taxidermist

Man its had been awhile those were GREATTTTT. Could be I had worked up a terrible hunger deworming horses, have one crazy mare and had to throw her to get the paste down. Back to those walleye fillets, better than any lobster I ever have eaten. John

I inhertited a LOWE riveted VSN 170, Since then I have spent some time doing things to bring it back to good working order. It does not have all the fluff, but it serves what the wife and I would do just fine. The main thing is now it loads/unloads great, all electrics work fine. The motor starts everytime without work. Its dependable and I will say its a dry ride, rides smooth too. I have not seen many boats that come out of the hole as fast. It if I have the trim right jumps on plane and is at top speed fast. Of course since I am new to this boat I don't get the trim right all the time. One thing I have noticed is that at idle speeds the boat pitches and yaws, ithink thats it, left and right , right and left. This is the one item I don't like. I really would have liked tohave a larger motor, the gearhead in me screams for more power, but the 90hp is fine in reality. One thing is the price was right!! I can afford to add toys. Did I mention the wife thinks I should put a Humminbird 565 back near her seat??!! She has the Humminbird 10 and sure like the 565 better. Hum maybe I can give her mine and upgrade hehehe. If I guided daily I am sure this boat would not hold up, but for the average person thats not going to trade every few years, its a fine boat. I wish it was a welded hull. John

CC you are right. I trained people in the service on how to take a knife to a gun fight and win. If someone is going to take me out its going to be with a fight if at all possible. Like 9/11 I just could not imagine sitting on an airplane and someone with a box cutter holding me hostage. Even in todays no knife or weapon, therrre is always a weapon of somekind somewhere somehow. A thumb can be a dangerous weapon and an elbow is a super close super hard weapon. As well as the old "Gotta Hold" testicles in on hand with a pull hard enough to start a Model 55 Mc Cullough chainsaw. I have yet to see any man standup to that!! Or removing the larnyx with a single pull! Many of todays youth don't have the survival instincts. John

The offending boat was a Triton with a huge 275 Merc on it. Plus their truck was a crew cab dually. My boat is a Lowe 170 VSN, with a 90Hp Johnson. I do have a nice truck, 05 Chevy SRW 2500HD Gas engine, but it has everything on it. Booked for $47,000. I paid $30,000. so the dealer could move it. I do know one thing the offender has a fish in my freezer to be mounted, he still has not paid the deposit!!! Guess he cant afford to with his $90,000. fishing rig. I sent him a notice today on his 14 month over due deposit. Due to my storing his fish and his lack of attending to the business at hand of paying the deposit, I filed a lein on his fish. So even if he decides to pick it up and take it somewhere else I get the storage fees. His last fish he took 5 months to pickup after it was finished!! I think maybe the post about the size of his boot in place of his must be sometyhing to it. LOL Storage fees heck electricity aint cheap but its cheaper than his boat payment!! I am sure MR Realtor will be hot over the letter. But its more than deserved. John

I don't pretend to know much. I just made it thru high school but did well in the military as a team player and on many individual mission. What I do know is this you can never predict what someone will do!! Yo don't know their defensive abilities or offensive abilities. I do find problem with the fact not one of the students attempted to stop the shooter!! Not a teacher either. Again the its all about me ideals. So who is at fault? Seems everyone is looking to blame someone. So let us blame the shooter. Plain and simple it is the shooters fault. Could someone like a shrink have been able to tell this idiot was going to do this? Sigmund Freud could not have told!! Why is that? The shooter would have to have been honest with him. These people are seldom honest about what they are going to do or how they feel. Yea, I heard the crap about his English prof. saying he had dark writings. But that could have been for a fictional story or even several. The Asian people write a lot of dark ideals. if you don't think so read some of the stories in the web. But the bottom line is for physco-analist to do their job the patient must be honest. This we will never know because either he or someone capped the shooter. No this is not the largest tragedy to ever happen in the USA. The wholesale slaughter of Native Americans by people like Custer is. Sure this is sad but most people will go on. I will not loose any sleep over it. I have seen my share of death and I know each one of us will face it someday someway. I do hope mine is a ways off as I still have fish to catch!! John

On NBC they mention the killer has been a legal alien since 1995, I am betting he was facing having to return to Korea, also maybe not passing his classes, then depressed along with all this triggered him to decide his life is not worth living and he was making sure he would make a name for himself. Noone, noLAWS would or could have prevented this. He would have purchase illegal guns had legal not been available.

