bfishn

I'd like to believe that F&F, but all the action tonight was before the construction zones.

On my way home this evening the LEOs were having a heyday. I counted no less than 13 (marked) cars, and saw 6 with folks pulled over between Johnson & BV. All southbound. All (that I could see) were out-of-state tags. All but one had trunks, hoods, and all doors open. 2 had all the personal contents strung all over the roadside, luggage, clothes, camping gear. The last one had a family with 3 little kids surrounded by 3 carloads of LEOs and with some of them having hands on guns at the ready. With the Mulberry music fest starting tonight, it's pretty obvious who was getting profiled. Fast forward a couple days to when the real menace to society comes to town (walmart shareholders) and you'll see none of that. The bars and liqour stores will have record sales, and a good portion of the traffic in and out of the motels will be piloted by drunks with an unspoken license to raise all the h*** they want.

Yep. What you won't read in their reports; Accurate locations of stripers, walleye, crappie. Fish are biting on creek minnows (can't sell them). The hot bait of the week will never be one the local shops had a run on or are out of. Timely and useful information. To be completely honest though, none of that bothers me a bit. Random noise provides good cover.

Just judging by the lower unit paint left on various objects when it gets low, the river does a pretty fair job of self-patrolling. Get too stupid and she'll make you pay. If you come off plane to pass (best idea), just come completely off. A friendly wave and a nod means nothing if your bow's in the air and you're leaving a 30" wake.

2nd that, or any of the numerous submerged boulders downstream from there. Check anything bigger than a VW. There's one or more near every bend but one down to Beaver.

Soylent Gray anyone?

It shouldn't be that hard to rule out/confirm GBD, a large percentage will have "popeye" GBD is mainly only a concern for live fish haulers. It's the risk of OD'ing your fish on oxygen, which is really pretty easy to do. Or if the fish had eaten before loadout the excreted nitrogen can do the same. Any gas in supersaturation can cause it. Tailwaters can concentrate supersaturated conditions, so if the carp were determined enough to stay there, I guess it could croak 'em.

That land price might get down into the ~reasonable range if they run out of publicly-funded fish to "sell" to their private corporate clients. Send 'em to JM, he knows how to keep 'em grinning and reaching for the wallet.

Uh-huh... kind of like regardless vs irregardless. :-) Glad you opened the door here Al. And I plead guilty to caring less than I could care (but no more than none). My personal gear-grinder is ell-oh-ell (I refuse to type those letters sequentially and alone). My God, if people actually laughed out loud every time they typed that, a family member would no doubt have them committed.

No need to post a location, you two just arrive early, and everyone else can just follow the sound of Laughing Out Loud.

Yep, and that brief pause when you feel for the bottom is usually when you get popped.

Cool! That stretch can really pack 'em in at times. Like when it's up in the trees on the north bank with one unit running. Skinny enough water it pays to be sneaky.

...or a variant on Dogs Playing Poker... Dogs Eating Fish... Ohhhh that hurts.

Now that there's funny! Make mine in black velvet and fluorescent paint. Put a couple Yuccas in the background. I have an inbred soft spot for that stuff.

Yes and yes. Try the former first, but be prepared to do the latter.

With Tuesdays forecast for clear skies, it'll pay to be on the spot at the first hint of daylight or even before if possible. The moon will be nearly straight up at 4AM, so getting in place will be easy. As always, find the shad. F&F has up-to-date knowledge that I don't, but days gone by would have found me roaming the Moulder area at daylight in mid-May.

I disagree, given the fair number that either already think that or are willing to be led that way. Should be an easy sell. :-)

Where 'bouts? (roughly)

I think that's more the rule than the exception. All of my biggest fish of any species were simply a "right place, right time" experience, with no unusual or incredible effort on my part.

I agree. I misunderstood you earlier. I didn't mean to infer they could tell who was catching what and how more than in a very general way. No problem man. It's a little embarrassing to be reminded how out of touch I am with new gear... didn't know what a Revo was... Guess that's another indicator I'm gettin' old, I'll probably still be putting parts as needed on my old gear when I croak. :-)

He'll need a crows nest for those snook, or at least a poling platform.

That's why they call it sampling instead of overall population counts. They're well aware of the limitations of the methodology. If you needed to know the exact count and size information, you'd have to poison the stream or drain the lake and count the carcasses, but I think we'd all agree that's kind of defeating the point. You don't have to have an exact count to observe trends though. If you shock the same way at the same places and times year after year you can identify trends, and drastic changes become very evident. Please don't take my word for it though. I'm not a statistical analyst, nor would I care to be. Plenty of folks have dedicated lifetimes toward improving sampling statistic though, so since I'm unwilling to devote that kind of energy, I'll take their word(s) for it; https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLD_enUS318US318&q=electrofishing+statistics&meta=cr%3DcountryUS

I'll play. What's a Revo?

They get what they get. If they miss fish then the reports err on the slim side, creating a potential need for stricter management. The only way electro or net surveys could give misleading results leading to relaxed management is if they caught lots of big fish that didn't exist.

Electrofishing and net surveys reflect what's there (or not there), taking all activities into account, legal or not. Comparison of that data to creel surveys refines the information as to how fish are being taken. The method may let a stray poacher or two fall thru the cracks, but it serves the big picture very well. If you're losing sleep over poachers, gather some evidence and turn them in to enforcement. It's not liike you were sleeping well anyway... :-)