45acp

You're a touchy little thing. lol Give it a few years. It will come to you eventually.

Not exactly, and yes, thank you, hypothesis is a big word, but I am familiar with its meaning. Hypothesis is a what-if? idea. Preconceived notion is when you, or your sugar daddy corporate pimp, has a certain outcome in mind before the experiment begins.

Experiments can only fail when the one doing the experimenting has a preconceived notion of success. You're a young buck full of piss and vinegar. Time and experience will temper that. You'll understand what I mean one of these years.

Someone who draws a conclusion based on limited data, and biased by preconceived notions. Sort of exactly what you did when you claimed that I don't work with a bunch of scientist types.

I work with a bunch of scientist types. They are smarter than the rest of us. If you don't believe it just ask one of them. But they have sensitive feelers and are prone to emotional outbursts when others don't agree with their learned conclusions.

I caught a brown 27" 7lbs back in '92. Fished it a ton since then and haven't hit another one over 20". It's been four or five years since we tried it. Last time down there we worked hard for two over 18".

I don't think anyone is laying responsibility for flooding on MDC. Eagles are federally protected so MDC gets a pass on them too. MDC is 100% responsible for the stinking otters, and they could certainly step up enforcement to curtail the poaching of our gamefish. They could shut down gigging on the "trophy" sections of the trout/SMB streams with the stroke of a pen. If they wanted to.

That's one of them suckerfish the natives like to catch on their frog stickers.

Those are the King's Deer, you miserable peasant! How dare you question the will of the King?!

Kinda what I was getting at. We all pay a sales tax dedicated to "conservation". For what? Trout streams with few trout. Closed hatcheries. Lax enforcement. Bad information. Condescending attitude. Stupid regulations. Straight-up lies. But we have nice parks and bicycle trails.

If it swims it's gonna get stuck. Toothless is gonna do what Toothless is gonna do. I don't get why all of those smart guys at MDC don't want to admit that it's happening. It doesn't make a lick of sense to permit gigging/snagging on a stretch of red ribbon trout water.

Any of you guys put your trout guts in a trash bag and take them home? Me neither...

I used to fish that stretch of the Mac several times a year. Haven't been on it in a few years, but the last time I was down there most of the good holes were graveled in. What kind of shape is it in these days?

I couldn't figure it out. Weather was about half crappy. Chased off the lake by rain Saturday and Sunday. Caught a lot of fish and variety of species in the spillway.

The Queen has informed me that we'll be taking the camper to Long Branch to spend a couple days with friends this weekend. I've also been voluntold that I'll be giving boat rides and pulling the ski tube. They'll stay up half the night drinking, so I'll have mornings to fish while they're loafing. I know about the spillway, but I've never fished the lake. My boat is a floating tackle store, so I'm not worried about having the right stuff with me, but I don't have the first clue about the lake and no idea which stuff is the right stuff, or which end of the lake to start with. I don't care a lick about fishing for largemouth. Prefer to target walleye and crappie in that order. I have a few preconceived notions, but any enlightenment would be appreciated. Thinking I might take a crate of jugs to soak while I'm exploring.

Caught the big one on a Pop-R. They hybrids were schooling shad below the old lock and dam. If you've fished that place you know how hard it is to catch up to them without spooking them. I got lucky and landed my lure in the middle of a frenzy. Three fish smacked it before I got a hook up. After that it was an hour before we saw them again, and then they were spooky to the point we weren't able to get back on them. Get within 50 yards and they were gone. My buddy was throwing a WoodChopper and had several strikes, but all of his hook ups were spots. He probably caught and released a dozen of them. The small hybrids were all caught between the wing dam and the two islands just upstream from there. Road Runner, 1/4oz Bomber spinnerbait, pepper spoon, WoodChopper, they were hitting everything we threw. We got lucky and caught the end of Friday's Bagnell release current. The water level dropped ~5' on St. Thomas gauge from Saturday morning to Sunday morning.

With all of the high water we've pretty much been ignoring the lower Osage this summer. Decided to give it a shot on Saturday. Caught about a hundred stocker-size hybrids, and one good one.

I doubt if MDC could tell you why the rules are this way at one lake and that way at another lake. There's too much education and too little common sense in that organization.

Right or wrong, I fire up the big motor to load the boat. 2060 with a 150 jet is heavy. I don't much want to blow a disc in my back or tear up a knee, and I don't care for swimming if the water is below 75°. Finger Lakes and Rocky Fork are the only electric motor only lakes that I ever fish. Haven't caught any grief from the park ranger yet. As far as using the wench to load the boat... last time I did that she stepped in the mud with her new shoes and somehow that was my fault. I didn't think I'd ever hear the end of it.

Pap always said the nut don't fall far from the tree. Every stupid thing any of my kids ever did is 100% the fault of their mother.

Haters gonna hate. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing avoiding the facebook machine is probably wise. Long as the catch was legal anybody who doesn't like it doesn't really have a say in the matter. If I caught it the very next pictures after the weigh-in would be the ones of filets on the grille.

We ran the same drill Saturday. No thievery of gear this time. Talked to a guy who lives in Lupus - said couple weeks ago they got after some guys who came from upriver and were caught running other people's lines - chased em past Rocheport and haven't seen em since. Anyway, water is still high, mountains of flotsam still in the eddy swirls and on bank. Five flathead and one blue for our efforts. Two 15s and the rest 5s. yumyum fish fry.

We went and tried it on Saturday. Launched at Tuscumbia 6:00am. Ran upstream, stopped at Lick Creek and set out a trotline. Ran up to the dam and started fishing. Did some bump drifting, anchored up on a couple spots and tried that. Few other boats out didn't see much catching going on. Picked up two blues on one drift - boom boom - just like that. Decent fish 10-12 pound size. Lost a nice channel cat at the boat at the 75 yard line below powerhouse. Didn't see a hybrid or a white bass or a crappie. Getting close to lunchtime the pleasure boaters started showing up so we headed back down river. Caught a couple fat largemouth on the bend below 54 hiway bridge. Talked to some guys who were crappie fishing the creeks - said they were catching a few but not really mopping up. Bump drifted our way downstream and picked up another seven blues, none of them very big, 3-5 pound eaters. Trotline was a strike out. Several hooks stripped but no fish. So, for me, right now, conditions being what they are... it's worth the extra hour and half in the truck to get on LoTO below Truman.

Gas station sushi is more trustworthy than MDC.

It wouldn't be the first time MDC made up some BS about what kind of critters don't live here. They lied about the mountain lions for years.