I admit I am not perfect, but I still fear Granny would reach out of her grave and slap the crap outta me if I am rude. While we are on peeves, how about those people who dont know or ignore the fact the on ramp is for accellerating to the speed limit or flow of traffic. Many times they dont see you have a truck or other vehicle beside you and cannot move out of their way. I never enter traffic at less than the speed limit, I also never drive in the left hand lane unless passing. All of the lower 48 states have a law stating slower traffic in the righthand lane. Even when the road is clear you are to drive in the righthand lane. Recently some Arkansas State Trooper have been writing tickets for left lane driving and impeeding the flow of traffic. Meaning if you are under legal speed limit and have a string of cars behind you. PULL OVER AND allow them around. I too have to agree with the post about people fishing at the launch ramps and even swimming at them. Me I had rather be somewhere out of the way, way out of the way.

Sunday evening I saw another set of inconsiderate anglers. Let me explain. My wife don't walk to well, she needs Knee replacement. So while I am getting the boat secured to the courtesy dock. another boater ran in at high speed let the trailer driver off and backed out of the dock. Problems. 1. He ignored the no wake buoys. 2. the wake caused my boat to brash against the dock, throwing my wife onto the dock. 3. Trailer driver just ran right passed her, no apology nothing, no help getting her to her feet. Now finally after all that. wife was on the way to our truck. The Violating boat and the trailer driver did a great job, back their trailer into the water and loading their boat. But they stopped just out of the water on the ramp, blocking our access to load our boat. The parking lot was empty sans four trucks and trailers, heck they had 1/2 acre or more to square their boat away but nope they don't care that someone else is needing to use the ramp. It's all about them screw anyone else. I did get their hull number and filed a report with the game warden about the violation of the "NO WAKE" Buoys. I also know who the boys were so I will be sending each one a letter and a the "Boating courtesy" paper from the AGFC. Guess maybe I am "OLD SCHOOL" but they still could have been loaded and out of the way without being rude and without risking hurting someone or damaging someone else's boat. Without blocking someone Else's access to load a boat. John

Lack of tourist dollars is a main reason the MDC is not paying attention to upper BS. Finacially it does not make cents to put money into something with a low return on the dollar. Same reason AGFC stopped stocking stripers in BS. MT HOme chamber really pushes Norfork, the lake is smaller and stripers are easier to find. Ditto Beaver Lake. As for the White bass I have fished way up Long Creek where you could not get a boat and caught spawning Whites. If you have a map I have caught spawning whites south of Denver. But that was back in the early 80's Long Creek dont have the massive white spawns of years ago, so maybe it is pollution Poulty houses, etc. The first thing to look at is water quality, yes you would think it would effect lower TACOMO first, but maybe its flowing fast enough to not be effected as badly. Look at the amounts of land that have been dozed, been cleared for subdivisions, then you have to look at see the amounts of fertilizers applied by home owners who dont know what they are doing. All these factors add up. Then you have the needed amount of DOLLARS to fix the problem and low return on those dollars. THE MDC and the AGFC dont throw good dollars after bad dollars. John

