tjm

Back east I could fish five flies on a cast and I set up dropper wets to resemble a cluster of fry, it caught a few fish but a single fly or three spaced much farther apart seemed to catch more. I do like his use of the tube and the stiff mono with differing fly weights to keep the shape and relative orientation during the retrieve. It looks like largemouth or pike bait to me.

I remember when there were bushels of those used chicken plant knives at the flea markets. Had a few of them given to me by a guy that worked as a sharpener. But it occurs to me now that I haven't seen one in a years.

My favorite is "Dexter Russell EP155WHG SANI-SAFE® 5" Deboning Knife". It's a little stiffer than the Rapala knife, which I like, and stays sharp much longer. I've had several Dexter Russell knives of different styles and all were good steel. I'd probably be happy with a Victorinox too. I do still keep the Rapala in my vest just because it's so light.

yeah, I've seen a lot of shades and patterns on these fish Prettiest ones were over clean light colored gravel on brighter days, . I've just never been sure how long it took them to to make the change.

I'm curious when these fly shops started? When I started tying in the '70s, I was in southern New England and although there were quite a few fly fishers and most of them tied flies, the fly shops were either the bait shop or a mail order like Kaufmann's Streamborn or Orvis. The local bait shop had or would get everything that was sold by Raymond C Rumpf or Universal Vise Co. The first "pro" fly shops that specialized in just fly fishing tackle, materials, etc. happened there ca'81-'82 as best that I recall. And then it seemed like there was a flock of them all at once. I know that in destination fishing places in Mt. and NY there were fly specialty shops perhaps as far back as the early 1900s. And suspect that in Mo. the first would have coincided with the establishment of the trout parks, but in a place like Springfield or KC, I wonder who supported such shops?

The one in the article/video? How can the trailer move if it's at the end of a tube? the 40# mono supported by UV resin should pretty much stay separate too, I would think, the 40# mono I have is rather stiff; and with the none of the teasers containing a hook, entanglement seems unlikely to me. The writer said-

Times have changed in the last 19 years (thread start date) and Neosho bass (Micropterus velox) are no longer considered to be Smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) by the scientists even if MDC is still calling them that and many web resources haven't been updated. Two or three years ago genetics showed that they are a separate species with a common ancestor. All the streams I normally fish lie in the range of Micropterus velox, in past years I never distinguished them from other black bass, so I'm unsure if all the "small mouth bass" that I've ever caught were Neosho bass or if the OP is correct in that the population is mixed. I'm certain that I've caught some over three pounds. I'm also sure that the stream inventories aren't 100% accurate and that in addition to confusion of these species, I believe there are other examples of fish and crayfish in the Elk drainage that are not supposed to be here. I guess the prominent under-bite/long lower lip might be the easiest way to distinguish these fish, although there are differences in dentition and in number of dorsal fin rays. They come very light colored with elaborate markings to almost black with vague markings and I think may change colors during the course of a day, but that's just my speculation.

I'm thinking that March is flood time around here, but, with my poor memory that might be off a month one way or the other. Or maybe almost anytime from now to the end of April could be creeks running out of banks. I'd make an alternative plan just in case. But later in the summer, I've seen groups of college age fellows leave a vehicle 3-5 miles downstream from an access and take a second vehicle to the access then wade and fish from put in to take out. Store parking lot to low water bridge, or bridge to bridge. One group that I saw several times fished about 20 miles of the local creek over 4 or 5 nights. Don't why such a method wouldn't work on most streams. A Paddler’s Guide to Missouri https://www.amazon.com/Paddlers-Guide-Missouri-Updated-Revised/dp/1887247815 Has maps of most Mo streams and where they can be accessed. The Same maps are normally available online at https://missouricanoe.org/river-maps/ but that site seems to be down right now. Another method you might consider is that on some streams like the Elk River there are numerous canoe rental outfits that will drop you off and pick you up for floats of varying lengths, so you wouldn't have to transport boats here and back.. Many have cabins or camping as well; I'm not sure that they'd be open in March though, just an idea. To check river flooding you can select streams with USGS gages from this map https://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/rt and find current and past flow levels, I think flows near the median would be mostly wadeable.

I don't necessarily want bowfishing prohibited; but anyone that kills a fish should be prepared to eat it. Wanton waste laws should apply to all wildlife. But those dumpster pictures aren't really the result of bow fishing so much as they are of contest fishing. Imagine if we were to set up a deer hunting contest/tournament where dozens of hunters competed to weigh in the most deer carcasses in a time period, pay out on biggest of the day, and on most pounds per time period regardless of numbers and size. And discard the carcasses in dumpsters when weigh-in is completed. Would such a contest be acceptable to either wildlife managers or to the public? yet we allow and encourage such contests with fish. We could even imagine a contest where deer are captured alive, caged with others and hauled miles to a central location for weigh in and then all released at that point. Wonder if any would survive? Stressed, disoriented, dislocated, and overcrowded at point of release; I wonder that any fish survive such treatment.

Our game laws sure don't carry enough penalty to be deterrent. Suspension of privilege/permits doesn't have any affect at all on people that don't have the permits in the first place. I wonder if confiscation of vehicles, boats etc. would have any effect, whatever vehicle was used in getting to the water regardless if it's the poacher's or a buddy's or a spectators. But you know I feel just about as upset with the culling and transport of tourney fish and I can't report them, so it is a quandary. I start to wonder if the game laws that support competitive use of wildlife by the wealthy and at the same time prohibit consumption by the poor are really laws that I want to support. If netting of fish is happening, they might be feeding themselves and their families, although I can't see bass as that good of eating. When a family is hungry, it might be that anything can be food. I remember about 1975, the newly arrived Asian refugees seining along the beach and putting anything that moved into the pot to cook later. That was eventually stopped but I think it was more of a health issue than adherence to our laws, given the state of the bay at the time.

Those are invasive species there and here, so should be under a "no limit, any method, kill all you can eat" rule, as should carp. No fish should be discarded though. But there should be enormous fines for any misidentification that leads to killing of non-invasives. One of the problems with our current regs is that even MDC doesn't want to learn to identify most species beyond the umbrella of "rough fish". At a guess from streamside conversations over a lifetime 90% of anglers can't tell the difference between a chub, a redhorse, a buffalo and a carp. Just as they class all "sunfish" as "bluegill", they tend to class all "rough fish" as carp and therefore "trash fish".

Apparently we are allowed to kill 20 per day, except on the Mississippi River which has a daily and possession limit of 100. https://mdc.mo.gov/fishing/species/buffalo Not in local waters here, but I can imagine that most people would consider them as "just carp" and toss on the bank after shooting them. That thought reminds me of the dumpster pictures that @MoCarp used to post.

Is that because fish and game departments allow it or because friends and neighbors encourage it? https://mdc.mo.gov/about-us/about-regulations/operation-game-thief Is stealing fish any better than armed robbery or burglary or other theft? a thief is a thief by any other name?

can't be more than 60 each, 'cause more than that someone would have turned them in as poachers, right? “Those caught and released immediately had 1.3% mortality, bass caught, held and culled had 14.9% mortality, and fish brought to weigh-in had 39.1% mortality. The researcher in charge stated that bass mortality due to tournaments can be much higher than many fishermen believe.” https://usangler.com/bass-mortality-post-tournament/

Next door neighbor reports 7" and I didn't even bother to check, nursing a head cold and don't really care- 2" or 10" are about the same. And, with a couple 40F days upcoming, I see no reason to look for a shovel or to start the tractor. I hate to see snow but it's better than drought or flood. It does give me an excuse to stay at home.

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.