tjm

I'll bet you can't hook a bat. I've seen them avoid a fly/fly line in the air dozens of times. The smaller casting lines may not have enough echo for them to avoid, idk, but there is no open season on them so the limit is 0. Long time ago the guy I used to fish with came in one morning telling me that an owl had snatched his plug in midair the evening before and took a lot of line before it broke off. He said it swooped and grabbed at the lure, so maybe lures sound like birds in flight? We wondered if the hooks got the owl or if it just held the lure while flying off.

Ever use them to shoot rats inside a building? I don't know, but I read that that is why it's called rat shot. I also read that it was the way that performers used to shoot playing cards for audiences. Think Annie Oakley was mentioned. Back in the '60s we had a neighbor that killed hundreds of quail with a .22 revolver and shot. Shot them on the ground as they used the dirt roads or when they were on fences. Years after he'd passed I mentioned watching him shoot birds with that revolver to his son, and was told that he'd leaded the barrel to where it looked like a smooth bore.

As a kid I used to find bats under the overhanging bluffs in this area and they were just another critter to catch, like a furry grasshopper. When back east there was a particular mill pond on a trout stream that had a huge bat population nearby and I've spent many evenings with bats flying inches from me as I fly fished into the dark when a hatch was on. One house we lived in had bats get inside a few times and I removed them. I've probably handled a dozen or so over the years. Never ever saw any aggressive behavior from a bat, although they don't like being held, so yeah if one seems to assault you, it's best to presume it's rabid. The vaccine only needs two injections if you haven't been exposed and and a booster whenever your blood titer indicates, so for people that might commonly come into contact with wild animals it's not a bad idea to get dosed before getting bit. Or even licked or other contact with saliva.

There must be a dozen companies selling roof rack "vaults" that will carry 2 or 4 fully rigged fly rods up to at least 10', so surely someone must sell such for casting rods. Or there are online DIY for similar things made from PVC pipes. And as I was reading the post above referring to the boat "rod locker" it occurred to me that a rod locker that mounts on a boat must also be capable of mounting on a roof rack/ladder rack.

I'm not a rod builder as such but have built and repaired a few in years past, so ... Before about 1962 all the plastic rod blanks were rolled as one piece and then cut into two, three or more pieces and fitted with ferrules for ease of transportation, in '62 Fenwick patented the "tip over butt" Feralite joint that is common today and from then on they produced rods in pieces designed to fit without ferrules, but still sold some one piece blanks and others continued to use one piece blanks into the '80s. So yes long one piece rods can be cut and ferruled, either with metal ferrules as used on bamboo and early fiberglass rods or with sleeves or spigots as came into use in the late '60s before Fenwick's "tip over butt" patent expired and all manufacturers turned to using that method in the '80s. What you will find is that the ferrules regardless of type, create a bit of a stiff spot in the rod. If you chose one piece rods for a perceived gain in sensitivity, I doubt that you would like them after being remodeled. A spigot probably affects the action less than metal ferrules or a sleeve but probably requires removal of the grip and/or reel seat to access the interior of the butt section for fitting and installation of the spigot, and reinstallation of them after, so somewhat of a time consuming chore. I have no idea what a rod builder might charge for the work, but I imagine selling those rods and buying suitable rods might be more economical. I'll also add that blanks designed to be cut and ferruled had reinforcing "flags" rolled into the blanks and that a thin walled graphite rod might break just next to the ferrule/spigot at a latter date. I've had fly rods repaired by inserting a spigot that functioned for a few years then broke at the end of the spigot. A "ladder rack" with some type of rod carrier might make you happier. Search "rod vault"

I used to take a lot of them back east, called them "hornpout", so not what would be in Lake Springfield, but they were good tasting white flesh and while I never weighed them, I'd guess the ones we ate between 1.5 and 3 pounds. With generous limits it's easy to make meal. The best bait was nightcrawlers threaded on monofilament with no hook as they would hold onto that ball of worm until touched against boat or bucket and then spit it out. If using hooks it was best to us a #10 snelled hook with a snap swivel and replace the hook with each catch, recovering the snell and hook when cleaning the fish. On fly rod the best fly would likely be a black or brown leech, I took some on an all black woolly bugger twitched slowly on the pond bottom in about 3' of water. 50 years ago they fairly popular in that area. In one small trout lake the hornpout hatch in a particular cove would draw trout from the entire lake. The only Mo. population that I've fished is in Big Sugar Creek where I spent a few hours casting weighted flies into their nests and practicing C&R, I discovered that during their spawn they apparently don't eat, as they would only pick up fly to remove it from a nest. Those were Black Bullheads native to most of Mo. and in that creek averaged <1lb. But, there were locals there that feasted on them. On average I think that any bullhead will have more meat than a trout or bass of equal length, but, that's just my thoughts about how thick the ones I caught were in comparison. In a pond situation, I'd rig multiple rod/reels with bobbers and snap swivels with snelled hooks and worm baits, setting the baits near the bottom. You do want to be very careful of those very sharp spines, they are painful and seem to cause lingering soreness.