The wife and I have been dealing with colds this past week. Coughing hacking etc, we should have purchased stock int Kleenex. Well the pretty weather yesterday got the best of use. We just had to get out n the water. So at 3:00pm we headed to Leadhill. The idea was if we were going to feel like crap we could feel like crap on the water just as well as here at home. Once at a place I knew would hold fish we found the water temp at 49F. I decided to throw crankbaits and what a good idea it was! We caught alot of small kentuckies and smallmouth, almost one after another we stopped counting at 50 no keepers but darn good fishing no matter where you fish. About 7:00pm as we came out of the cove and into the main lake, I caught a walleye, again to short, then she caught a walleye over the next hour we caught and released 17 walleye with one keeper at 22 inches. My great and lovely wife caught it she was pumped up over the keeper. So ya know what we are having for dinner tonight!!! Not to waste anything on a mountable fish I am skinning it in a few minutes to mount and then will fillet the meat for a great meal this evening. I have been anxious to play with the new 565 Humminbird fish finder I sure like it and its way better than the Humminbird 10 on the drivers seat. I can say even with a cold virus fishing did us good. John

My Dad introduced me to Power Bait a couple years ago. He is one of those people who date everything. His power bait must be some of the oldest remaining in the big jar and it still works. I used the last of a big jar a few weeks back. I did try new verses old and maybe just maybe the old stuff was a bit better. I feed my fish in the pond and Power Bait don't smell like the fish food pellets from Purina or Tindles. I dont know that Power Bait will dry out, it takes several weeks before its not usable, I have left it laying out just to see. John

I grew up in Harrison and seined mean we hit every place on the bank and fish could hide and caught every fish that even thought about biting. I dont use that word unless I am around family and close friends because it dont mean the samething to everyone. John

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/04/...afishreport.txt The Morning News Beaver Lake: Drastic cold weather last week and early this week dropped water temperatures severely and has slowed fishing. Garland Villines at Hickory Creek Marina said the surface temperature there plummeted 10 to 13 degrees. It now hovers around 55 degrees. Tom Steinke at the Beaver Dam Store reports a drop of 6 to 7 degrees at the dam. Villines, one of the top crappie fishermen at Beaver, said he caught only two crappie during a recent trip. Crappie have backed off the banks, he said. It’s tough to predict if they will return to the shallows this weekend. Black bass have been seen on spawning beds in the Hickory Creek area, Villines said. Those, too, may have retreated to deeper water. Stripers could be the best bet for the weekend. Anglers report catching them on shad or brood minnows from Hickory Creek upstream into the White and War Eagle tributaries. Bob Bauer at Lost Bridge Marina said white bass fishing on the downstream end of Beaver may be slowly recovering from the cold jolt. Anglers out Tuesday caught white bass from the Indian Creek arm. They used white jigs. Bauer said crappie are hitting jigs. Some stripers have been caught by anglers after crappie. Jason Piper at J.T. Crappie Guide Services the cold weather has slowed crappie fishing at Beaver Lake. Crappie have moved off the bank a slightly deeper water not to far from shallow water. Try fishing wind-blown coves near standing timber or in bays off of creek channels. Once the water warms a little the crappie should move back to the bank around laydowns and shallow brush. Chartreuse Shineee Hineee jigs are a good lure choice. The best places to fish are Hickory Creek, Pine Creek and Coose Hollow. David Messersmith at Hook, Line and Sinker in Rogers said a few black bass have been caught with spinner baits and jig and pigs. Bites are scarce, but most have come from big fish this week. Crappie have moved out to deeper water after prowling the shallows before the cold snap. White River below Beaver Dam: Tom Steinke at the Beaver Dam Store said trout are biting prepared baits like Power Bait or Gulp! Orange is a good color. The top lures are spoons or Rooster Tails in orange and brown or any bright color. Small-sized flies are working best. Try midge dry patterns in the afternoons. Small WD-40s or Griffith’s gnats are good patterns. Mike McLellan at McLellan’s Fly Shop in Fayetteville said high-water fly fishing can be good drifting in a boat and using San Juan worms. Lake Fayetteville: Jim Black at Lake Fayetteville boat dock reports little fishing activity in the wake of the cold weather. Try minnows or jigs for crappie or shallow-diving crank baits for black bass. Lake Sequoyah: Jackie Smith at Lake Sequoyah boat dock said no one is fishing. Try minnows, jigs or Roadrunners for crappie. Spinner baits or plastic worms are wise choices for black bass. Prairie Grove Lake: No report this week. Bella Vista: Nick Gann reports limited fishing activity due to cold weather. Tournament anglers braved the chill to fish tournaments last weekend at Lake Windsor and Loch Lomond. Several black bass were weighed. Most were caught with jig and pigs, crank baits or plastic worms 12 feet deep or less. SWEPCO Lake: Kenny Stroud at the Siloam Springs Wal-Mart said black bass are hitting top-water lures early. Productive lures include Pop-Rs or floating Rapalas. Large-sized baits are working best. Try main lake points and at the warm-water discharge from the Flint Creek Power Plant. For deeper bass, go with Senkos or finesse worms 10 feet or deeper. Rig Senkos wacky style or fish them on a split shot rig. Siloam Springs City Lake: Stroud said crappie are biting chartreuse/black, pink/black or blue/black jigs. Illinois River: Stroud said smallmouth bass are biting 4-inch lizards. Upper Table Rock Lake: J.D. Fletcher at Devil’s Dive Resort said cold weather has shut the white bass down. His son, Jeff, took several guide trips out for whites last week before the cold snap and caught dozens of fish. A trip Saturday yielded only two white bass. The black bass fishing has made up for it. Jeff guided a party Monday and they boated several bass including a 6-pounder, 5-pounder and two 4s. Most of their bass were caught with silver jerk baits. Finesse worms and plastic lizards have also been working, Fletcher said. Lake Taneycomo: Mike McLellan at McLellan’s Fly Shop in Fayetteville said scuds trailed by a Jujubee midge or Mercury midge are productive in low water. During high water, drift in a boat and use large nymphs or sow bugs. Eastern Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation reports crappie at Lake Eucha are biting minnows and jigs around brush and structure. Largemouth bass are hitting spinner baits or jerk baits. At Grand Lake, anglers are heading to indoor docks during the cold spell and catching some good-sized crappie. Lake Tenkiller’s largemouth bass are sluggish. A few are biting jigs 15 to 20 feet deep around drop-offs. Trolling for crappie is fair on deep-running lures in the midlake areas. Morning fishing is best.

