taxidermist

Last evening we fished War Eagle. did pretty good for our first trip. We arrived at the 412 Bridge about 3pm. Fished our way to War Eagle, we stopped counting crappie when we had 50, caught another 31 white bass and some under sized walleye (talk about pretty these fish had green colors) then we started picking up bass, largemouth and spotted about every thrid cast we caught fish!! Long time since we had this type of day on the any lake!!! The lure that worked best was a Walmart Renegade deep diver that looks like a small lineside minnow or bass. Seemd fish were everywhere. We arrived at the mouth of War Eagle almost to late, I cvaught three hybrids before they shut off, all on top waters. We went back to crankbaiting the bluffs and caught more bass. My son had three bass fighting over his lure, we watched this they never spooked then finally one ran in from nowhere and slammed it!!! Water temps are in the mid 60's. Tight lines John

There is not a replica of a spoonbill of this size. I know all the suppliers of blanks as we call them in the industry and so I ask by email and noone has one with this size. Thats what is sad about eating a old huge fish like this, its now gone forever!!! Pictures is all that will be around. Replicas are all molded off real fish, some are better than others due to the molders ability to mold the fish, the condition of the fish when received and some just plain don't have the skills of knowledge. They put fish in unnatural bends and positions. Next comes the taxidermist skills, some dont know basic fish anatomy, so they also lack the skills to repair problems with the blanks and they dont know how to detail the blank. Some blanks claim now extra work needed, but they all need work!!! It's no extra work required for the beginner. Over the years I have made many molds to reproduce fish for certain fish species. I don;t get rushed, I either do it right or don't do it!! I sell these molds to some of the big suppliers, reason is they dont get cold water fish, I have some of my personal molds off big browns and admit over the years my skills in molding have improved. I have even instructed seminars at the WORLD TAXIDERMY CHAMPIONSHIPS, that's a heck of an honor for any taxidermist. So with this little bit of information now you see why I feel it's a terrible shame to waste a SPOONBILL of this size. I could take a blank and cut, add and rework it to those size measurments but its not the same. I called made an offer of 300lbs of catfish fillets and they said they had already cleaned it. If its a big fish its a terrible thing to just cut it up. Look at George Perry's Largemouth BASS!!! Tight Lines John

What a waste! A fish this big deserves to be mounted, how long did this fish live? If its the meat I would give them twice the weight in catfish!!!

We fished over the weekend and did pretty well, considering it was our first trip to Taney going upstream to the dam. My son caught his first Keeper brown on a chartruas crappie jig, in the area of the riprap about a mile down river from the dam, he caught another nice one, I caught nice bow still in spawning colors.

Thnx everyone, I am like most when I make that kind of investment I want it to be repairable. I think I will look at the Hummingbird line because of what ya'll say. TH eweather sat. is an idea I had not considered. Tnx John

MAde the run down river, fishing below rough hole was good but below Buffalo Shoals turned to very good. Then the hole down and around Buffalo City was great. Since I am not a fly fisherman, I depend on spinners and Rapalas, silver Rap CD was excellent, in the deeper water and yes there was lots and lots of water. My 4hp Mariner had a time pushing up up river with the water, took about 2 hours to run from Buffalo City back to Ranchette. I landed 13 bows over 14 inches but not over 15 and 17 under 14. Wife did not do as well, son did ok. I have found during high water certain lures work well and not with low water, its different. I spend a lot of time tying and tying on different lures until I find something that they hit. Had a hundred follow ups and bumps, gets irritatiing when they bump a lure and not take it. John

We caught lots of short crappie, shad in the net, more short crappie, some males whites, more short crappie. Finally started dragging a night crawler and darn if we did not catch short Walleye!!! You thunk I wus gonna say crappie. 47 fish in 9 hours and one stinkun keeper, oh man I wanted a crappie fillettttts. Then when I got the walllleye, I decided to work that some more and yes plenty of short fish. John

All good reasons. Yes I was out last night until 2am on Long creek and Yoacum, fog settled in but since I use to know the lake pretty well all was fine. I see lost of use for bursh pile marking, that area needs some piles now. We caught lots of short crappie, shad in the net, more short crappie, some males whites, more short crappie. Finally started dragging a night crawler and darn if we did not catch short Walleye!!! You thunk I wus gonna say crappie. 47 fish in 9 hours and one stinkun keeper, oh man I wanted a crappie fillettttts. Then when I got the walllleye, I decided to work that some more and yes plenty of short fish. Did find one stump that well we ran a bit up on we were trolling so backing off was not a biggie. NOW, how informed are the sales people at BPS in SGF, MO? Ganders people in Little Rock suck don't know squat, except how to run a cash reg. Do you think Hummingbird is the way to go? Some of them look pretty much the same as for keyboard. Thx John

There is also a nesting pair about .6 mile bnelow the Ranchette access. These birds are in the third year I know of, the wintered over and already appear to be on the nest. In the big Sickymore(pun) tree. Last year the raised one fledgling. Anyway Monday the largest was on the lest standing gaurd.

