bfishn

jte54, It seems we've run your thread thru the wringer as we're prone to do. Glad you're sticking it out. I hatched, raised, & sold trout for a living thru most of the 90's, so I understand some of your situation. You've found a demand for a unique product, and you're looking for a way to fill it. Been there, done that. For it to flourish enough to make a living on, you have to be able to produce X volume for Y $ less that you can sell it for. That's a lot harder to do with bass than for trout or catfish. What I know about that; If you're growing trout, you most likely have a spring fed facility that allows year round peak growth rates. Catfish ponds in your neck of the woods get what, 5 months growth? Bass ponds will be about the same. If you're providing temperature controlled silos or things of that nature, that cost has to be paid for up front. Trout feed is very expensive, being 75-90% fish protein, and the single biggest cost of production. Catfish feed is cheap in comparison, being grain & fat. Last I knew, 'bass feed' didn't commercially exist, but the SOTA products were at least as expensive as trout feed, at least thru fingerling stage. Neither trout nor catfish need be trained to feed like bass do. They don't eat each other either (much). Barring any catastrophes, you'll harvest nearly as many trout or cats as you hatch. Can you do that with bass now? Bottom line, there's a reason that nobody's selling bass to those who want it (yet). Don't let that stop you. I learned to do what I did primarily from a few old texts written by guys like you. Guys with dreams contributed to the pool of knowledge thru their failures as much as their successes. It's the old, "if at first you don't suceed..." On the other hand, your bluegill project sounds like a winner... :-)

It is legal, just like trout and catfish. The producer gets an aquaculture (fish farmer) permit from the state, and gives receipts to buyers/resellers for every purchase to keep them out of trouble. OMG!!!! There'll be gill nets all over Taneycomo tomorrow!!! (...you were right Wrench...)

Did you ever consider looking up the real numbers instead of making up your own? In 15 minutes of looking I found a quote from MDC stating 13,000 lbs were taken in the 2013 event. Easily found a source for the 2016 event too... a bit over 60,000 lbs. I'm sure I could dig it all up, but I just don't care. Your creative math even stabs your own argument in the back with a fish point. If bowfishers were actually harvesting 150,000 lbs a year, after year, after year, the fishery can obviously support that rate of harvest, and would likely suffer without it.

Yeah, I'm funny that way. It only came to mind because i recently made that statement myself (not in reference to college). A little digging into current research on psychoactive drug therapy shows that I'm far from alone in that feeling... even ~40 years after the fact. Which leads to another question... Since a lot of kids did acid in college, how many of them are attributing their life-changing experience to the wrong thing? That would probably make a great college thesis.

I call BS.

That exact same statement can be (and has been) made about one $10 dose of LSD. Like college though, it's not recommended for everyone.

Haven't been there this year, sorry.

From the Mo. side, take 39 south at Carr Lane. At the state line, MO 39 changes into AR 221. Follow the map below from there.

We discovered a nest hole late one day in the hayfield when I was a kid. Our good neighbor Tom was helping that day, and he said to leave it alone 'till morning. We returned in the AM twilight, whereupon Tom briskly scruffed the soil bare around the hole with his boot, placed his toe over it, and shoved his hands in his pockets. A good 10 minutes later, with the sun good and up, Tom started releasing and stomping the critters one at a time. It was the craziest dance I ever seen, slide a toe, stomp a heel. It wasn't long before they were coming out 5-10 at a time, but Tom kept his rhythm up. I backed away sensing danger. Another good 10 minutes later, Tom was still dancin', but the novelty had worn off, and we readied for the day. Suddenly we heard him let out a cry, and he took off running towards the house that was over a half mile away. When we caught up with him at lunch, he said he missed one that must have crawled up his overalls. It stung him in the nads. My Dad, never one to let the opportunity for a lesson slip by, merely pointed out the spelling of the word 'Tomfoolery'....

The border lakes permit covers impounded waters, which is the state line on the Kings, give or take a mile.

I just knew when you said you'd caught your second that it was gonna have your favorite popper attached.. :-)

Not to worry, Small Ordinary Boats (SOBs) is coming up.

Early-mid October is always feast or famine for me (more often famine). The lakes will be in the process of turnover, so they can be anywhere, at any depth. The best advice I could offer is to find the shad and fish nearby. I've spooned October 'eyes at 40', and caught 'em trolling unweighted Rogues at 8-10' in the same day.

The "media" is simply a 24-hour buffet with franchises around the globe. They have stuff you like, and stuff you don't like. Often, some of the stuff you like is bad for you, and some of the stuff you don't like is good for you. Consume too much of either, and you're likely to have a bad day. Complaining about it is pointless, nobody made you consume it, and you can walk out at any time.

As to the health of this particular stream... As has happened many times in the past, the last flood washed a buttload of bass, catfish, and bream out of the BV lakes and into Little Sugar. I was at the big lake when the rain quit. The first water over the dam was clear. The outflow rushed thru a narrow ditch for ~1/2 mile, then spread out and slowed on a low spot in the golf course. I saw a lot of fish milling that pool, and the only guy in the 'hood smart enough to be there with a rod caught a 50lb mess of cats (8 fish) in short work. He surfed that stringer of cats right thru the flooded greens to his truck. In a couple hours the water was muddy, falling, and they were gone... ...down Little Sugar Creek.

I'm reminded of a promise I made to myself around 1970; I will never be critical of the music others might prefer, and I will never tell them to turn it down. So far I haven't broken it... ...(though I have contemplated redefining what qualifies as 'music')

All the kids I know today are intelligent, well-adjusted, and overall good kids. Some like to fish, some don't. I'm not worried about a one of them.

There's no reason you couldn't incorporate boat batteries in the dock's storage system, keeping the batteries charged and alternately providing lift & lighting power in return. You'd still want some permanent dock batteries, but wouldn't need as many.

That, or trying to figure out what the heck a Ned Rig is.

Sharks, schmarks, I'm not gonna worry till I see this;

Walleye start doing that at ~1/4" long and <2 weeks old if there's a shortage of the right sized live food. Swallowing a whole fish of equal size isn't possible of course. They swim around with their sibling hanging out of their mouth like that picture for a couple days till the body rots off, then they swallow the head. After a few episodes of that, the cannibals are enough bigger (and stronger) than their siblings to really take advantage of the situation. In a fish-eat-fish world, your brother might also be your breakfast.

They do work. They're also a real PITA, so the degree that they help is tempered by loss of effectiveness of your downlines or longlines. My experience was always by myself, but if you have a little room to roam and a nimble first mate, it could be different. Nowdays there's only one situation where I readily break them out. When the surface temps allow shallow dawn/dusk/nightime activity, I'll pull a shallow stickbait in a hand-held rod with a board to run the bait thru fish I'd surely spook by running over them with a boat. When they're 15 ft or deeper, boards just get you more baits in more places, which can jack up your numbers if you can handle it. I've run 2 downlines, 2 longlines, and 2 boards all at once by myself. That setup can turn south on you pretty quick if you actually get into fish, or a little too near an unknown brushpile.

That's a politically correct version of the adjective I had in mind. :-)

^^^...the most well-reasoned, logical post in this thread...^^^