The green is where MDC says SMB live. That streak along the Mississippi from the Missouri River north is all outside what is normally considered the Ozarks. They need to revise that map though to show that SMB don't live in the Neosho/Grand drainage. Probably the Mo. river could be considered the northern edge of the Ozarks, even though there isn't a lot of agreement on what/where the Ozarks is.

He also said that the banks didn't lose anything because the money was insured and it helped the insurance people sell more insurance. Everybody was a winner. Of course the economy that he was helping most was in Mexico where he'd live between jobs. Whip poor wills are ground nesting birds and decline with any increase of egg eaters. But the egg eaters go through cycles too, for example a run of distemper can nearly wipe out a raccoon population, because they frequently move from den to den and share dens so a single carrier can rapidly share it's disease with dozens who then share with others. And when the 'coon population bottoms out the birds have one less problem. Starlings and English Sparrows are both invasive species and therefore are legal to kill by almost any means. A borax solution wash should kill any mites and their eggs. I'd probably just skin and scrape then pin the pelt out in a card board box and cover the pelt thoroughly with borax powder, it's a good desiccant to dry the skin as well as an insecticide. I tend to keep a little borax with all my fly tying furs and feathers.

I don't know that it's wrong, just criminal, even if the laws aren't often enforced. And in this country felons can vote in some states and even serve in federal office, so I guess most citizens don't consider being criminal as being wrong. Wrong and right probably need to be judged on a moral or religious scale. But it is kinda like justifying rape because of the clothes someone wore. I used to know a former bank robber who justified his work by saying that all that money laying in vaults wasn't doing anything and that his spending it helped the economy.

$15,000 fine & 6 months jail under Federal law. Which officer of the HOA does the time?

starlings are legal to kill any where any time in USA, grackles are not.

A web search suggests to try taking the perches off the feeders and stop feeding sunflower seeds, feed only thistle or the upside down suet feeders.

I'd say the best way to learn to catch any fish on fly is to leave all the other gear at home, but then I'm lazy and easily bored with all that cranking. Live bait isn't so boring as lures, but it can be smelly on a hot day if left in the car. Live crawdads on a fly rod with automatic reel is pretty efficient.

@Al Agnew's page that compares the three "goggle eye" species. https://riversandart.blogspot.com/2020/04/growing-up-in-missouri-ozarks-and-being.html The Ozark bass is supposedly only in the White River. Although I think some may have been introduced in Little Sugar Creek/Elk River back when they were considered to be "rock bass". I've certainly seen some in L Sugar that fit the description and I think all the "goggle eye" are non-native in the Neosho Drainage.

I have zero knowledge of brown trout, have only caught a handful of stocker browns in my 50 years of fishing. Any SMB knowledge that I may have would be limited to the streams I've fished, so perhaps not applicable everywhere, but I find using a fly rod with no cranking and relatively little casting (the same 20' of line can be swung and recast until a fish is on, even while moving up or down the stream) much easier than fighting with casting gear and lures and constant cranking. I certainly don't cover as much water as is possible with long casts and much cranking, but then I have no desire to cover water for the sake of covering water and prefer to target specific holding spots or fish. Streams I'm most familiar with are fairly small ~100-500 CFS, with the flow being relatively fast, so in larger or slower waters things may be altogether different, but... With a fly rod you can stand waist deep in a clear fast stream, 15'-25' from the tongue of water pouring into a "hole" and smack that big fly into the far side of that tongue, rip it back across the current and recast it to the far side again a foot or two farther downstream and repeat with nary a crank on the reel, often enough to please me, the bass will take on one of the first three casts, and fairly often two or three bass will be in that same input tongue. You can also make 10' casts into and under sunken logs. Where I stand determines how much line control I'll have and how the fly will present to the fish; I like the farthest extension of the cast or swing to fall just a bit short of the fish, bass will move to it. But we have also fished clear fast streams with trout sized nymphs or streamers and in pretty much the same manner as fishing for trout, we've taken numbers of smaller bass. One morning, about 35 years ago, when the moon and sun and the tilt of the earth all synced just so, the kid said that we took 53 fish over a half mile of creek using trout flies, I didn't count or measure them but the vast majority were 10-12" bass along with a handful of sunfish and 4-5 crappie. never had a repeat of that and when I've targeted larger bass (15'+) with salt sized flies, that same stretch has never produced more than 3-4. Long stretches (100-400yards) of these streams seem to hold no bass at all or only smaller specimens. I look for changes of depth, sunken logs or other features that provide shade or changes to the flow, inflow and outflow of pools/holes, those broken slabs of limestone, but also note any "springs" or cool spots while wading wet as those cool spots can attract fish sometimes. When I fished in southern New England, the stream bass were all <3# largemouth and they commonly sought out the old mill ponds, rather than the brooks and were caught by casting trout streamers close to myself and into or parallel to the heavy chokeweed or lillypad growth, places that spin/casting lures wouldn't fish but a short stout fly leader would. This up close weed bed fly fishing also produced numerous chain pickerel up to ~24". I don't recall ever taking LMB from open flowing water in those years. It was this LMB experience using trout streamers that caused me to initially use trout flies in the Ozark creeks for bass, and the lack of lillypads had me working all kinds of water, but as time went by, I switched to larger and fewer styles of flies in fewer pieces of water and somehow to catching larger bass. My take on fishing bass with fly vs trout with fly is bass want more noise, need bigger hooks and shorter leaders, and while I often fish trout from the banks, I most often get right in there with the bass. ymmv

