Al Agnew

There are plenty of subsidies and government help on various fossil fuels, it ain't just green energy that gets subsidized. And making it all pay for itself without subsidies sounds good, but when you have an already established technology that already has all the infrastructure and established markets, and you THINK that society would be better off if something begins to replace it, it only makes sense to subsidize that something else to help it compete with the established technology. Otherwise, the "new" thing never gets off the ground because it can't compete with the already established technology from the get-go. So you subsidize it until it can compete, and then entrepreneurs will keep trying to improve it to make it cheaper and better. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. And...there are other benefits to "green" technologies besides just less pollution and emissions. The mining and removal of fossil fuels messes up a lot of land. Transporting it results in the occasional disaster from spills, leaks of coal ash ponds, etc. Fracking may cause more earthquakes, uses a LOT of water, requires a lot of strip mining of the sand used in the process, and can contaminate ground water. And then there are the health problems associated with fossil fuels. These are all "hidden" costs, that we all end up paying. In my opinion, though, we are going about a lot of this all wrong. We are trying to adapt renewable energy like wind and solar to our existing power grid, which requires these huge wind farms and massive solar installations that cover large amounts of land. I think that instead, we should be going full steam on perfecting smaller systems, from municipalities to individual homes--everybody can be more or less responsible for their own energy generation. There should be major benefits to this...including developing a whole new economic engine not only from the manufacturing of the equipment but in the numbers of technicians needed to install, maintain, and repair the systems. And another major benefit would be that we aren't as dependent upon the power grid, which can be sabotaged by terrorists pretty darned easily. Having completed an off-grid solar installation at our cabin, I know first hand it works. And I also know that the whole key to making it work better is better battery technology. This past fall and winter, there were so many days with no sunshine, far more than normal, that the weak point of our system became not enough battery storage. Our backup propane generator was required more than we expected, though most days it wasn't needed.

Um...don't know where you guys are getting your "facts", but a little real fact checking shows a couple things about electric cars. Yes, the manufacturing is dirtier than conventional gas cars...anywhere from 15-65% more CO2 and other pollutants in the manufacturing of an electric vehicle, the bulk of the increase in the manufacturing of the batteries. But...those greater emissions are made up for within 6 to 18 months of driving the car due to far less emissions in driving it. So after a year or so of driving it, you've become greener, and will remain greener from then on, on average. However, the one caveat here is in where your electricity comes from. If the electricity in the grid you've plugged into is coming from coal-fired power plants, you are probably not much greener than if you were driving a gas engine, and may not make up that difference in manufacturing pollution for a long time, if ever. But if the grid is powered by natural gas or any kind of non-fossil fuel (especially hydropower, wind, and solar), you are going to be MUCH greener. So while electric vehicles aren't as green as they appear at first glance, they ARE, on average, significantly greener than gas engines even considering manufacturing differences. And the hope is that battery technology will also get greener in the near future, bringing manufacturing pollution more in line with conventional vehicles.

Pretty much on any of the trout streams below the parks, anything under 300 cfs is wadeable. I've waded the Meramec up to about 400 cfs but there are a lot of places where you can't reach the good water.

If you aren't an arrested development adult or a teenager, why do you care how fast you can go from point A to point B? You're only going to get speeding tickets. I've owned two Priuses (Priui?). I've never felt underpowered in them. They'll cruise at 80 MPH when I'm driving the interstate in Montana and still give you 50 mpg, they'll pass the guy going 75 mph with no problem whatsoever, and they are reasonably comfortable to drive and ride in (except that my wife complains that because it's so long between fill-ups that we have to make ourselves stop so she can pee even when we don't have to get gas). If I lived in the city, I'd for sure be interested in a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric vehicle.

