tjm

I'm certainly not in favor of tournament fishing, won't knowingly by any tackle from brands that sponsor or support such. I'm particularly opposed to culling, and transport away from the immediate catch area; but, since I don't buy much tackle the sponsors won't miss my business and since I don't watch TV the shows won't know that I'm not watching. I do think that public opinion in the matter is more likely to guide the fisheries regulations than dollar impacts do, but the same public that buys "Pro" tackle and boats, would be up in arms if the "pro-tournaments" were banned, so to some extent the money and the public opinion come from the same sources. And following the guidance of one is also following the guidance of the other. And it may well be that the monetary input is the only reason that the public has access to these waters. Certainly the proponents of wade fishing only and of free flowing streams aren't very vocal, and as always the squeaky parts get the most attention. We might get a regulation limiting the maximum size of fish used in tournaments? say, no bass over two pounds or XX inches can be counted at weigh in.

Think it will have much impact on streams? Do you think it might be effective enough eventually to end the bass tournaments, due to lack of fish?

Simply getting line mass into short casts requires a short rod, or a short to very short leader; stream width of ~20' minus 9' of rod and 9' of leader means only a couple of feet of line out the tip will reach across the whole stream. 5' of #5 line tip will weigh less than business card, not much mass to help in turning over a leader; so it should be no surprise that longer rods make casting short distances difficult. Either rod or leader (or both) need be shortened if line mass is to be introduced. On rivers in excess of 40' this isn't a problem. Putting mass into those short casts is also why I prefer 6-7 wts. over lighter lines, although in the front taper there isn't much difference in mass between a #5 and a #9, even a few grains help. If the water will allow 30'-50', putting some line mass into the equation, then I can happily use #5 line, and if using that lighter line, I will need the longer rod to get a satisfactory mend, again relating to less mass involved. I guess it's a coincidence that narrow streams seem to also have more canopy.

I wondered about that so did quick search. I knew that skids in one form or another dated back to ancient Egypt, more or less and were used with cranes to load and unload ships and wagons etc. But, my search of the web shows "lift truck" (no forks) invention in 1917, with Yale inventing the "electric truck" with forks and mast in 1923, and Clark's 1924 design was very similar to modern forklifts. So depending on when and where maybe they did have them. The modern skid was patented in 1925 as “lift truck platform” by Howard T. Hallowell followed in 1939 by George G. Raymond's patent for a “two-face pallet” design. This made skids stackable.

A skid is like a "pallet" with only a top deck. Mostly intended for single use, because without the bottom deck they fall apart fairly easily. Skids were used before pallets, I think, and are still used when the expense of making them is less than the expense of return, refurbishing and reuse of more substantial pallets. In materials handling and construction the words are somewhat interchangeable. Random illustrative images from the 'net "a skid of bricks" (note no bottom deck and thin top deck= disposable) vs a "a pallet of bricks" Those large heavy "return or pay $ for" pallets of the lower image are a pita on a large construction site where many must be collected stacked and stored until pickup and are often burned in the fire barrel on smaller sites where return is not really likely.

"Horses for courses", you don't chose a Percheron for steeplechase, nor an Arab for plow work, and rods are similar. Long rods have a place but so do short ones. I can fish about three times as long with 7'6" #7 as I can with 9' #5 before the shoulder pain takes the fun out of it. I would opt for longer rods with lighter lines, maybe. But I fished 9' rods for forty years before discovering the joy of the short sticks, and wish I hadn't. The longer rods do have advantage when on big open water, or when mending, or roll casting 50', but they suck in tight places under canopy or bridge and they put more stress on my body. 7 1/2' is my choice on streams less than 50' wide and 8 1/2'-9' on bigger water or if nymphing, two things that I rarely do. I 'll also mention that I use 7 wt. lines more often than 5 wt. because the the extra bit of mass in the line makes casting easier at short distances and even at moderate distances. I'm lazy and eliminating any false or speed building casts is one less motion; line weight can offset rod length, or vise versa in the line-speed equation. I've never seen a short graphite rod that I really liked though, so that means that I fish fiberglass most of time. I would say though that if I were were buying a new graphite #5, it would likely be 8 1/2' or longer, just to get some flex into it and would quite possibly be a Maxcatch if wanting cheap, or maybe Echo or Taylor or Stickman or Epic if spending more money; there are just so many options that I'd want to try. In #4 or less I might be shopping 9 1/2'-10'. And, I left an almost local rod maker of the list, RDP rods might be my choice in the light/ultralight area, certainly if looking for a zero weight RDP would be high on the list. And that doesn't even touch on custom builders like McFarland, Barclay, Graywolf, TMR, James Green, and dozens more, maybe even Thomas& Thomas or Edge or Loomis. Hundreds of options and I'd bet not one of them a terrible choice. Rod technology hasn't made in great leaps over the last 30-40 years so the differences between the top of the heap rods the box store brands is less and less as time go by and the low end manufactures copy the the high end designs.

