MrGiggles

Don't remember the first. Definitely do remember the obsession with all of the fishing magazines in the school library, and always ogling the 30" pike that my dad had mounted in the basement. Had a pretty impressive collection of lures from garage sales and stuff, and many holes in my clothing from cutting hooks out. 😆 My grandma had a lake cabin near Alexandria, MN. My dad and I took many trips there, never really caught much that was exceptional, bass and sunfish mostly, the one notable memory is when we arrived somewhat late one evening and the big bullheads were eating, kept a couple and smoked them on the small barbecue that was there. Delicious! Went to Lake of the woods one year with my uncle when I was 11, in early March as I recall, temps were fairly mild but there was still 3 feet of ice. Caught many nice walleye, jumbo perch, a couple tulibees, and an eelpout. There are pictures somewhere, next time I go up, I need to get them digitized. Had wicked sunburn/tan from the sun reflecting on the snow and ice. Made another trip with my uncle one winter out to Grindstone lake chasing smelt, which are sort of like sardines, but bigger, 6-8 inches. Very toothy, predatory critters. We cleaned them with scissors, snip the head off, empty the gut cavity, and fry them whole. The bones soften enough to eat, I never really cared for them, but my uncle ate them like french fries. The small town that we lived closest to had a bank tournament on the city lake one year for the kids, I was probably 7 or 8. Had a prize for biggest and smallest fish. Don't remember anything notable being caught, but a 12" bullhead won it. Got a very stern talking to when I hooked my dad in the palm on my backswing. I was close to getting the small fish prize with a sunfish that was about the size of my hand, the fishing in that little mud puddle wasn't exceptional.

I have been using the smaller ones a lot in the winter time for crappie fishing, they work pretty dang well, get to deep water quick, just don't get too close to the brush pile. I bought a bunch of the blanks from this site a couple winters ago, pretty simple to paint up a simple black/silver shad color scheme. I figure with a good treble, I'm in them for about $3 each. Unfortunately they don't have them in my preferred size for summer walleye. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/2165-Gliding-Jigs-5pk

Went out on the afternoon of 9/17. Skunked, started out hot and still, but a front blew in and switched things up a bit. Water temps 83/84. Went out again on the morning of 9/21. Only managed to scare up two keeper crappie. No walleyes. Water temps down around 76/78 already, dropping fast.

I still lurk. Just hardly get a minute to go to the lake anymore. Last outing on 8/10 was pretty tough and the storms pretty well wrecked the evening. Popped up out of nowhere and dumped on me for over an hour. The one before that on 7/27 was better, 5 walleye but only one keeper. Jigging raps. Bunch of whites too. You guys complain about live bait prices, donate a couple of those $9 jigging raps and see how you feel. 🤣

As mentioned, the laws changed around homemade trailers, all of them need to be inspected by the highway patrol or the sheriff's office in your county now. You used to not need the inspection for trailers under a certain length, not anymore. I did one a couple years ago and it was pretty straight forward. Sheriff deputy looked it over, attached the VIN plate, gave me my paperwork and sent me on my way. Obviously you wouldn't want to try it with something that wasn't clearly homemade or heavily modified. Buying from out of state can work, but you still need the registration documents. A bill of sale scribbled out onto a sheet of notebook paper probably isn't going to fly.

The "Hemi tick" is still an issue. They pretty frequently break off manifold bolts, or the lifters will eat themselves since FCA engineers think oil can defy gravity. It's mostly an issue if the truck has been idled a lot, though. Fords are bad about the manifold bolts too, and GMs are even worse about valvetrain issues, pick your poison if you want a domestic.

Looks like Lowrance and Ultrex are the heaviest. The Power Pole and Garmin Force are about the same. I picked up a 57" Garmin Force since they're discounted pretty heavily right now. I installed one for a buddy a couple years ago and it seems to be working well for him. I'd be curious to hear about Power Pole as a company, where the stuff is made, and how good they are about supporting their products.

Think I had someone tell me once that there was riffles not far from the ramp and it can be pretty treacherous, that's mostly why I've never tried it. I've also wondered if a guy could put in at somewhere like 82 and run up the Sac far enough to do any good, but I'm not sure that it would be any better than just fishing the Osage.

Kinda my thoughts on the GPS as well. You really only use that in open water where there are no other navigational beacons, so to speak.

I've often wondered about that spot, it's not far from me. What's the fishing like when it's good? Crappie and catfish mostly?

I might give it a shot. I've always used the alberto, which works fine and I have no trouble tying it. My only grip with it is that the tag end of the mono can snag in the spool or guides when you cast. Obviously a shorter leader fixes that, but I like them to be two rod lengths or so, otherwise you're down to a couple feet of line after a couple reties.