So Mary and I got out to Montana February 5th. We generally come out here for two or three weeks in the winter because it's fun to play in the snow, do some snowshoeing, go up into Yellowstone Park and see and photograph animals. Usually, the weather in our part of Montana isn't much worse in the winter than it is in Missouri. It might get a little colder at night, typically down into the single digits and minus single digits, but there are usually many days when it gets up into the 40s, and since it's DRY out here, dry cold, like dry heat, doesn't feel as bad...as long as the wind doesn't blow too much. Typically, in a two week period I'm going to have at least a couple days when I can even go fishing without having the line freeze in my line guides all day. And if it does get cold, it might get REALLY cold for a few days, but pretty soon it warms back up and any snow just seems to evaporate as much as melt. It was in the upper 40s here the couple days BEFORE we arrived. But we got into the Bozeman airport at about 10 PM, and the temperature was already down to 3 degrees. Coming over the pass to Livingston it got down into the minus territory. The next morning it was minus 12. Now...that's not too bad, but it never got out of minus territory all day. And that went on, day after day, punctuated by a few nights when it REALLY got cold, like -28 one night and -31 the next. In the entire next month there was exactly one day when it climbed above freezing, getting up to a balmy 34 degrees. There were only a handfull of days when it reached the teens. And snow...every three days or so it would snow some more for a couple of days, and that snow had no chance to melt. We got up to about 30 inches of snow altogether. So it was a month of mostly sitting in the house and watching the snow, watching the river almost freeze completely over, just icebergs and slush flowing, watching the steam rising from the river in the mornings, and watching our supply of wood for the woodstove disappearing--and if we'd wanted to, watching the dial spin on our electricity box, because this house, built back in the 1970s, has all electric heat other than the woodstove. So I THOUGHT it was much colder than normal, and last Friday the local newspaper reported that it was one of, if not THE coldest February on record for Livingston, at least 17 degrees below normal on average throughout February and the first week of March. And I just saw a headline for a national newspaper that said that Montana has just suffered through what is believed to be the coldest one month span on record. Just when we decided to spend five weeks in Montana, of course. It was far colder in Montana than it was in Alaska. I didn't get to fish once. We'll be back home in Missouri soon, and 50 degrees is going to feel great!

Understood. That's why I'll make myself retie fairly often when using a snap. But also...I don't use high dollar jerkbaits. About half that is as expensive as I go with them.

I believe you might have that the opposite. The closer to the rear of any paddlecraft you are, the quicker it will turn. The closer to the front, the more difficult to turn. If you're very close to the middle, you usually get the best compromise. However, small differences in seat placement don't make a whole lot of difference in turning. With my solo canoes, I can't move the seat to perform better in different conditions, but I can move weight around. If I know I"m going to be facing a headwind, I move more weight forward so the front of the canoe is slightly heavier than the rear. You can accomplish the same thing in kayaks with adjustable seats by moving the seat forward. But most of the time, you want yourself to be very slightly behind the center of the craft and the weight distributed as close to level as possible.

I use duo-lock snaps. I've had the smallest size fail, so I use the next couple of sizes up. But if you look at a place like Tackle Warehouse, you'll see a whole bunch of duo-lock look-alikes that are probably better quality and less likely to fail if you're worried about that. Basically, I use snaps on pretty much all hard baits except spinnerbaits with the R bend to tie your line to. Crankbaits, topwaters, jerkbaits, and closed eye spinnerbaits, I use snaps on all of them. Just have to have the discipline to retie after an hour or two of use--the bad thing about snaps is that you change lures a lot without ever retying...which is also one of the good things about them.

You are absolutely not wasting your time throwing buzzbaits on Ozark rivers. I use them less than I once did because I've found other lures that I like fishing a little better, but I know guys who don't throw much else in the summer, and they are pretty happy with what they catch. As for size, you don't need to go too small. My usual buzzbait, which I make myself, is a 1/4th ounce, fairly compact one, but with tandem in-line props so it makes a pretty good racket. I'm also likely to try a bigger 3/8th ounce one with a single but bigger prop. As for colors...fluorescent yellow, white, and black--the black one is for dark days and murky water. A chartreuse or fluorescent yellow buzzbait is one of the more effective lures you can use in ultra-clear water. If you're fishing a small, ultra-clear creek with a buzzbait, just remember to make casts as long as you can and land your cast 5 feet or more away from where you think the fish will be...don't land it on top of them. Throw it into the middle of the next pool before you start up or down the riffle. I've caught 20 plus inch smallmouth and 6 pound plus largemouth on Ozark rivers with buzzbaits. As for chatterbaits, I never fish them, but might experiment a little with them this coming summer.

