up from Redhorse on the right with all the nice rock landscaping. You might know him. He lives there and has an office in St. Clair.

I am sure a lot more info will come out on them once the roadshow starts .If they truly have been “profitable since day one” as they say, then they are heads and shoulders above most small companies that file for an IPO.

This from the cnbc website. I am sure the will be lots more to come once the IPO gets closer. For the record,I am not involved in this IPO in any way although i might buy shares once they go public. San Mateo, Calif.-based action camera company GoPro registered to go public on Friday. The company is the latest to file for a "secret" initial public offering. New rules, under the 2012 JOBS Act, allow companies to keep much of their operational information out of the public eye until shortly before the shares begin to trade. The act allows for companies with annual revenues of less than $1 billion to file with the SEC confidentially. The date for GoPro's IPO hasn't yet been set, but it is expected to be at the end of the second quarter of 2014. JPMorgan is the lead banker on the offering, with Citigroup and Bank of America as possible participants, a source told CNBC. GoPro's CEO and founder, Nick Woodman, started the company with $64,000 of his own capital and then got his father to put in $100,000. GoPro products are now sold through consumer electronics retailers in more than 50 countries. Woodman has said in interviews with other media outlets that GoPro has been "profitable since day one." "We talk about wearables all the time, whether it's Google Glass or Fitbit. Well, GoPro is probably the most successful wearable electronics company out there," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Group, a consumer market research firm. "It is more than a camera. It's not just a standard piece of hardware. There is a lifestyle and brand associated with it," Baker added.

This pic was taken yesterday just above Redhorse. I don't know if you will be in a jetboat, but one thing I learned a couple weeks ago when I took the Blazer for a ride. The ice along the banks will break up from the wake of the boat and then when you come back you will be running over all the ice junks. What i ran through wasn't very thick but you could definately hear it hitting the boat and going through the jet. If it had been thicker it might of been a problem.

As popular as their cameras have become I would think this might be a good investment. I don’t own one but you sure see them being used everywhere. Especially if it involves any kind of action sequence. After they go public, they will probably be a good buy out candidate too.

Good memory JR,. i looked it up. 1991 Illinois Invitational. Woo won $35,000 and his winning weight was 18.13. 325 total contestants and some big names from back in the day and a few who are still fishing the big tournaments. I recognized some local guys too. Not many fish were caught it looks like, at least not big ones. http://www.bassmaster.com/tournaments/1991-illinois-invitational/results/0/

Anybody else remember when they did a bass tournament on the Mississippi and the winning fish came from Brick house slough. I don't remember who put it on but i think there were some big time bass fisherman fishing it. I haven't looked for any info on it so i'll see what i can find. But i was thinking someone might remember.

Met a buddy at my place today and the plan was to cut up a large tree that had blown down. But is was so nice we blew off the chainsaw work and threw the Blazer in for a nice ride. I had my poles on the deck like i always do and i tried a white jig for about 10 minutes but didn't see any action so I put it down and just enjoyed being on the river. The outside temp was 64 and the water temp was 40 with nice color. My buddy couldn't believe how clear it was but it really isn't as clear as i have seen it. I could see my jig down to about 3-4 ft. Then saw this awsome sunset on the way home.

I was thinking the same thing about the mono I have. It seems to be holding up fine in the container I have it stored in which I keep on a shelf in the garage. The only time I had a fish break it was when I was catfishing with some of the 20lb mono and I think that had more to do with the size of the fish then the line being bad. I tried to pull a big flathead out of a logjam and he didn’t want to come. I got him up to where I could see his big flat head on the other side of a log but when I tried to pull him over it the line snapped. I have gone to all braid for my catfish rods since then. Based on the comments here though I think I will start using the mono as backing and upgrade to some better line for this year.

And I am hoping to hear from people who know the facts. Specifically how long does line stay good? I have a bunch of different size line for all the different types of fishing I do and have often wondered how long it is supposed to last. I keep it in a large plastic container that has a lid so it is protected somewhat. Some of this line might be 4-5 years old at least. What I usually do if I am going to use it is take it out and try to break it with my hands. Depending on what size it is usually determines how quick it will break and if it breaks quicker then I think it should I get rid of it. I know this is not very scientific. Also, how often do you change out the line on your reels?. I have rods with reels that might go 3-4 months between use like my catfish set ups and usually dont worry about changing them until I notice the line seems to be breaking easier than it should. Again not very scientific. And one more question. Many times the line will get curls and kinks from being on the reel to long and become hard to use. Does anyone use line conditioners like the Reel Magic stuff I see advertised? Thanks for any help.

