SpoonDog

Has to be a tough gig- threatened litigation from the granola crowd, histrionics from the locals. I'm hopeful something will change this go-round, if for no other reason than I'd think doing nothing leaves them vulnerable to ESA lawsuits over the hellbender.

Me too There's a few FF organizations in the St. Louis area, some solid fly shops, a number of books on fly fishing the Ozarks, as well as MDC publications and biologists. I'd urge you to gather information from as many sources as you can get your hands on- part of the fun is doing your own sleuthing.

What businesses of Shannon County? The purpose of ONSR is to protect the river, not protect the Eminence Chamber of Commerce. If local businesses hitched their wagon to the idea there's no limit to the number of floaters, boaters, or equestrians who can use the resource before doing damage- they were mistaken. Given the history of Shannon County it's a lesson which shouldn't be lost on the locals- Eminence is a classic example of the Ozark boomtown who's economy collapses once they've run out of trees to cut and rocks to mine. If your livelihood is dependent on the river, running it into the ground isn't a wise idea. I agree with CW, something needs to be done- partly for aesthetics, partly for honest-to-goodness protection of the resource. I think the more restrictive options strike the right balance- and I say that knowing full well some of my favorite places may become tougher to get to. I haven't gone through the entire thing, but shuffling a few accesses, spreading folks out, closing some roads and horse trails, creating/redesignating some foot and mountain biking trails are all ideas I can get behind. And if they translate into a higher-quality experience, I'm all for it. Oh. And they say they'll conduct more enforcement. It's in writing, so I'm sure it'll get done

You know what every movement needs? A mascot. There's no shortage of talent in Branson, and I'm sure there's folks looking for gigs in the off season. You get a a few together, call them Foul Hook, and have them set up shop in the parking lot below the hatchery. They sing songs like Fake Egg Blues and Reddwrecker- you know, real educational. They can wear brown trout costumes, they can be painted up like rainbows, they can be blinged out with the latest articulated streamers- but please, let's keep it classy. Or folks could just be an advocate for the resource. License vendors could hand out C&R literature, provided by FFF/TU/MDC/Chamber of Commerce, to tourists. MDC could probably be persuaded to put up a video on their webiste, an article in Conservationist, maybe even print it on their online licenses. And individual anglers could take the time to teach others, to explain the value of the resource and the ways it can be impacted by snagging and mishandling of fish.

Two Rivers is right at the mouth of the Jack's Fork and Current. There's a boat launch just downstream of the confluence, on the west side of the river.

Nice! I went out over the weekend, after storms had moved through the area, thinking they'd have popped up. Found a few chickens, a few boletes, a few corals, a few oysters, a few puffballs- but not a lot of anything.

I've had them smoked and canned, both were pretty good- and with they're abundance I wish more folks would give them a try. I'd rather see lots more folks harvesting large, fast-growing asian carp than slow-growing blues, flatheads, or walleye. Plus they're filter feeders, and they don't concentrate metals and contaminants the way predators like bass, catfish and walleye do.

Nice haul BH...mind sharing how you're canning those guys?

Male triploids won't produce sperm, but they'll still produce the hormones which govern migration. They'll still try to reproduce, but they won't do so successfully.

I understand the concern, but I don't think you're giving youth enough credit. Obama won 2/3ds of the youth vote in 2012, and his position on healthcare was pretty unambiguous. I can't imagine all those folks voted for him unaware of his views. The ACA allows the nation's youth to stay on their parent's plan until they're 26- they're covered under their young & dumb stage, and if they're too dense to see the value of healthcare once they turn 27, I don't have any sympathy for them. But even if yours was the case, I'd argue paying something for healthcare is better than paying nothing for healthcare. If they have to pay a percentage of their income to use health services, I'd prefer that to the free-ride situation now.

Price vs. value. I can pay the fine AND cover all of my healthcare costs out of pocket, or I can pay into an insurance plan instead, and it'll cover a substantial proportion of my healthcare costs.

If the individual cannot pay out of pocket, they are denied healthcare. Or they go to the emergency room and you and I ultimately pay their bill. To me, neither of those is an ideal alternative.

The average cost per student is somewhere around $9500/year. The average cost of a hospitalization per person is around $15000/year. The reason healthcare doesn't worth locally, like schools- is partly because healthcare is simply more expensive than schools. If you think managing a national health program is confusing, imagine 114 independently operating healthcare systems- just in Missouri. If you were in a wreck on vacation out of state, does your local health plan cover that? A local system ignores discrepancies in the health of populations and availability of health services (http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/missouri/2013/rankings/outcomes/overall/by-rank) Many outstate counties have lower populations, higher obesity rates, higher smoking rates, higher rates of physical inactivity, higher unemployment, higher rates of uninsured, higher poverty rates, higher median age, and less access to healthy food. You can be the healthiest person in Carter County, but because the population's lower, the risks are higher, and the doctors are fewer, you'll be paying more money for less service than an unhealthy person in Boone County. And private insurers have little incentive to invest in low-income, high risk folks outstate when they can invest in healthier, wealthier, younger people in urban areas. Local governments already have trouble attracting enough medical providers for their residents. They already have problems implementing health and nutrition programs like WIC. They already have problems dealing with changing demographics- I'm not sure how making healthcare a matter for local government resolves the issues which are currently outstanding. You may not want your healthcare administered by Barack Obama- I'm not sure things would be better administered by Barney Fife. I'm just not sure many local governments have the talent pool necessary to run health or insurance programs. Example- one of the local (county) health department administrators has an Associate's in Social Service, from the local community college. He wasn't hired because of his stellar resume', he was hired because of who he knew- local governments are no more immune to abuse than federal. I don't think his education and experience qualifies him to run a local/regional health insurance program, and I think many places would have a tough time attracting enough talented or qualified people to make local healthcare networks functional, effective, and affordable.

I guess it depends on what you mean. To my knowledge a hospital cannot deny care, regardless of ability to pay. But I think one could make the argument that refusing to cover those with pre-existing conditions represents a denial of healthcare.

There are probably lots of lazy, unhealthy, twinkie-eating, cigarette smoking Americans who can afford healthcare, and the cost of their unhealthy habits raises insurance premiums above what low income (but healthy) individuals can pay. So are you willing to provide inexpensive healthcare to low-income folks who can pass a physical?

I'd be willing to bet you don't use your rainy day fund to pay for a trip to Gulf Shores. I agree with you about fiscal responsibility, I just think comparing a rainy day to a free vacation is a bad analogy. Public sector or private, my experience is that indefinite furlough isn't a pleasant, even if you have money stashed away- that's all I'm saying.

Retroactively being the operative term. In the meantime there's still rent, still house payments, still car payments, still utilities, etc. The costs are still there, but the revenue stream has dried up. Personally, I don't think it'd be nice getting time off without knowing when I'll be back at work, watching as bills pile up- it'd make me a little anxious.

Didn't they just stack a bunch of rock and fish structure in the upper end of Taneycomo a year or two ago? I don't spend a lot of time on Taney, but my understanding is that MDC has had a fair amount of trouble providing optimal numbers of hatchery browns over the past five years...I'd want to know what role that plays before I go petitioning MDC for reg changes. As for seeforellen or triploids, I'm not sure how feasible they are. Taney isn't the Great Lakes, and I'm not sure it has the prey base, the habitat, the temperature or dissolved oxygen regimes needed to support lots and lots of big fish. I guess I don't understand why we need to switch strains if we already know the current browns can and do reach 20, 30, 40 lbs. Are these fish anomalies, or can the system only support so many of these big guys? If it's the latter, then I'm not sure switching strains or strengthening regs will have a dramatic impact on the fishery.