FishnDave

We occasionally have them in our back yard in St Louis. They like to hunt squirrels by dropping straight down on them... or so I've read.

Don't risk your life to do it....but everyone should try icefishing at least once...with someone that has the right gear and know-how to make the trip successful. When I moved from Iowa, I gave all my icefishing gear to my buddy... shack, flasher, augers, rods, etc. Glad to have done it many times, it was fun. Can't say I miss it, though. Pumpkinseed (below): @Ham would love these!

Yes. Where I used to live in central Iowa, the fast-growing city of @70K population has around 25 public ponds... mainly created for stormwater detention as new subdivisions were built. The ponds were stocked once initially, then large left alone, although the DNR does sample many of them each year. Crappies were never stocked into any of them, yet they were present in nearly all the ponds. I fished those ponds for @ 20 years, and saw how cyclical crappie populations can be. Crappies in ponds, without a rich food supply like shad, grow fairly slowly. So, a pond will have a bunch of small, paper-thin crappies for several years, then natural mortality, maybe some angler harvest, and bass predation will slowly thin the herd, and eventually the fish start to grow and look healthy. They will have a good spawn or two... not in terms of many spawning fish, but high success rate. The nice crappies phase lasts for a few seasons, then those bigger fish become rarer, and a fresh batch of stunted-looking little ones takes over again. What I learned from that is... don't give up on a pond or lake. Try it every year, because their dynamics are always changing. That might be the case with the Busch lakes... I catch fish there, but usually nothing spectacular. So much pressure. Plus I only know a couple of the C&R ponds very well. I catch less at the harvest ponds. Ok, the Golden Shiners have been pretty big... 😜 The sampling data on some of the ponds, like 33, always looks pretty good...but my fishing success doesn't match those kinds of numbers or sizes. I suck at fishing and need help. 🙄

Yes, I think that's the best way to start. If they can't do it, they can probably tell you who can. In Iowa, there are Iowa State University Extension Office folks that come out and give advice. In the link below, Appendix A has a University Extension office contact at the bottom (in Columbia). Missouri Pond Handbook may offer useful insights: https://freshwater-aquaculture.extension.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/MissouriPondHandbook.pdf Appendix A gives some contact info for local offices and such. Appendix B talks about public vs private.

No, that isn't right. A fisheries biologist visit is a consultation. Doesn't make your property public. If you take his recommendations and purchase whatever fish for stocking he recommends, that still doesn't make your property public. If the MDC offers to stock the lake for free, in exchange for allowing public access, that is different, and it should be clear that is the intent.

Sounds like you're full of air. 😆 Or rather, your trailer tires are. Excellent and timely tip!

Yes, my roomate's ferret definitely stunk. It had its scent glands removed...still stunk. We kept it in the mysterious crawl space in the wall of our room, so the RA wouldn't see it. But she knew.

Good point. I never saw him do any of these things (except the pet ferret in our room), he just told me he'd done them. I don't choose to kill wild animals, but I'll eat what somebody else kills. Except I'll kill spiders in the house cuz they creep me out. Outdoor spiders are fine. And I harbor little remorse for stinging a fish's lip with a hook and then releasing it. Sounds kinda mental when I say it out loud.

Absolutely knot. 😜 Looks like a good one to learn.

I had a roomate in college that would trap chipmunks on campus, then build a home-made rocket and launch them into the sky. The "living chamber" always filled with smoke and killed them, unfortunately. He also kept his pet ferret in our room (no pets allowed). And he shot a crow out of tree outside the study room on our dorm floor one night. He went outside to hide the evidence, and the crow was still alive. He tied a string around its neck, and "hopped" it back into the dorm, and then took it to the bathbroom to try to drown it in the toilet. Unsuccessful, he cut the power cord off his alarm clock, taped one exposed wire to the crow's back, plugged it in, and then let the crow bite the other exposed wire. This eventually ended the crow. My roommate told me all of this the next morning when I asked him why there were crow feathers on his desk. Really nice guy, did some strange stuff.

It's glazed over here in St Louis. I saw 3 vehicles fail to make it to the top of our hill. They were the only ones I saw try. 31 degrees now, at 8:38am. Supposed to reach 37 today, so hopefully it melts off soon.

I love the fact theMO record belongs to a guy named Billy Rod! That's awesome! Rock Bass are cool fish. I first started catching them in north-central Illinois... Kishwaukee River. They were nice ones, but I didn't know any different. Not 12-inchers, tho...maybe 8-10". Wish I had pictures of some of them...but that was back in the 35 mm camera days.

Could you recommend a proctologist for him? 🤣

No, not that I've read. And the articles would have loved to have written that, I'm sure.

Should my friend get a second opinion? 😜

Is it normal for your eye doctor to check your prostrate each visit? Asking for a friend...

Probably these folks?

Got some Jack fans here! I caught some Horse Eye Jacks in Puerto Rico....not sure I have any pics. Did catch a nice Pacific Jack Crevalle (or Crevalle Jack? I've seen it both ways.) in Cabo San Lucas: And on a trip with my wife and kids, we caught a few off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica: Very strong fighters... As mentioned above, they will turn sideways, and its surprisingly difficult to get them to come up!

It's all relative. Big for what they are. A 9-incher is usually considered a nice one. ("That's what." - She) Guys up there love icefishing for them.

Clear Lake, Iowa, is one of the best places for Yellow Bass anywhere. Excellent numbers, and they are big ones... MANY in the 10"-12" range.

They are in Iowa... whose state record is 1 lb 9 oz. They are native to streams, but do well in lakes, where they can become over-populated. Some of those lakes drain into the Missouri River.

Congratulations to the fellow on achieving his goal and this record.

@snagged in outlet 3 Is "Freddy the Fish" copying your trademark??

ok... final pics (duplicates) to finish off 2023.... These were some of my favorite fly-caught fish from the year. (All names orders are clockwise from top left): Chain Pickerel (x3), Longnose Gar (x2), Grass Pickerel (x3), Walleye (x2) Grass Carp, Warmouth, Flier, Mooneye (x2), Tarpon, Eyetail Bowfin Koi, Koi, Leather Koi, Plecostomus, Barramundi, Zebra Tilapia, Peacock Bass, Mirror Koi Ozark Bass, Longear Sunfish (x2), Redspotted Sunfish, Spotted Sunfish, Wester Dollar Sunfish, Redbreast Sunfish, Shadow Bass