y'all should disregard any advice I may have given, cause I've been doing it all wrong. I rarely cast 12 yards, more frequently 5-6 yards, for years I had my fly line marked at 30' just to ensure that I didn't get carried away with casting. I do try to stay at least two rod lengths away from where I suspect the bass to be, just because that makes line handling easier. I've only ever cast 30 yards in ponds and and the Atlantic, and it was rare even in those places.

Synthetic fish, ain't they? 😉 Easy for the kids to learn on though, I gave the oldest son his first flyrod on his fifth birthday and he caught three RBT on our two mile walk down a northeast brook. I don't think you need any fancy articulated streamers, just the standard striped bass and tarpon stuff is perfect for stream bass. The resemblance to baitfish and crawdads should be in the location and style of presentation more than in any particular patterns. Get the large fly into the feeding zone and make it move water with some noise. If you insist on spin/spincasting, which I don't have the patience for in my old age, only three lures I really used (although I tried others) were a #2 marabou jig /16oz, original blue floating Rapala 5" and a rubber worm. Again it's where you present them.

Why change to a less productive method? 3"-5" flies, similar to those used in the salt, like Seaducer or Deceiver, or Gartside Gurgler; floating #6 line; 6'-8' leader to 8#, wade to about knee deep and position such that the presentation is across and down, and less than 20'. Deliver the fly above and beyond the fish with a splash then strip it a time or two as it swings. Turn the fish loose and try again. #6-#2 flies in patterns that represent either baitfish or crawdads, thicker shorter leaders, noise and water disturbance

A vintage fiberglass 7-8wt will fish just about any freshwater situation, I think. Although in reality the line weight should probably be chosen to easily deliver the largest flies that might be used, directly into the wind. Fly rods don't really have a weight rating, simply because there is no way of measuring such a thing and no standard to measure to. Basically the rating is supplied by some caster working for the manufacturer and what they think an "average caster" might be able to use on the rod. But any rod should be able to cast a leader only and any rod should be capable of landing a fairly large fish. On the subject of just how subjective the rod ratings are https://www.sexyloops.com/sparton/rodrating.shtml

Although spoons and spinners are great fish catchers, I have wondered how they fit in "Flyfishing Topics"? Spoons can work with fly gear but don't cast especially well and I've never gotten spinners to work at all with fly rigs.

My uncle used to catch a lot of gar using 6-8" of partially unraveled braided nylon rope, he threw that with spinning gear, but I expect a 9-10wt might work. The key factor, he said was to give the gar something to hook their teeth into and become tangled, he told me that he and his friends had never had much luck with hooks. The wing material you used doesn't appear to have muc "tangle factor" left after the unbraiding?

This current project isn't even supposed to be complete until Jan. '25. Most of the visible work will take place in the final phases, so from Dec on and give it a 90 day extension, we shouldn't expect much until about April, '26. On the upside the stocked trout taste just as bad no matter where they come from. Enjoy it while you can.

I'm not really sure, at least a year or more, I think, for frying and the old yeller toothed ones cook up pretty well in the oven. Dad was the whistle pig hunter and he cooked most of them, so while I helped some I wasn't really paying attention, as teenagers often don't. I do recall that they have those bean sized glands in armpits, back and hip area, about the same as a 'coon, take those out. You can probably judge the cooking method by how they skin, the tough ones likely have have tough skins, those are the hides that Grandpa told me to cut into "wangs", the strips stretched so much that one for boot laces would start out ~1" wide, just cut a spiral 'round and 'round so it's one long strip. I suppose they can live five or six years and get up to 12-15 pounds, and are capable of eating 30 full grown cabbages in one day, but of course that cabbage eater may have been several. I think maybe the biggest that Dad fried might have been 6-8 pounds, but that was a long time ago, he died of heart attack in '68 and my memory may have made the animals either larger or smaller over the years. They really are big squirrels, as the marmots are all ground squirrels.

I haven't eaten (or I should "et" ) groundhog since the '60s, but they can be probably twice that size and still be tasty.

hard to picture that; I've never seen a 5# coffee can. The old 3# cans were about 6 3/16"x 7" and 2# cans were 5 1/8" by 6 1/2", but for decades the cans I see have been reduced to capacities like 2lb 13oz instead of 3lb.; 11oz instead of 1lb.