Went back to try again Sunday and today. I caught 5 total yesterday before i gave up and went to watch football. Today i did a lot better at catching fish but there was no size to them. If I kept 9" fish i could of had a limit today. But I don't think there is enough meat on a 9" fish once you filet it to make it worth while. I had one 10" fish and it is amazing what adding an inch does for adding meat. So i ended up not keeping anything.

Missouri Floater welcome to this board, although I have not been around as long as some of the old timers on here but I think I have posted enough to give out some unofficial rules. These rules are presented to keep you in the good graces of all the self-appointed board police. I can share these because I have pretty much broken every one of them at one time or another and felt the wrath of said police on many different occasions. Rule 1. Never ever, ever say anything about catching and keeping a smallmouth bass. If you do this you can figure you will probably be banned for life and if these police can find you, you will be tarred and feathered. 2. if you do go to a nice Ozark stream and catch smallmouth it is ok to brag and post pictures, but never tell where you caught the fish. Actually even naming the stream is usually taboo. 3. if you sometimes fish with live bait like minnows, you will probably want to keep that to yourself too. Even if you are a great live bait fisherman and don’t often deep hook your catch there is always a chance you could so best not do it at all. Or at least don’t talk about it. 4. I doubt you gig from your kayak, but if you do you will probably be better off keeping that to yourself too. 5. some on here believe the spotted bass is an invasive species like Asian carp so if you catch them on occasion, it is ok to keep and clean them. This only goes for Ozark streams. 6. if you fly fish and especially if you tie your own flies you will move to the head of the class. There are probably other rules but you will have to learn them the hard way like others on here.

Seth, yes you can catch nicer fish- at least better Browns on the White. I think all the fish turn on when shad start showing up and a shad kill usually means they are running water which also means the big fish can move about freely and attack anything that looks like a dying shad. You will want to use a bait with some White on it and if you are after real trophies use bigger baits. I wouldn't want to argue with Phil, but in 25 years of going to the White river, I am not sure we have seen a shad kill every year. If it is a warm winter without much moisture normally there has not been much of a shad kill. It usually takes a prolonged cold snap and plenty of water coming through the turbines. Of course we are not there all winter so maybe we miss them

I got this jury duty notice in the mail for St Charles a couple days ago and I said to the wife, hope I get to be a juror on a good case. She said what do you mean, what would be a good case? So I thought about it a while and came up with one. There is a bar that has dancers like show girls. But the local police have gotten complaints about it being too lewd so they begin sending cops in the place to secretly film these dancers because they believe it is pornography. They arrest everybody and charge them with creating and distributing pornography or something like that. The bar owners have claimed the dancing is a form of artistic entertainment and in court that will be their defense. So they jury has to watch all the film and then decide one way or the other. That in my mind would be an interesting case. Strictly from a legal stand point of course.

I actually let my nephew have the filets because he was really wanted them and I will probably go again this weekend since i have Monday off. I am thinking maybe with the temps getting back to normal maybe the fish will get back to grouping up like they usually do. We usually do real well off the group of docks i frequent in mid winter. I will report again after that.

Once it warmed up on Saturday we decided a quick lake trip might be in order to see if the crappie had warmed up too. We didnt get down there to about 5pm and by the time we got fishing it was after 6:00. We only fished off the condo docks and both the nephew and I caught nice crappie on the first try. Mine was a really thick 12 and his was about 10. So right away we were thinking oh man, here we go. But after that it was pretty slow and we only ended the evening with about 6 total. Sunday morning we got down to the dock about 8:00 and caught about 6 more in about an hour and then they quit biting all together. Came back after lunch and the wind was whipping the lake really good and the outside temp was about 68 and I thought they might turn on again at some point but they never really did. We cleaned 15 altogether between the 2 days and the first 12 was the biggest. Never did find a pattern. Caught them at many different depths and on many different jigs. The nephew was using minnows and he caught more total fish but about half of his were shorts.

My dog is 14 and I don't care which direction he is facing. I am just happy when he makes it outside

This was taken Monday just upstream from Redhorse. Completely frozen.

Yup one good thing about the big chill. Back when i was in the landscape businnes whenever the grubs and bugs would be real bad we would always say it didn't get cold enough last winter. So you would think the next couple nights will be cold enough to kill plenty of the pests that survive the warmer winters.