I think Top Dollar covered the science pretty well, so I'm not going to do much arguing here. All I'll say is, I think I'll believe the vast majority of the real scientists in relevant fields on this and every other scientific subject, and not the internet warriors and the people who want to believe what their "team" tells them to believe, or who just has a knee jerk reaction that the "other team" is for something so it must be wrong. If you don't believe the scientists on the subject, you have to assume that every one of them is either incompetent, dishonest, or agenda-driven, while the very few scientists on the other side and the vast numbers of ideologues on the other side are all honest, competent, and only interested in the truth. Follow the money...and if you think following the money is looking at the scientists seeking grant money (which is usually awarded to STUDY things, not to support foregone conclusions) and not the huge corporations with a vested interest in the status quo when it comes to CO2 emissions, you're delusional.

I use a snap 100% of the time with jerkbaits. Most have split rings to tie to, and I just remove the split ring and use the snap. I trust a snap with a palomar knot far more than any loop knot.

Spots on adipose...either. Spots on tail...absolutely rainbow. Single spots...both. Haloed spots...brown. Red spots anywhere...brown. Squared off tail...brown. Not many spots on the lower body and especially on the lower half of the meaty part of the tail (the body behind the adipose fin)...brown. Fewer and larger spots...brown. It sure looks like a rainbow in the photo mainly because of the silvery color, but it's a brown. Too many brown trout characteristics.

Everybody probably already knows what my favorite fish is. Smallmouth bass are not the best at anything, but pretty darned good at everything. They fight well, but there are fish, especially in saltwater, that fight better. They are stong but there are stronger fish, they jump well but some fish jump more and higher. They attack surface lures viciously, but so do some other fish. They offer a challenge to find in the winter and to catch often, but other fish are more of a challenge. They often live in beautiful country and in beautiful streams but trout live in even more spectacular country often. They are beautiful fish, but so are a lot of others. But...in my opinion no other fish has so many good things going for them. I dislike fishing in saltwater because the scenery is either mediocre or boring. Hybrids and stripers are limited in when and where you can find them, and aren't in as beautiful places as often as smallies. Trout from a river are great, but they aren't quite the vicious predators that smallmouth are. Lots of other fish might fight well but have other shortcomings. So a river smallmouth is most definitely my favorite fish. Brown trout come second, cutthroat trout third...as long as they are wild fish.

Yeah, it's kinda surprising that there are no outfitters servicing that stretch.

This is just my opinion, but even if you CAN run sections like between Cherokee Landing and Blackwell, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. There is a reason why there are rules against running fast near docks and on certain reservoirs within a certain distance of the banks, because of wake damage. However, there probably isn't much difference in wake damage between 10 feet off the boat and 50 feet off it. I just have a deep-seated aversion to putting big high speed boats on rivers like Big River in that section. I think some floatable streams should be left to those wanting to avoid the noise and commotion. However, I know I'm in the minority of jetboat users (I own one and use it). Most people probably don't see a problem with it. But I made myself a vow when I bought mine, after cussing the things for years, that I wouldn't push the envelope with it and become the guy I always hated, and so far I've stuck with that vow. The smallest river I put mine on is the Meramec around Steelville, which has a normal summer flow of something like 200 cfs, compared to Big River around Blackwell which normally flows about 70 cfs in the summer.

Cwallis is right, it's seasonal...though I hate to hear he's running all the way to Cherokee Landing...in my opinion, the river above Blackwell should be off-limits to jetboats because it is so narrow and the wakes can cause a lot of damage. There are narrow riffles with logs and such throughout Big River, requiring a lot of experience to run safely when the water starts getting low. And those riffles change from flood to flood. I have run it below Washington State Park quite a bit over the years, and it's not unusual to come upon spots that are downright scary in normal water levels, where you have to jump logs or make very precise moves to get through. As a general rule, look at the Richwoods gauge, and if it's flowing less than about 300 cfs, it's going to be really tricky.

Not everybody can read a map. I guarantee you'll find anglers who couldn't read a map well enough to figure out where the boundary was.