Ok, I have been looking but still don't see the need for GPS in a boat. I will fishing TR, BS, Norfork, Beaver,TACOMO and doubtfully nothing else with this boat. So that being that can anyone tell me a reason to justify the added expense? Thx John

Yes but-------- While we have a LOT of trout fishing we have no natives at all. Even resources such as the few tiny spring creeks in MO that have remnant populations of pure strains stocked many decades ago are constantly on the brink of extinction. Crane Creek and its' head of McCloud Rainbows teeter constantly on the brink. So far it comes back, even when reason says it shouldn't, but some day it won't. A drouth will persist too long or a bad winter following drouth will produce anchor ice that takes the last few survivors. One is left to wonder why MO DNR isn't propagating the Crane Creek strain and spreading them to other suitable watersheds to guard against total loss. Ok, what species did these STOCKED RAINBOWS REPLACE? We must always remember when humans get invovled with nature and stock NON-NATIVE species something must die, nothing can coexisit. Its natures design. So why is the MO DNR not propagating and stocking? Like releasing horses into the wild basiclly they are feral like hogs and cats feral of sorts. I agree I ain't helping no snake, tick, chigger, or skeeter, matter for fact I killed a large cottonmouth on White River yesterday, close to four feet in length!!! The first I have seen on the White above Buffalo City, it was in the water and moving very well. So I am sure it was not an accident that it was there.

Living is Arkansas is like HEAVEN! Don't tell but we are not crippled with tons of bureaucracies about what you can and cannot do!!! My wife worked for Green County Health dept for a number of years, even she has trouble believing we have something called FREEDOM here in the hills. I was looking at a place a few years back near Willard, talked to my coousin abouut the dos and don't then Green County, forget it!!!! To many rules and regs and to many gov. people sticking their noses in my business. Anywho get ready its going to be smoke filled air today. Oh, just remember the smoke is your tax payer dollar at work to prevent massive forest fires in the GOVERNMENT OWNED BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER. They dont want a fire like happend in Yellowstone where over half the park burned and 20 years later still has not began to recover. The locals foght to keep their land but you know the gov gets what it wants. In the 1950's the gov. wanted to put a dam on the river and locals foguht it but later in the mid 1970's the gov. decided if they could not build a dam they would take it for a national park!! My history teacher Herb Van Devan fought hard against it but still lost. Plus we lost our land, not great pay off either the gov. screwed us at way below market value. How would you like to be told this is what you are getting you dont have a choice. Breath deep its your tax payer dollar, smoke is great ain't it.

We fished Peel area Friday evening and skunked, fish finder showed lots of fish in the 80 to 100 ft range. Some dead fish were flaoting crappie and some large spotted bass, guess its just old age. There were two others oout and they skunked too. Someone has some deep water trot lines and the bouys never moved all night. But LOONS are everywhere!!! Itwas awesome, the water smooth as glass and the LOONS called all evening even until we left at 12:00am. We did see large fish jumping and from time to time heard schools thrash the top of the water. We were able to use the spot light to see one school and it was stipers!!! Big stripers for about 10 minutes.

This was my second trip to Taneycomo in many years. We put in downtown and headed up to the dam, fished mostly between Fall Creek and the dam. Fished chart. crappie jigs and my son was hot!! he caught seven browns in the 18-21 inch range, from the back of the boat!!! I caught several nice rainbows but no browns. Found lots of rainbows that should have been biting but could not get a strike. On our last drift down I put on a 6inch white plastic grub, caught a nice carp 12lbs, right smack in mid stream, thought it was a brown, well geuss it was a brown, just not a trout. Anyhow wife did not do so good, but thats fishing she did catch some small bows. Even with all the boat traffic we had a good day, about the time we passed Lilleys' someone was cooking steaks and that triggered out feeding urge and we headed on to Golden Corrallllll. Tomorrow we are headed back to White River, honestly more fish but smaller.

