bfishn

No doubt. But there's a big difference between cancer, heart disease, car wrecks, and all the other things that kill us vs COVID. There's nothing you or I can do to keep someone else from dying from all the 'normal' stuff. We can do (or not do) things to keep others from dying of contagious diseases. We're just too selfish and stubborn to do it.

Lost one of my best friends to COVID yesterday. Some of you locals might remember him, he & his wife owned Village Ship-N-Shore. His wife got it too, it gave her a stroke, but she seems to be recovering. RIP Paul.

Cool. That is the darkest place I ve ever been in this part of the world for sure. At least until you see those glowing eyes.

My folks were LW fans. I remember that episode, it was all I could do to keep a straight face.

I can see it now...

You'll see that more and more. It's just a browser notice pointing out the page is http instead of https. Unless you're entering info (like making a purchase) it shouldn't matter.

How is this any different from the multitude of examples where having lots of money lessens/negates the need for skill, experience, and due diligence? I mean, surely anyone with the big bucks must have been skilled, experienced, and diligent at some time, right? Oh, wait a minute... Never mind.

Now, there's a gift idea for the guy that has everything...😉

EV West has a Tesla modded to drop in anywhere a small-block Chevy would. Takes a heavier-than-stock driveline though.

https://youtu.be/m57gzA2m57gzA2J

I just added you to my PM with Ham. Looked like it took this time.

@Quillback I got "Quillback is not receiving messages" ?

The way I see it, you can live a long life filled with foul tastes and miserable habits till you get cancer and spend your remaining days dying from the chemo, or you can climb atop a speeding train and catch an overpass to the brain while howling at the moon. I chose the latter.

Yep. That's my every Saturday brunch Still working on it, but slowing down...

Enjoying what life has to offer while I can.

Speaking of poor air quality, scalding a hog is the way to go. Then you can cook it whole or halved with the skin on, burn the sh*t out of the skin without waste, and the skin holds all that wonderful pig juice in.

If you have any reason to go south, you could pop little ones from the bank about now pretty easy below any of the L&Ds on the Arkansas River. Bonus there is the species potential. I've caught stuff there I couldn't identify. Sauger should be starting, gajillions of little stripers, all flavors of temperate bass, catfish, gar, & carp. Skipjacks, Gizzards, Lizards & snakes. It's a long list. I've caught several American Eels there too, but that's a Spring thing. Added; The slack water on the lock side is the deal for variety.

I'll do that by Sunday. I'll mark up a map section for you. Work today kicked my butt, and tomorrow promises the same.

For the deal I described, I use 3-4" creek baits (shiners, chubs, whatever I can catch) lip-hooked on a heavy-hooked 1/4oz maribou jig. 2 rigs straight down from the boat and a couple more cast out with slip bobbers set 4-5' off the bottom. Bait shop bass minnows would probably work too. That rig catches both species fine. If you know the stripers are passing thru, they'll rise to a topwater, but you won't likely see them break otherwise. What's weird is that it doesn't seem that the blues follow the stripers all the way to the back end for the twilight feasts. For that deal I bank fish the twilight hours in the back end with fresh, cut shad that I net right there just before dark. They won't touch day-old or frozen shad. The stripers show up there just after dark, and it can be fast & furious for an hour or 2. If you can't see or catch a few big gizzards there first, you're in the wrong place or the wrong time. If you try it in a boat you'll spook them out. That's how I stumbled on the deal, I was throw-netting shad from the boat in a few feet of water and saw the giant dark streaks as they scooted away to safety. Many, many experiments later, I've settled on the 2 methods I mentioned here. Did it for 10 years straight. It flat works. If you're gonna try Beaver with Quill I'll even give you my best spot. I've never offered that to anyone...

On Beaver, when surface temps are ~48-52, (usually around Thanksgiving) you can catch both in the same spots. When the big gizzards pile up in the backs of the long creek arms, the stripers make a daily dawn & dusk trip back there for an hour or two. If you setup a little further out (~30' deep on a creek bend) you can encounter them as they head back out to the lake for the day (~10-11AM). Loose schools of blues are following at this point, you'll get about a 30 minute shot at the stripers, then another 30 with the blues as they cleanup behind the stripers. It's one of the most predictable fishing things I've ever encountered. Should work on Norfork too. Featureless, flat-bottom creek arms are way better than V-shaped, steep, timbered ones. This will continue till the big gizzards head back for the deep at around 48 degrees.

I hurt for you and his family.

https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/vaccination.html