hoglaw

Fair market value, to me, has always been what a willing buyer and seller will shake hands on. By definition, in the legal world at least, an auction always results in a fair market value sale even though the price may be lower than a listing through a realtor. Yeah, I hear you on the antiques roadshow/storage wars stuff, but a sale price based on a lack of information is always an outlier. I'm not trying to be overly essoteric here. But there was an auction. It was, presumably, published. Everyone and their brother was welcome to attend. If someone thought the land was worth more than $3k an acre, then they would have paid more than $3k an acre. My point here wasn't to say that the land sold at top dollar, but that to suggest that the State had some ulterior motive in convincing the feds to prosecute and effect a forefiture was misguided - and not supported by the facts of how this played out. For all I know the land is worth 4 or 5k an acre. But 3k was apparently the highest bid. I don't have a dog in the fight. Don't care about Camp Zoe - don't even know where it is. I just don't like willfully ignorant conspiracy theorists running around unchecked. It's their fault that I can't find .22 ammo at a decent price. The world would be a lot better if everyone would just slow down and think for a minute.

There won't be a million people running around at Riley's. There are numerous buildings on the property and some neighbors, but the property is very isolated. I'd imagine there's good wading in the shoals on the other side of the island where the buffalo comes in, and certainly some good stuff upstream in the heart of buffalo shoals. But a boat would be a necessity to reach those spots I think. If you're dead set on wading, there's always the public accesses on the norfork, or you could rent a canoe and float down it to reach some of the best wading water. The problem with the White and Norfork is predicting generation. No telling what it will be then. Typical summer flows are fairly low, but if we get a ton of water in the next few months, or if the week you go just happens to be a scorcher and there's a lot of power demand, you could be in higher flows and wading would not be an option at all.

The white run is not "full on" up river, but there are plenty of fish to be caught. I didn't see water above 50 degrees yesterday, but I've heard reports of higher temps.

I didn't have any navigation problems above Blue Springs yesterday. I don't have to worry about logs and such, but my jet typically sucks up trash when the water is nasty. Water seemed to be in good shape to me, with some pretty good clarity up around the 45 bridge.

Thanks Joe. We are planning to do another overnight trip this weekend as long as the rain doesn't bring the water up much. I like it in the early spring. Never seem to catch as many, but we catch bigger ones now and in late fall. Seems to me the big fish like the extremes. Most of my memorable big fish have come during strange conditions. High flows, night fishing in the summer, early and late in the year, and during storms to name a few. The water over there is in great shape right now. As long as it doesn't come up a bunch, we will be camped on a gravel bar Saturday night.

Got into the walleyes a little today before the rain came in. Wind was blowing pretty hard. Kind of a nasty day. We caught one good white bass and that was it other than the walleye largemouth and Kentuckys. Someone is catching whites in the river though. Saw a big pile of carcasses at the ramp.

It's funny how everyone jumped on the bandwagon on this deal blaming law enforcement, the gubment, and whoever else for encroaching on some poor landowner's rights, and it ended in an insinuation that the penalty for owning something that the state wants is to get put in prison. I didn't read pages 2-8, but that's what I've gathered so far. Apparently the truth was a long way from all of this. The owner was running an open air drug market according to the press release. While I'm as skeptical of the media as the next guy, what I can say with some certainty is this. The feds don't rush to prosecute anyone. They take FOREVER to indict. But by the time they do, they have their case squared away 99.9% of the time. It's a very different mentality from state law enforcement (in non-grand jury states) where charges are filed right out of the gate at the highest level the limited facts known at the time will fit, and the details are sorted out later. The feds are extremely organized and thorough - perhaps too much. In general, state law enforcement will prosecute a much larger percentage of reports, and will do it a heck of a lot quicker. The feds, on the other hand, have a much higher rate of conviction at the level of the original charge. Also, the State of Missouri wanting the land for a park provides absolutely zero incentive for the feds to prosecute. Plus the state bid at a public auction. To see anything suspicious here, you must assume 1) someone from the state called their buddy in the FBI or US Attorney's office and asked them to file charges and ultimately effect a civil forefiture of property; 2) that the federal buddy had enough in it for him to charge when he otherwise wouldn't; and 3) that the public auction was somehow fixed for the State to get the property at less than fair market value. Obviously I don't know more about the facts than anyone here. But what I can logically assume is that the owner was doing a whole lot more than letting hippies come down and smoke pot while looking the other way. That doesn't get you a plea to three years in the pen and civil forefiture of your property. That doesnt even get a US Attorney to pay attention. Ness, I think you had it pegged a lot better from the get-go than others gave you credit for.

