Wayne SW/MO

For Bennett I would tie them in 2 patterns, one with the many suggested and some others with nothing more than a short Marabou tail reaching slightly past the hook bend. You should tie one in John Deere, green jig with a big yellow eye. Ollie thats a good looking jig, the the jig not the tie.

Steve who is available to shuttle on the upper end? Do you know the charge? Your story of the night paddlers reminded me of a time on the Eleven Point, over 20 years ago. A good friend, his brother, my son, and myself took a 3 day float in which we put in at Greer and camped about a mile down river. The next day we ran into a couple, friends of opposite gender, who had dumped. They ask to borrow a cigarette, exchanged some information, and went on ahead of us. That night we camped on a gravel bar and just as it was getting dark, here came the pair paddling full steam past our camp. They had a good 5 miles to go in the dark including at the time a tricky maneuver right above Riverton. I'll never forget that and don't plan on ever making the same mistake of getting caught unprepared on a river after dark.

Its rare for there to be conflicts between people personally and ML's, same goes for their targeting cattle, but they can get in a situation where they discover they can find them easily. They run cattle in the mountains out west all summer and don't seem to have a big problem. For the most part if there favorite food, deer, is available thats what they eat, but a young Tom who is being moved and is inexperienced will take dogs and cats and I'm sure calves. Each old Tom has a range, and a large one at that, so the Tom's have to move out and establish their own range. This inability to stay close to the range they were born in naturally spreads them out over an increasingly larger range. I'm sure the exploding deer population has helped their survival tremendously. When it comes to them stalking a human the human best be very lucky or blessed because they don't run deer down until they are very close, you get the picture.

Are you going to be around anytime in the next couple of days? I might take a look.

One of these days Bobber. I thought about this trip, but too many irons in the fire at the moment.

Thanks MoCarp, I was about ask the question regarding their genetic link to the Asian and leatherbacks I'm familiar with. Whats the bone structure like? Common carp aren't bad if you can get pass the bones. They best method of control might well be via the dinner table.

Were the Whites holding different from the Blacks?

I think Phil is right on, its not unusual to see signs wanting to buy dock permits because they are scarce. Sounds to me like it might be a scam. Any developer that has gone that far should already have a price in mind and should be giving it.

Well I got so far as looking it over on Monday morning, but didn't fish. Would it be worth my while to also take a casting rod with some topwaters?

I stopped at Cox (Galena) yesterday on my way home and no one was fishing. I would imagine if they are up that far there would likely be some fishing it.

Jeremy, when you have that problem with a Rooster Tail try bending the tip of the blade out, if that doesn't help bend it in. Make the bend very slight, it generaly doesn't take much.

The creek came up Friday, but the last really good run was on a high creek, if I remember right. They're probably waiting for everyone.

We were in the area late yesterday afternoon. Fishing was slow for us, but with fishermen down to 3 years its hard to stay focused. It seems to me from our experience and talking to others that they are staging with some moving in and out. The message I got was to search hard and work areas that produced until they quit. It seemed that there were a lot of small Bass in the shallows. They're coming soon.

I'm kind of puzzled as to what it means, the often heard complaint is the lack of year round jobs and benefits. I would think HD would have been overrun, unless people believe its necessary to have some building experience.

Smallmouth never quit biting.

How were you fishing vonreed?

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/uv?07054080

The Colorado's raise some questions, whats the denier of the fabric, can you get replacement bladders easily, and does the frame break down? I know I don't think I would like a steel frame, but maybe thats because I've never had one. They are heavy, but its hard to tell if thats the steel frame or if the tubes are heftier.

There are two things that are bad about horses, in my opinion, on natural land. The first is shape of their hoof which is larger than native ungulates and compacts the ground rather than penetrating which can be useful for aerating. Without a rider, horses are heavier than any native animal in the woods, except the Bison, and it left the timber eons ago. When they feed they grasp and jerk the vegetation sideways. This action tends to pull shallow rooted plants out by the roots and in the Ozarks rock terrain, most soft plants are shallow rooted. I can imagine what the trail behind 20 of them looked like, but probably not as bad as it would have if it had been wet.

Are you anywhere near Grundy county and Trenton?

I saw a tank truck at the River Run ramp today as I crossed the bridge, so being the curious person I am I had find out what was happening. It turns out they were returning the Walleye that had been taken for the hatchery. The only thing that surprised me some was that they didn't appear to be that large. From my vantage point I would say that very few were legal size. I fished upstream for about 2 hours, but nothing happening for me.

My experience has all been with Cataraft, a small Idaho company that was one of the first, and a PAC 800. It does seem that the popularity is consistent with geography and availability. PAC is popular on the West Coast because they are a division of Aire, a company that has made white water rafts and cats for years. The PAC is well made and has as good a pedigree as any on the market. As far as shoals go, it will depend. Inflatables are terrible if you have to attempt sliding over rocks, but do all right on gravel. They do draft more water however because the footprint is smaller than a kayak or canoe. As far as class goes, the biggest worry on our streams are new strainers and for a pontoon narrow places with trees, etc. If you learn to handle one properly, you have more maneuvering power with oars than with a paddle, which can be a plus. The capacity of inflatables is generally given as point where the tubes approach the halfway point in submersion and 25% is generally ideal all around. This gives you good tracking, but the ability to maneuver. An overloaded pontoon is a barge and something you defiantly want to avoid if you have to maneuver at all.

I saw a nice string of Whites from the area of River Run. I won't give the fellas spot away, but there are apparently some moving up.

I've owned horses and they aren't kind to the environment, especialy one that should remain natural.

Here's a selection. I'm not recommending Cabela's but they have a bunch of Representative crafts to look at. Pontoons The biggest problem with pontoons is that you sit high, and they are high above the water and this makes them a real pain in a wind. I've been in situations where you had to literally row downstream and for that reason I don't take mine far from the truck. I have kayaks and a solo canoe that don't have this problem. I don't believe there is much need to stand. There are times when it would be nice, but the extra craft it requires isn't worth it most of the time, IMO.