HAy crops will recover they had just started, My fields of fescue did fine, Bermuda was not started. My brother is in the lawn treatment business, fertilizer and yard pest, i.e. bugs and weeds and he says the cool weather grasses are fine, warm weather grasses had not put on green growth, just roots and the freeze did not destroy any roots. My Black berries are still putting on the leaves and they will bloom, guess they may be hardier than other crops. Trees will recover but it will stress them, looks like a brown abd black fall around here. My White oaks had not done anything yet I checked them close this afternoon. Wild Cherry are fine, so maybe the freeze is not as bad as some think. I live on the side of a mountain and its colder than a well diggers wet butt here but the hardier wild fruits seem ok, I lost the raspberrys aas did my Dad in Harrison. his strawberry plant seem fine. I have afriend that is big into planting his garden according to the "SIGNS" and he had not planted anything except potatoes, peanuts, carrots and sweet taters, he said the signs had not been good for above ground plants. Dont know time will tell. John

Nope ,it's a LOWE 2002 VSN 170, 17 ft, with a 90hp Johnson 2 stroke. It is pretty easy on gas. The boat sat for several years it is now on its fourth tank of gas ever!!! I had to put all three batteries in it, the more we run it the better it gets. The boat had trouble coming off the trailer, the bow tiedown loop kept hanging up n the bow roller. So I had to adjust that. You would think a compan like LOWE would make sure zero problems like this, then you would think Sport Boats USA who sold the boat would have double checked things. BUt thats not the way people do business these days or even in 2002. I will say that the aluminum is the strongest aluminum I have ever drilled. Normally a wood drill bit will punch right thru, but not this time I had to go back to the shop and get a metal drill bit!!! The strngth of the aluminum impressed me. Did find a couple weeks ago some stabbotage, one of my wifes cousins thought they were going to get the boat. When they found out that they were not getting the boat they cut some wires, The wires were to the trim and tilt, the livewell pump and the bilge pump, so a bit of repair work and that was fixed. I think now all the little problems are repaired, time to go fish! John