What Gavin says about trying before buying. There are too many variations in what people like and in how we perceive a rod's action. Same thing is true of lines. Your choice of lines and mine aren't the same, so most likely you wouldn't like my choice of rods. Personally, if I had a rod that I liked a lot that wanted a guide, I'd just put a guide on it, or given the age; whole set of guides. I'm not sure there are a lot of choices in #5 less than 8' though. I fish mostly 'glass rods made in the '60s for 6'6"-8', found on eBay.

They may think that, MDC thinks otherwise. Need a Trout Permit everywhere in Mo. year round to keep/possess trout, except in the Parks where you need a daily tag to even fish, except in winter C & R when the Trout Permit works and you need a Trout permit any time to fish upper Lake Taneycomo regardless if you keep the fish or not, and you must also have a fishing permit or qualify for an exemption. Age 15 and younger, age 65 and older, disabled vets, former POW and a couple other things can mean that you don't need the Fishing Permit, but those things don't exempt one from needing a Trout Permit where required. MDC has most of the regs on their site but for the real thing the Wildlife Code on the SOS site is the place to look.

Like losing a landmark, but I've only been in there a handful of times, outside my 5 county area and all. Didn't I just read on another forum that someone was/has opening a new fly shop down there "Diamond State Fly Co."?

If you say so, although, I thought P&G were soap sellers.

I have the notion that almost any cooking oil would work. I often use old cooking oil, and have used the cheapest vegetable oil from Walmart, to start the fire in my shop (maybe the best use for canola/rapeseed oil). I've known a couple of people than ran diesel trucks on waste oil from restaurants. Ancient civilizations used olive, castor and grapeseed oil as fuel for lamp fuel. Camphene was a lamp fuel derived from turpentine. Olive oil burns with less odor, but even lard or bacon grease will work up a wick if the room is warm enough to keep it fluid.

That nice chart only shows what was sold brand new. The pertinent facts would be what sector and how many tons will be in landfills 50 years for now. Actual count, not a fairy tale estimate. Facts that describe the harm done by any one of our endeavors does not yet exist. Facts are always past tense. And even then they can be rewritten if it suits the story teller.

Oh, I will when the elite start selling whale oil lamps instead of electricity.

I don't attack "green energy"; there isn't any such thing except in propaganda. All power production is more or less equal in that all are somewhat destructive, and we don't know and can't predict to what extent. It comes down to the devil you want to embrace.

Yes same problem, smaller scale. Different problem though, like bringing up oranges in a discussion of wheat harvest. You can't be "green" and still have electricity. Every means of producing it is environmentally destructive and we can't even guess to what long term extent in advance. We could all reduce our impact by using less of it, but we won't, it's easier to shift the blame to the fuel/method of electrical production or to automobile emissions or to simply ignore the problems. I do think that when the fresh water shortage becomes enough of a problem that we have to invent desalinization that we might develop electricity as a byproduct and that even though it would be destructive to those portions of the sea shore where they are located, we could blame the water plant rather than our choice to have AC.

Funny thing to me is that I wouldn't consider a two hour round trip to be nearby. Is there really only one tackle shop in the Table Rock area?

is this the bridge? https://www.modot.org/missouri-route-64-bridge-replacement-dallas-0

Nuke plants have the same problem that wind mills do; there simply is no good way to dispose of or recycle the waste.

Does that include the mining of materials, manufacture of all the components, transportation of raw materials and finished components to the location and the eventual dismantlement and disposal? Since there is no known way of satisfactory of all the fiberglass and carbon fiber components, how can they even guess what that cost is?

Nice that they all had help, it's more exciting when done alone. It's been a while since I hung out on trapping forums but the guys out west always seemed to release several lions each year. My release board was a full 1/2 sheet with handles on my side and my "hog catcher" a little longer, but both are items that every trapper should have. I never figured out how to release skunks. I have found most trapped fox asleep with not much sign of struggle. Lots of sets could be remade in minutes, simply because the various critters did not struggle very much. Feral cats and feral dogs do struggle more than most critters, but they are feral invasives ... I have released many dogs with no injury and without much hassle. I have always thought it inhumane to allow dogs to roam free, and years ago many dogs were dumped here in the country when their people got tired of taking care of them, something that seems to have stopped in recent years fotunatly. There is actually an international agreement on humane trapping standards. All 50 states participate in setting the best management standards for trapping, unlike hound/bird dog hunting or fishing. Almost every single fish I've caught fought and struggled throughout the entire time. Nothing is as inhumane as catch and release fishing. Except eating bacon. I'm always amazed at people opposed to use of petroleum, for all it's environmental side effects, advocating wearing petroleum derived clothing rather than sustainable fur and wool, but those are the people that most often offer up that or use of fur or wool is inhumane. I attribute that to watching too much Disney with all that anthropomorphism. I'll reserve my humaneness for humans.