Anything is worth a try for $30, especially if you're going to buy a lot more of them. The Chinese don't have the same regard for patent and intellectual property law that we do. I have friends who work for a very large retailer who shall remain unnamed who go to China occasionally with blank check authority that's nine digits long before the decimal point, the purpose of their trip being to basically start a new factory to produce cheap products, like a 1$ toothbrush or travel cosmetic bottles. They say this kind of stuff China is well suited for, but they're reluctant to shop more expensive products there. Reason being, the folks that run the factories will get their buddy to start making the same product - lock stock and barrel. So my first thought is that the reels may be identical to what you're used to buying that's manufactured over there - same quality and all. Or, they could be a cheap knock off that won't perform worth a darn. But I'd think you would be able to tell pretty easily with just a little use. For $30, give it a shot and see what you get. You might find the motherload.

What a rain. White river gauge went from 4' to 14' and appears to still be rising. When it normalizes all runs should be a full go. I hate when it all comes at once, but we were in dire need of current for the spring migrations in my opinion. Hopefully we get normal rain after this and not flash flood after flash flood like some years past.

This is making my pants tight too. Would be incredibly hard to beat. I was looking at honemooning at a place called Acklins Island in the bahamas. Getting there is the tough part, as it's a totally non-tourist destination other than fishing. There's only one place to stay, Chester's Highway Inn and Bonefish Lodge. It's a big island, roughly 40 miles from north to south I think. There's one road that goes all the way up and down it, and hardly a thing on it. Total population of the island is like 500. No resorts, no cruise ships, total solitude. Apparently there's a lot of good flats fishing there, and you can even get kayaks at chesters so you can access more of it. The place looked awesome. But we're under contract for a new house, so in the interest of saving money we're going to Vegas instead. My partner's meeting may be at Atlantis (in Nassau) next year, so if we go there I'll take an extra week and go over to Acklins.

Ham - Yes, I have a couple of spinning rods that I've done with micros. I haven't used them much in freezing temperatures, but I'm certain they exaggerate any problems with ice on the guides. There's so much less space that it has to make it worse. I'm sure you could use WD-40 and that would help, or just dunk it a little more often, but the higher tendency to ice over is almost certainly a real issue. My favorite set up with micros was done on a rod that my buddy's grandfather (Carl) built years ago. I think the blank was a GL3. I was excited to get it as its owner had passed away and he had a bunch of rods that Carl built. I was given my pick and grabbed the one done on the Loomis blank. It's a 6' Medium light or light I think. It has the blank model number on it, I'll check it out. Anyway, the point of the story is that I took it out to fish and I absolutely hated it. It looked cool with an interesting handle and a nice decorative wrap just above the handle, but it had zero sensitivity and didn't cast well at all. I thought it must have been a counterfit blank, or at least another blank that he just slapped a loomis sticker on. It was just awful. But the guides on it were huge, and there were too many of them. I took it home and stripped all of the guides off of it. I left the decorative wrap in place as well as some of the aesthetic elements, but I completely redid the guides with a proper micro setup. Now, it's an awesome rod. Much stiffer feeling and very sensitive. The other two spinning rods I've done for myself are 7'ers. One was built to be a carp rod on an MHX hot shot blank I think (the same blank I just bought myself to make a new wart rod after seeing DTRS5's post). The other was built on a St. Croix SCV blank. They're both great shakey head rods. I have not used floro much with them. The first time I tried the carp rod, I used floro and it didn't cast worth a darn. I thought it was because floro didn't agree with the guides, but I later learned that was because it was the first rod I ever did and I didn't have the guides set up correctly to begin with. I've re-done that rod and it works really well now. The St. Croix is great. They definitely like 10lb braid, and they're great with mono and co-poly. I haven't tried them again with straight floro. I think I've used that floroclear stuff that CX makes, which is florocarbon coated. It casts like a dream. I tell you what. When I get done with the rod I'm building for this guy to go with his Stradic, I'll put some 6lb floro on it and see how it does. I don't use much floro with spinning rods. I used Segaur Red Label 15lb on some of my baitcast setups because I really like it, but generally use braid or CX Premium or Florclear on my spinning rods.