I received my trolling motor transducer from Humminbird this AM. SO off I went to installllll. Everything went well, to include finding all the hidden screws to remove carpeted pieces and running the wires. Had to Dremal a place on the under side of the bracket for the head so the transducer cable would go it, but finally something I did went right without tons of hassle AND NO TRIPS TO THE HARDWARE STORE!!!! For these two projects. While I was at it I installed an additional spot light plug up front. Two weeks ago I found a nice 9.8 Electric start Merc. for the river boat 2 stroke. Installed the wiring inside a piece of pvc, pipe and battery up in front of the second seat. Also since its an old riveted jon boat, ya'll know how they leak, I figured instead of bailing water four times a trip I would put in a bilge pump, That project only took the initial trip to the hardware store for a switch. Since tomorrow I have a Dr appointment at the VA in Fayetteville I figure on hitting Beaver Lake in the afternoon. Get to try out the new Humminbird 565!!!! No sleep tonight, yep I is excited!!! John

http://www.mdc.missouri.gov/areas/stlouis/...g/bass/whyneed/ I tend tho think the spots have always been here. I have caught spots in small small streams in the Ozarks and even in Kansas where you dont think they should be. An old long time friend who recently passed away talked about catching kentucky bass way back in the 1920s when he was a kid on White River and Arkansas River near Pine Bluff, he knew his fish so I have to think he was telling the truth. Spots have a look and pattern not like the largemouth, so I look at pictures too. I dont see spots in the old pics from up around the Lead Hill Tucker Hollow areas before it was a lake. I do see other fish and lots of nice largemouth. Fishes of Missouri I think has a map as does its sister Fishes of Arkansas.

Not a lot of moss or rock snot in the lake. Pretty much what you see is what you get in the lakes. The normal green moss, some coontail and and some weeds that have been planted. Once you get below about 50 feet, give or take due to lake levels its silt. Nothing but butt deep silt. Somewhere I have a pic of me in the silt up to my neck. I do a good bit of scuba diving doing technical stuff and have close to 1000 dives since 1974. So I tend to go deep looking for old structures etc. Seldom do you see a fish below 30 feet in the summer months, however in the winter you may find fish in 100 feet of water. Anywho back to the moss questions, when I first started finshing the White River again a few years back, I found the fluffy toilet paper of sorts. I was told by a guide that its from the lake. So I did some deep dives to find it. Its in the water it just take the right conditions for it to grow. his in the fact its up near the dam. I think it could come from mid or even upper lake areas. I have dived in the Lead Hill Tucker Hollow areas and don't find it there. So maybe the facts are this, IMHO with the run off from Branson area all the way to the dam, the conditions become right for rock snot directly at the dam when a bit more oxygen is churned out by the generation of power. Water at the intake level is lower in Dissolved O2 than in the upper levels of the water column, growth could also be triggered by the release of water and mixing of pollutants from the White River chain of lakes. Who knows for sure these are just what I have looked at and think is happening. John

Same spot, up the creek arms may be good with a lizard Texas rigged. If things keep going like they were, the spawn will be over with males on the nest. and it will be back to main lake points. I have been reading about drop shotting and maybe that would be worth a try. www.bassresource.com

Ok Arkansas is up for grabs. I have fished part of the Little Buffalo since I was a kid, I enter from a public road. I was also issued a ticket for treaspass at the same spot. Cost was $145.00 plus court cost of $75.00 Now to the Buffalo National River, I was trail riding with friends we were all on horseback. It was raining and the river came up way to heck up. The only way we could find out took us across Lunce Cash and his property. Now had I not known the Sheriff I would have thought I had just violated every law in the books. Something about safe egress is all that saved us from maybe being shot by Lunce!! It is best to get the land owner permission if you can or stay within the banks, many landowners dont by the high water mark idea. Now also if the public has used a fishing hole or swimming hole and the way to it crosses your land, you may not stop them public from using it. Case in point is a hole on Long Creek near Alpena and the Blue Hole on OSage Creek near Osage. Its been done in Federal District court.