I think one often overlooked things that scare fish in very clear or relatively shallow water is shadows that move. And although I advocate heavier line/leaders for the ability to horse a fish in when C&R fishing, I will admit that fatter lines have bigger shadows. Sometimes the angle of approach/presentation or angle of sun can cause the moving shadow of the line on the stream/lake bottom to spook a fish just as the shadow of a predatory bird would. When I did my experiments in still water the line was fairly motionless and the presentation angle put any shadow between the baits and myself rather than between the bait and the fish. It was only years later that this occurred to me as a factor. Personally I don't think that even with 1/100th ounce jigs that 8-10# line is stiff enough to steer or to hinder the movement, but I'm not seeing it from a trout's viewpoint either. I've long fished unweighted flies down to #18 on 5X-5# and moving up to 3X-8# with #12 or larger flies, and I don't think it hurt my numbers. But I must admit that it's possible that I would have caught more if I had used lighter line. I only asked because I see the 2# as an unnecessary handicap, having broken off many more trout on 4# than I have bass on the same line. I know a fellow that used to always fish bass and white bass with ultralight crappie rigs, broke dozens of those little rods, when I asked him why he kept using the UL gear he said it just made the fish feel bigger. Others have answered that "so and so" told them light lines were required. The answer given above of anecdotally, you just seem to catch about ~1/3'' more fish with the smaller line is an excellent reply, you are convinced by your experience that it is worthwhile just as @Al Agnew is convinced by his experience; both by the way, anecdotal. I'm convinced by my experiments, which since they were not conducted in a laboratory by trained biologists are also kinda anecdotal. Staying in the anecdotal, some years ago at a time when I fished RRSP 50-100 days per year, I arrived at the idea that every time I used 6X-3# I lost (by guesstimate) ~1/3 of the fish I hooked and when using 7X-~2#, I guessed the number of break-offs to be nearly half. I wish I had kept actual count and done some switching of tippet using the same flies, so that I could be more sure of my beliefs. After writing this I may just have to buy a spool of 7X and try that next summer.

The call to the sheriff may have come after the facebook fans told them that they had admitted to a crime, but if he signed a statement there would be no reason to bring in any other evidence. Have to guess that cooperating and admitting guilt got him a better deal, maybe?

Lighter line does allow the bait or lure to react to currents and rod/line manipulation more freely, because of it's greater limpness, although new line regardless of weight is usually more limp than old line and some brands are much more limp in the same weight than other brands are. An example of that is Maxima Chameleon vs Maxima Ultragreen; Chameleon is 2-3 times stiffer than Ultragreen in the same weight test, and although I prefer Chameleon for building fly leaders just because of that stiffness, I would chose Ultragreen for spin fishing just because of it's greater limpness. I've seen a guy catch lots of trout using 8# test and I've seen a ~12# carp landed on 3# test using an ultralight rod/reel, so I'm always curious about the reasons for such choices. Back east I once watched a group of college kids limit out on opening day trout in a small lake using salt water gear and stripper/bluefish lures. Anything can work and I would like to know why that's true. I've found the 5-6# line to be a good compromise for the way I fish, mostly, and it usually allows me to put enough pressure on the fish to end the fight quickly when releasing the fish; I have the idea that extended fighting stresses the fish too much. If targeting stream bass I do up my tippets to 8#-12# to adjust for the heavier currents and sunken wood. You are 100% correct, we never know if the the change we made was the difference or if it was only because the sun moved a little bit and changed the lighting underwater. I've often attributed it to the earth shifting slightly on it's axis.

I did fairly extensive line testing once long ago, every nylon mono weight from 20# down to 3/4# test, using small baits and very large nightcrawers in very clear still water and stocked RBT, my conclusion was that the fish don't associate the line with the bait at all. But stiffer lines do restrict bait movement and that can affect the fish's perception of it as live food. At the time I was using lots of <2# test, the 9X was ~1/2#, 8X 3/4#, 7X 1# and those have more than double the strength now. After a full summer of spending several hours a couple times a week with those fish, I convinced myself to use stronger leaders. But I'm also convinced that if someone has confidence in a system that that system will always seem to perform better for them. It works for you and that's what matters.

So, it's been decades since I used anything but a fly rod for bass of trout, and I don't recall ever using less than 4# on a spinning rig,, 6# Stren was my standard trout line, back then; my usual tippet on fly is ~5# test, so explain to me the the need for 2#? Not trying to say that it's not needed, just that I don't understand why it would be.