I wasn't a big fan of organ meat until I had boudan. Point being, for finesse fishing with a spinning real, you won't know until you try one that's set up properly. That's impossible unless it's custom made. Thanks for the input nomo. That being the case, I'll run up to cabbalas to fit the blank with one or I'll have my buddy ship his to me to get it set up.

I have a jet, but prefer a prop on the little red for the same reasons everyone else mentioned - that grass. The other issue with the Little Red is, when the water is really low like it was this past fall, a jet won't get you many places that a prop can't get to. The Little Red is full of hard, sharp bedrock that will eat a boat alive. It's not the softer gravel that's present on a lot of spots on the White where you can slide a little if you really need to. I absolutely love my jet and I love the peace of mind that comes with knowing I'm not going to beat it to death in skinny water. But I think it's a much bigger advantage on the White than it is the LR.

Venice would probably be my choice as well.

It's not my reel. If it was mine, I'd have one to measure myself! I need the diameter of the spool lip to get started on guide placement for a rod I'm doing for somone, and to see if I have a comparable reel in my stuff to use. In order to set up a spinning rod with micro guides correctly, I need to know what reel is going to be used with it. On the "shimbindo" issue, I'm sure it's been fully hashed out here. I don't have any particular brand loyalties but I have probably owned thirty shimano reels at one point or another. Only once have I ever had an issue with a reel binding up, and it was an older citica that I got off ebay cheap. Turned out the spool in it was actually warped. Replaced the spool and it functions perfectly now. I've never had a single problem from any of my curados or shimano spinning reels. I've never had a high-end shimano spinning reel, but their cheaper ones (<$100) have always worked fine for me.

Do you not understand the question or do you not understand why I'm asking? Hopefully I can get by Cabellas this weekend and check one out. But if anyone has one, I just need the diamater of the spool lip - the widest part of the top of the spool. Hope that is clear.

Have a quick question. I need a measurement with callipers of the spool lip diameter. In otherwords, I need the width of the widest point above the line on the spool that the line has to pass over on its way to the guides. Hope someone can help.

They're about a dollar a piece. I've used plenty marabou jigs of all types. I like the zig jigs. I like pj's too. I know the fayeteville family that owns pjs and I like their business and what it does to further their mission a lot, so I have some brand loyalty to them. That said,I probablyhave six dozen zig jigs in various colors and sizes. I can't say that I really prefer one over the other. Both are very high quality trout jigs for a fair price.

The same tournament that weighs live trout from a live well I guess.

I never used the field and I've never carried up that hill, but I've carried down it and down a dry creek bed to put in more than once. Taking out there would be a serious pain. Normally I spend the night on the high gravel bank next to the good deep hole a couple hundred yards upstream from there when I do that stretch. All my cc trips are overnight trips anymore. Got engaged there last summer.

How do you keep your spoon on bottom while moving? When I tried this spot, we wereusing 1/2 oz jogging spoons that I got from southtown. I think war eagle makes them. If we drifted even a little they'd rideup bad.

Seems to be pretty dry sleet in Fayetteville. Hoping it stays that way.

Should have listened to you this morning clay. We struck out. The water had a very nice color and clarity though. Just no fish. Didntsee anyone else catching either. We left and went to the private lake near Siloam. I expected to whack them there. Trophyfishr and I caught 25 each last weekend with the biggest five going probably 20lbs. Today was a different story they wouldn't bite the super spot but I managed a dozen on a flick shake worm. I'm ready for the whites to get up in the river. I like fly fishing for them a lot more than running all over the place in the boat.

I'm going tomorrow. Looks like there will be a crew of us. I will be with my fiancee in a 21' aff with a 90 yamaha jet. Don't have a clue how to fish for them. Was planning on hitting southtown up for minnows on the way. Maybe drifting crawlers on the bottom too? No idea what I'm doing. Feel free to call 95783two8 while you're out there. Will probably put in at beavorama.

Going to try to get out there tomorrow. I've heard some good crappie reports recently but I feel like they'll be more affected by this little cold front. Wind should be down tomorrow. You think the stripers will still be there or are they moving upstream? I'd love to get my fiancee on a 10lb striper. I feel like we have to give this deal a chance. Probably won't get out there until noon. Anyone else going to be out there? I need to hit south town for lures on the way. Hope they have what we need!