Have you fished Buck Creek before? The rock pile should produce some fish, but thats a known fact to frequent visitors. Two to three weeks the fishing could really change, but for now the water is super clear 15 feet of vis. I dropped a chrome rattle trap and could still see it at 15 feet.... The water had been warming a bit but this cold front will ertainly slow it down. Did ok on Saturday for cold and windy as hell. fishing along the banks mostly Kentuckys and smallies nothing over 14 inches. No largemouth. on suspending crankbaits. John

Stripers were introduced to BS, in the miod 1970's Arkansas did th stocking. What we found was this, the stripers woould charge the net pens in which rainbow trout are being raised in, trout would jump out of the pens and the stripers would feed on them. About 3 years ago a fellow driving a fish truck from the Lonoke Hatchery dumped a load of stripers into Bull. I was told they were stripers, not wipers. I do know just a couple weeks ago I saw a school of stripers surface in Bull. I saw them pretty close but failed to hook up with any. So they are there in Mid Bull. I have heard MDC bio say they would not stock anything in Bull because of the border lake and Mo would not receive max, benefits from the expense. Benefits from stocking must exceed what the cost of stocking to include multiplication factors. MDC requires a profit so to speak. This most likey applies to all stockings of any fish. My feeling from talking with AR bio. over the years is Norfork and Beaver will receive the major stockings and they have less border worters and in Beavers case ZERO. The lake in the Hot Springs area get annual stockings of stripers and wipers. as does Greeson, Greers Ferry and other lakes isolated inside Arkansas, not to forget the Arkansas river system. I mounted a lot of 45-50lbs Bull Shoals Stripers in the early 1980's. I wish they would stock more, but I think something about BASS tournaments has a lot to do with it. Mark Oliver once told me his hands were pretty well tied about what he could do in BUll SHoals. He had even recommended more LAKE TROUT stockings as they did very well. Most locals had no idea about the LAKERS BEING STOCKED!! Stocking of fish is pretty political, just look at the TIGER MUSKY situation in Arkansas. People scream they eat the trout!!! Me I would love have the Tiger Musky in catch and release areas. Hell I like trout but to catch a TM when you lest expect it!!!! Also there could be some natural hybrids going on in Bull, there was during the Striper hay days. There has been some natural reproduction of stripers in the Arkansas river system. I read a report on it it is unexpected but happening!! John

Sunday we headed to a lake I will not name because of the size and how well the fish were biting it could be fished out pretty quickly. We used crank baits bumping the bottom and caught lots of good bass. All over 15 inches. The fish were off the points and spunky as hell! A fellow and his wife had told us to give it a shot some weeks back and it was everything they said. We saw a few other boats and they were catching bass too. Water was murky with less than a foot of vis and warm. John

The cold front shut down the wiper bite and everything else on Beaver in the War Eagle arm. We worked hard to catch fish and finally had a white bass and a blue gill. What we did find was largemouth bass on beds!!!! Could not get them to even pick up a bait, but the spwn is just ready to bust with fish mated. So with the full moon and a warm day its a done deal.

For now I settled on a Humminbird 565.Hig pixel res. Maybe after getting lost a time or two in the dark the wife will surrender to the GPS idea. Been waiting on a man to buy a few horses so I could have went color and GPS but the deal fell thru. So bought what I can afford. The kid at BPS in SGF, was not to bright in the fish finder area, he just did not have the selling, or maybe the wife would have said yes. Thats what I get for shopping on Friday afternoon. I ask the kid about transducers for the trolling motor then got home and found out I could have bought an adaptor to the one in the box. All is not lost as I will move this new one to the rear position when funds for a better COLOR unit become available