I can agree with all that's been said. Pretty hard not to pick up at least a few circling around any cove. Typical post spawn pattern. I like the 7 size flicker shads, blue tiger, purple tiger, firetiger, black/silver, racy shad, and black/chart are some of my favorite colors. I also agree that a 1 ounce snap weight will get them deep enough without needing 100+ feet of line out, and they snake behind the boat much better, less tangles. Last time I was out (May 12th), I did catch a few on deeper brush, as well.

I'd agree with $5k. I'd venture to guess it would take a good long while to get that though. It is still just a jon boat, no seating, no storage, no livewells, no electronics. I'd say it'd be perfect for the avid catfisher or duck hunter.

The post office is a good example of this. In 2010, after the great recession, new pay scales were created for new hires after that date. Pre-2010, part time pay was double or more minimum wage. I believe it went from $20 an hour to $15, at that time. The pay steps for regulars went to taking 10 years to top out, to 13 as well. And that doesn't include your time as a part timer, which can be up to a decade for some. Retirement contributions also went down. The city carrier union spent the better of two years "negotiating" their next contract. They proposed taking three steps off the bottom of the pay scale, and the typical 1.3% raise. Membership voted it down, it went to arbitration, they gave us 1.5%, and just took two steps off. UAW gets 25%, UPS gets 18-20%, dock workers get 62% in their contracts. They got 1.5%.... It's a race to the bottom, seems like. There's a reason why the postal service has gotten so bad.

Yes, I was up there on Wednesday and they had burned quite a bit around the campground and boat ramp.

Last I knew you can only pull doubles in MO if the primary is a 5th wheel.

Pretty slow, tag soup for me. I didn't get to hunt much during firearms. I did shoot at a nice buck on opening weekend, no hair, no blood, no buck. Clean miss, best I can tell. I didn't archery hunt. Hunted quite a bit through muzzleloader, saw a lot of deer, felt covered up by dink bucks at times, but nothing really worth shooting. Best encounter was with this tall 8pt, had him at 80 yards. I kinda regret passing on that one. If he survives the MDC corn piles, maybe I'll see him again. This 10pt didn't start showing up on camera until a couple weeks after season ending, a shame, I'd love to have him on my wall with the one from last year, which I picked up in November. He would probably score the highest out of everything I've seen this year. I can't tell if that's a wound of some kind on his side, or just a tuft of hair. That would've been the correct side and about the right angle as the shot I took on opening weekend, can't help but wonder. Also caught this bobcat on camera, haven't seen one of them around for a long time. This as at another farm, I only hunted it once, the turnip plot there turned out the best out of all of them. Deer activity was pretty sporadic, but there was some good ones passing through there occasionally.

It's an old drag racer's trick, too. Much more common back before ignition systems were as hot as they are today. Also, some engines with flat top or popup pistons don't have the clearance for a ground strap.

I've jumped on the cordless bandwagon (Rapala R12), but prior to that, I had a Mustad from Wally world that kicked butt. Think it was like $20, has a black and green handle. I'm a firm believer in that any knife which may leave the house and costs more than $20, is soon to be lost. I have junkers that are many years old which are still around, and probably a half dozen "nice" knives that apparently didn't like my companionship too much.

How do you get it out of there? Hope to float it off by pouring in some new oil with the plug out? The guy has some trust in those chains, those powerhead bolts would turn his arm into a pincushion if it fell.

Not telescoping, but Midway had these on clearance a couple years ago. I think it's a Diawa. For the fisherman with an on-the-go lifestyle. Have only caught a few fish with it, seems to work fine.

If this isn't a scam, it's a bargain and a half.

Those big gouges in the port opening are the deal breaker, it ate something. If those weren't there I'd say you could probably clean up the bore and throw a piston in it. If you enjoy the tinkering, I've seen a lot of good used powerheads on Ebay that aren't too expensive. If the rest of the motor checks out, being that it's got electric start and a clean title, it may be worth the investment. Or find a good running 25hp with no paperwork and steal the powerhead.

As I recall the bolt circle on those flywheels is quite a bit smaller than your standard harmonic balancer type of puller. Nothing really works aside from the OMC tool. Additionally, don't thread the puller bolts in too far, I see the ones in Wrench's photo have a should to prevent doing so. Stator coils tend to not work so well once they've had a bolt crammed into them.

From the little I know about them, they are pretty expensive if you wreck one. But being able to see the oil level through the cap, and if there's any water in there would be nice. The only experience I have with oil filled hubs is on those older Polaris 4x4 ATVs that had them. No bigger piece of junk ever made, there's a bunch of seals in there, getting one to hold oil after any amount of neglect is next to impossible.