Well, the last quote says it pretty plainly that it's considered the conservation or "normal" pool, but this could still be a can of worms unless there is clear signage at that point. There ain't any contour lines on the banks to see. So if the lake is 5 feet above conservation pool, which would probably back it up a couple miles farther, and you aren't already VERY familiar with the upper end of that arm, how are you gonna know where that point is, 5 feet underwater, unless there's a prominent sign?

Well, unless there is a clearly specified lake boundary both in the regulations and in signage on the lake, I don't see how they could justify giving somebody a ticket if they were still in "impounded" waters, meaning still water, even if the lake is high and backed up a long way. ARE there specified lake boundaries clearly written in the regulations? This could have consequences as well for anglers fishing the backed up lake waters in higher water levels during the closed season on stream bass in Missouri. If Table Rock is high enough to run bass boats easily above the Y bridge at Galena, could you go above the bridge and keep bass in April?

"Impounded" means not flowing. So whatever level the lake is, you could only fish as far as the first riffle, seems to me. Might be a gray area in enforcement, but no way you could fish well up into the river sections of rivers like the Kings or James on the permit. There might be a stretch of a couple miles above the slack water of the lake that an agent would let you slide, but they could also ticket you as soon as you got up into noticeable current. So either don't fish in the rivers above the lakes or pay for the state permit.

I'd never pickle, brine, or smoke tongue. That would be sacrilege to what I consider the tastiest meat on a cow!

Plenty of goggle-eye (the Ozark bass species) in the Buffalo, but like every other stream, the longears will get to everything small you throw before anything else. The Buffalo is actually a somewhat sterile stream, and also somewhat isolated when it comes to warm-water fish. What I mean by that is that unlike a lot of rivers which have different kinds of warm-water fish migrating up them from the larger rivers they run into or the very fertile lower sections of the river itself, the Buffalo is a low-nutrient stream all the way to its mouth, and then it runs into the cold water of the White River, where there just aren't many warm water species living. So the Buffalo's fish are pretty much limited to the natives that live there year-round. For instance, I haven't heard of walleye being caught out of the Buffalo in recent years, so I doubt that there are many, if any, in it these days (they used to come up out of the White River before the dams). Not sure about fish like flatheads--there is a decent but not great population of channel catfish. Largemouth are not common, spotted bass almost non-existent. Trout come up out of the White in cold weather, but they don't survive in the Buffalo in the summer because water temps get up into the high 80s or even warmer once the water gets low. There are gar in the big holes that live there year-round, and there are BIG redhorse (a function mainly of lack of gigging pressure--the 10 hp limit on motors in the Buffalo and the usual low water levels in the fall and winter keep gigging limited to areas around the accesses).

I haven't used the Carbonlites. But I'd recommend the Major Craft Nanoace crankbait rods (available from Tackle Warehouse). They have a couple different models and they are in that $110 price range.

Had leftover beef tongue tonight with homemade egg noodles. Mary won't eat tongue but is okay with fixing it in the Instant Pot. One tongue gives me three nights of meals, and it only gets better each night. Mary had salmon.

In higher spring water levels, Clabber Creek usually has some fairly impressive standing waves, enough to swamp an open canoe if you take the heart of the biggest waves. However, at that level you can probably sneak by to the inside of the bend (the left), over a big gravel bar that rises to a thick stand of willows. You enter the shoal at the end of the pool at Rush, and the river bends to the right out of the pool, then bends left into the shoal itself. The right bank is rock and ledges, underwater in higher water levels, with really brushy bank on that side and swift current. The current is a little slower on the left side. In lower water levels like you have by May and June normally, the shoal narrows and the rock ledges on the right appear out of the water, and the gravel bar appears on the left side. The shoal gets narrow and studded with rocks, requiring maneuvering, but once that rocky gravel bar on the left appears, you can probably walk down the edge of it. At least that's the way I remember it, and the way it looks on a couple of videos I've seen. I've floated it recently (like three or four years ago) only at lower water levels, where it's a steep drop through big rocks that you just about can't avoid scraping over. It's been a long time since I floated it in higher water.