tjm

I'm not a lawyer but as long as they have that video on how to put rubber over the felt on their website coupled with the instruction I don't think they could give anyone a fine. To me that says that it without a doubt is still legal. However I understand your caution and am curious that they haven't replied to you yet. In my past inquiries I've gotten replies the next day.

"only about a fourth of the stocking down there was like that." So yeah that sounds like the live, the dead and the almost dead fish would be mixed in the same truck tank and in the same dip net full, best course is to stock them all before more die. The dead fish in the stream won't hurt a thing, feed for turtles and crayfish. About 10-20% of all C&R fish die and we don't get excited, so this is just a few more than normal. And in that fishery the ones that live will be gutted and fried in a short time anyway. I've there when MDC was stocking a couple times and within 1/2 hour of a passing car seeing the stocking truck 4 or more local cars showed up and before the hour had passed that many more, telephone spreads the word. Probably even faster with cellphones. @ollie thanks for the report and for the follow up. Wonder if MDC will try to make up the loss with an additional stocking or just let it go. Likely just let it go. I believe that is scheduled for five rainbow dumps per year and one of browns. O^2 shortage is reason enough for dead fish. I would not suspect "shock" from the drop during stocking, I've seen trout dropped from taller bridges and go to feeding within minutes of the stocking. And I've seen fingerling trout dumped from a passing airplane into an alpine lake in Idaho, and they grew up, that must have been a 150'-200' at probably 100mph or faster travel. I've watched as trout were tossed off that particular bridge and went to feeding almost immediately, it always surprises me how little the flight through the air affects the fish.

"Not specifically didymo." I think that satisfies any apparent contradictions. Some mammals can eat fesque grass and flourish, other mammals either cannot eat grass or suffer from eating fesque; I would not expect all algae to follow the same rules. However I would not be surprised if the next study did show all previous studies to be wrong, that's usually how these things work. I don't think that I've read all of Bothwell's writing of the subject, I think that it became a career for him and if you look for them a few/several universities have also made didymo studies in the 15 or so years since the first one. I used to have some of them bookmarked, just as I used to have many CWD references bookmarked, but recently my interest in both has faded. As Reinhold Niebuhr said " ... and wisdom to know the difference" between things I cannot change those I can.

Was this Didymo? Actually I did not do the study, Bothwell and some other scientists did, and it may have been lack of P causing the extra growth of snot rather than the blooming. One report coupled lower P with lack of snowpack, if memory serves, and the leeching of P into the runoff caused by melting snow. And in truth it really does not matter because I don't wear felt.

It's kinda like backing up one the pivot axle horse trailers of the 1950s or a farm wagon, it can be done and even trains of three with enough practice, but my experience is that very few accomplished it. These trailers could be pulled behind a Cadillac though.

I don't suggest not adhering to the rules. I do suggest changing the rules, or finding science to support them. Bothwell found that lack of phosphorus caused the excessive blooms; put the phosphorus back into the waters and the problem should be solved. He kinda blamed the lack of phosphorus on climate change, and that could well be, but it seems that the problem arose soon after the ban on phosphorus in detergents and that always made me wonder. I have not seen any study any where that showed felt soles were involved in any way. Bothwell's original paper was not a study, it was just a speculation. I've not seen any study that showed felt had a better chance of carrying microorganisms than wool socks have. Are there such studies?

The stuff is native all over the globe, found in fossils and core layer samples from eons before felt was invented; the initial report of the theory of boots spreading it refuted by the author himself after investigation. The states that banned felt did so based on Max Bothwell's initial speculation and never bothered to read his later work. Since MDC abandoned or removed all the boot wash stations decades ago, it seems obvious that they only maintain the ban because they can't admit to being wrong. Not that it matters to me, I was never a felt fan, but I do think that if they claim to be scientists that they should use science. When I asked years ago about all those micros getting into pants legs and porous shoe tops of wet waders and being transferred to other waters, the answer was something along the lines of "yeah that could happen, but we are only concerned with soles". So they were fine with me getting my muddy sneakers full of all those scary things and transferring them to any other water, in truth they didn't care about the spread, just the ban.

Not I.

I have opinions about the didymo, but, as to the question, the thing to do is fill out this form and submit it to the "experts" at MDC https://mdc.mo.gov/contact-us Then report back and share the answer with us.

There must be towing forums that address the double pull set ups and what works or doesn't. There would be no backing up with that, every move would require a drive through with a turning radius.

I've met rigs like this on the state highways near reservoirs; Use your search engine to investigate the plausibility with your tow rig and trailers.