I too was amazed at the smoke on Taneycomo yesterday, If it was a burn from Arkansas it did not come from Buffalo River, Newton or Boone County. I think it was way to much smoke for a burn some 20 miles south. My reasoning is I live close to where the controled burns are going on and there is not that much smoke. Talk to my brother who is one of those know it all where the fire firemen and he did not know where that burn was he thought it may have been from a burn near Blue Eye. The smoke was concentrated in the area around Fall Creek.

I am looking to buy a fish finder for up front with a trolling motor transducer. Yesterday I looked at a Eagle fishmark 500C, I like that one. But would a screen with more pixels work better for drop shotting. We found fish deep Sunday and managed to spoon several up, this fired me and the wife up on deep fishing. We dont need a GPS unit, just looking for the recommendations on color fish finders. Thx John

Small bass are on the bluffs, but I found a lot of good fish deep 65-80ft. Whites are in the creeks and its just time till they bust loose. Most people fishing Sunday the 18th went fishless, they were hitting the points and where they thought the bass would be. Water is still to cold in the main channels.

Its dry dry dry. I live 10 miles from Carver, wife was wanting to float next week, aint gonna happen unless we get rain. The river is low and friends up at Ponca at not renting as there just aint enough water.

You will never catch me paying those high prices for BS baits. I still buy whats on sale and paint it when I need to. The highest priced lure I buy is a Rapala. Let's look at this another way. Pittman, Robertson, Dingle Johnson acts. These are taxes on outdoor hunting and fishing gear!! We pay everytime we buy a lure, line or hook!! So again why should we have to pay to launch on public owned water? Its not the money its the fact we have paid for these ramps over and over.

Blues, blacks and reds look the same after 20 feet depth. The only difference it the shades, so of course the lighter the shade the better it can be seen.

I dont have a problem with a private ramp, but who paid for the intital install? I do have a problem with the fricken corp, Most of the ramps have been there for years, most have never been improved and yet they are still charging for us to use them. Tax payers funded them and yet we still have to pay for them again and again. I used Tucker Hollow Sunday, yea the made some new parking spaces a few years back, but thats it that ramp has not been improved since it was new. They did some riprap work, but crap it was already rock. The Arkansas Game and Fish did built a ramp Lead Hill several years ago. Oh the corp ramp at Lead HIll no improvements since 1968 that I know of! But still we pay to launch. I only pay half price but it still grips my rear to have to pay at a public owned ramp or one built originally with public funds. Bleachers, to hell with that! Those are of zero concern to me and 95% or more of the people that fish, I dont care to watch a weigh in. Well I dont care if there was never another bass tourney, I think they harm the fish populations. Yea, I get a break on corp ramps with my passport but still. Hell I get into to Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Devils Tower for free and yet I must pay to put my boat in the lake or risk getting a ticket at one of many areas I grew up putting a boat in the lake. Yo know the places up the creek arms Like YOCUM!! Or Cricket Oh Speaking of Cricket, the first ramp at Cricket was put in by the town of OMAHA and was suppose to be free, well someone in the local corp office(s) changed that while Clinton was in office. Thats all I have to say about that. John

Thanks for the info. I understand the idea behind the SS. The boat jumps out of the hole very well now. But as always we all look for a bit more. I went to the welder and they say noway can it be welded. Most factories put a foam lining behind riveted boat Lowe is one of them. They said maybe the factory can pull the deck and remove the foam and do the work but they cannot and no other shop around Harrison will either. the foam melts and gets into the weld making the weld weaker that before. Since the owner is a instructor of welding, I believe he is correct. Thanks all.

I am going to take the boat in to the welder next week to see what he has to say about it. Its from being loose in a stall at Beaver Creek Boat dock, sat there for over a year being beat around. Thanks Wayne for the tip, I have done that with other things before.

Park super told me this "The size of the powerhead is the limiting factor. If the reg says as in the BNR (10) hp that is all you can run, not a 20 with a jet. simply a 10hp motor is it.

My wife is a teacher, she found that many small schools are kind of closed to outsiders. But there are jobs. The best way is to just apply in the area where you want to live. Hit every school. Remember you must start somewhere. Keep your options open, you may need a last minute choice. As mentioned look for the places that are growing, also be ready to get a temporary license for other subjects. Then you can test within the 12 month period for that subject.