I think there are 10 participants-

somehow I got the idea that OK had privatized the management of the state parks a few years ago, is that not the case?

I think that I first heard of the Booby Fly on another forum posted by guys fishing them in Utah's lakes for trout. As I recall they claimed to tie them so buoyant that when fished on a sinking line the flies stayed up off the bottom. Said they were damsels. Sounded good for ponds and sloughs.

Mono eyes would be lighter or the Brits use "Booby flies" with foam for eyes on damsels and dragons, a random example from the www

3366 is one of my favorite hooks, have some in #10 & #12 for trout, I wish they made them down to #18. #6 is my go to stream bass size as well; I've never had one bend, but I try not to catch fish over ~3-3.5# so can't say that they won't bend, big fish are just too much trouble. Now I'll have set one in the bench vise and try to test it.

Dry flies can use down eye to let the fly ride higher when the tippet is on the film. Wet flies in the film or subsurface flies can benefit from up eye as the tippet is above the fly. For inverted wets/streamers a down eye becomes an up eye in use and the pull of he leader tends to keep the hook inverted; and if the up eye is inverted so that it becomes a down eye on the retrieve it can tend to roll the fly over, how much that happens would depend on size of hook compared to size of fly and on how resistant to roll over the design is. I've tied old style winged wets on down eye hooks that fished upside down but still caught the occasional fish. Winged wets are probably more like a forage fish than any insect anyway and the white wings could pass as belly. I like straight eyes for all my wets and streamers although I have a couple hundred 4XL & 6XL down eye hooks still that I'll someday likely tie something on. It's been a long while since using those type streamers. With a dumbbell on the salmon hooks set near the eye as most do, I doubt that the leader would cause roll over but you can trial it in the bath tub or the sink. If the dumbbell is set halfway back like Clouser suggests I think the eye would cause rollover more often than not.

Lots of flies are jigs, in essence, all the bead heads and cone heads and dumbbell eyed stuff act as jigs and many of them are even tied on jig hooks. And if your jig is tied on a single point hook, in Mo. it is legally a fly in fly fishing only waters. So put them with the rest of the flies. Not so many flies today have spinners on them as there were back 60-70 years ago, but Pistol Petes are still fairly common. If you want to do a bunch of hand carved plugs or molded stuff and lures with multipoint and/or multiple hooks, those as "not legally flies" might need a special place, but to me a lure is lure. Almost anything that is not "bait" is a lure. By the way, nice flies in that last image.

Woody's kid.

How many of them are still living?

No, it's not a matter of getting them right, the first one off the vise will probably be the best of that pattern for that session, before I start to make changes. It's just not being able to stay on that subject longer than about 15 minutes. I don't tie flies from boredom, but because of need and I suppose early on I tried 3 each of several patterns just to replace that day's loss and it became a habit, or maybe I had ADD as child back before they gave it a name. It doesn't take me long to look at anything. I can't watch a fly tying video either unless it's on 2.5X speed. If I tied 20 thread jigs, they'd be in 8-10 different colors, or on three kinds of hooks. Or both.

I'm a little envious of y'all that can tie the same pattern over and over. I'd be bored too soon, about three alike and my attention wanders and I end with 12-30 odd things that have no relation to the first pattern. probably take me a dozen tying sessions to end up with enough of the same for a swap.

I built an 8' pram when I was in high school, so about 60 years ago, designed to sail, it wasn't that slow, was two person capacity and my brother and camped out it on one stream float, I fished the Osage and S. Grand out of it and would kinda compare it with the 12' Jon that had years later except that it would fit in the bed if my '51 Ford and it only weighed about 40#. If I remember right it took two whole sheets of plywood. loved that little boat and never got to sail it. But, after the Jon I built a square stern 15' plywood pirogue that I liked much better than either. With fiberglass outside it weighed almost 80# and carried myself wife two kids and the dog. If I were thinking of another boat for me, I'd probably be looking at pirogue plans, but for small waters and easy portability the small pram is stable fishing seat if not too nimble.

I wonder in the USA how many "Indian Creeks" there are? Most creek and river names got used over and over but "Indian" and "Sugar" seem to get most use.

I think that any trout in the USA has "Hatchery" genetics, even the "wild" trout in their native range have been repeatedly diluted with stocked trout and it 's obvious that any trout outside it's native range came from hatchery stock even if it's been naturalized for a hundred years like some Mo. rainbows. We've been moving and stocking fish since the early 1880s and for the majority of that time no one thought anything about preservation of native stocks. There still those who think bass should be stocked in Ozark reservoirs to insure any native bass are mixed with hatchery genetics.