bigredbirdfan

I thought we should have just made Mexico another state to clean up their mess and get rid of the illegal immigrant debate. Problem is they would gain way too much representation in the U.S House and Senate. I think people are big time worried about things deteroiating to the point they need ammo.

Congratulations to him for the idea. Thank the Lord they are choosing a waterway I don't frequent. You know how tourists just love to get as Missourian as they can.

I have also been on the look out for ammo and surprisingly I haven't seen any of the above referenced propaganda that the NRA is pumping out to bump up ammo sales.

ROTFL. You made my day fishinwrench

This capitalism, free market stuff sounds way to complicated and requires way to much effort. Besides everyone can risk their houses and wordly possessions to become "the boss" any time they wish and be whatever kind of boss they want to be.

Just to reinforce what brownieman said, make sure they drain well and you are dealing with a smaller amount of soil so it can dry out quicker too.

I agree the fishery couldn't be improved or it already would have been done. While the upper lake thrives with nice lodging and abundant rainbow the lower lake economy is dying a slow death. God forbid some bass fishing be considered. They seem to do very well in the cold waters of the White River.

You are right. MDC should implement a program to eradicate them from Taneycomo.

Maybe this is why we don't see the numbers down in the warmer section of the lake. Maybe the MDC should impose regs in the trophy area protecting smallmouth, like say... "catch and release"

Good for you biggeratts. Was there a Whodat sighting there as well??

MDC had a forum and I don't know if they still do. My friend made a few critical comments of them on there and they blocked his access from his IP address over it. How about that transparicy? They operate like the KGB.

I really don't care what anyone on this forum thinks about me. I saw what I saw and that is that. Like I said maybe you all should go volunteer at these facilities and see some of the Bull S... that goes on then come back and tell us what you saw. Additionally, there were too many staff bumping into each other at times at the facility I was at. But then again when you need to spend your budget each year so you can justify the need...well.. you all figure it out. I am sure some of you feel they are underfunded with not enough authority right? I'll tell you the story of my grandfather again. He took my cousin fishing when we were kids. They took one kids fishing pole and on my cousin's first cast the sinker, hook and worm went high into the tree. After my cousin not getting it out by himself he hands the pole to my grandfather who yanks and yanks on it. Great fishing experience so far right? After fighting it for a few minutes an agent walks up to him and askes him for his fishing license. He explains that he is only accompanying a child who is not required to have one. He is promply issued a ticket for fishing without a license. The line never even hit the water and he was holding a snoopy rod and reel. Now, if you don't believe this kind of crap goes on every day on verying scales and scopes I'm surprised you can manage to get your underware on with the tag on the inside. Good day.

Because YOU get what YOU want, it's all good. To hell with everyone else. Nice logic.

And the condition of the other 85 items that don't have mileages? I am done with you. And as always the only thing you have proven is your love of government.

I was descript as I could be. Nearly new equipment being readied for auction because it was being replaced with new. Perhaps you could volunteer at a MDC facility and see it first hand, then report here what you find.

Sticks and Stones Brotha. Actually when I talk about the MDC I get a warm tingly feeling up and down my body. I happened to donate some time for the MDC and saw a lot of waste going on. New equipment replacing nearly new equipment. Tools and other state property walking off. They just don't give a rats rear end because the money flows like water. Accountability does no harm. Especially with our economy in the tank. And anyone who disagrees hasn't a clue.

Exactly the point laker.

I apologize he was not an agent: Tim Ripperger, the assistant director of the MDC,

I have never met the man. I believe he has a wildlife management degree. Which I certainly do not have. Any of you? Checks and balances are a good thing. Right? The commission really doesn't qualify. I believe specifics were given including the name of the agent MISSOURI DEPARTMENT ASSISTANT DIRECTOR TIM RIPPERGER(NOT AGENT). Maybe contacting him with questions about MDC erroring on hunting privilages could help you Thom. The Department of Revenue controls privileges to drive and MDC controls privileges of hunting and fishing and can therefore suspend/revoke them at any time. Some people just believe that the government can do no wrong. They were probably brought up this way being told that anything contrary is unpatriotic. What a shame. I was happy to see Al's post. I posted this here not to defend or represent, etc. Just to inform that at least something is going on in a grass roots effort. I guess we will see where it goes. If anyone shows up at these forums let us know how they go.

Sounds like they are already getting something accomplised with the big arm of government so the leadership must be ok. I would join but fear increased scrunity from MDC if listed anywhere officially. I am sure more people fear the same. So most of you will probably have your wishes. While most here seem to easily dismiss this man unfairly. He is a very qualified outdoorsman at a minimum equal to many of you here.

I think a little accountability outside of their own organization structure is clearly no bad thing. Some people simply are in lock step with whatever the federal, state or local government does. I feel sorry for you folks. I'm no hippy, but come on man at least question authority. An open forum that they don't hold sounds like a real good start.

Today in Springfield News Leader Taking a 'Common Sense' approach to conservation Larry Dablemont • February 22, 2009 An old-timer in the Texas County pool hall where I worked as a kid told me something I remember still. He said if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can always find someone who insists it isn't a duck. For many years now, there are those of us who have watched the goings-on in the Missouri Department of Conservation and believe we see a great deal of questionable activity there. Last November, we began to gather at small town halls across southern Missouri to form an organization we have named Common Sense Conservationists, which presently has nearly 1,500 members. A short time after we began to assemble, I received a phone call from Tim Ripperger, the assistant director of the MDC, who asked if he could get together with me and talk about what we were trying to do, and see if there is a way we could work together to realize some common goals. A few days after a Common Sense Conservation meeting in Mountain Grove on Nov. 29 that attracted almost 300 people, Mr. Ripperger came to my office out here in the woods on Lightnin' Ridge, and we talked for nearly four hours. We talked about this questionable activity and what many of us see as MDC agents running over innocent people in their work. There's where we had a problem identifying the ducks. Tim did not think there was any corruption involved, but we agreed to take a close look at some problems. Since that time, we have made some small progress, and I am encouraged. I took one case to him involving a pair of agents attempting to make a hunter prove his innocence, and stripping him of his license for one year. Mr. Ripperger told me I needed to take a look at both sides, and I asked him to do the same. He did, and the case was reversed. In fact, he called the hunter and apologized for what he had been through. Clearly, in that case, there was no basis for what the agents had charged, and they had investigated nothing. There are many such occurrences that have been brought to my attention and I believe are obviously situations where conservation agents have far overstepped their bounds, and people whom they charged were unable to defend themselves because the cost of getting a lawyer far exceeded the fine. If those situations come to the knowledge of the public, the Missouri Department of Conservation will suffer in the public opinion. That is exactly what our goal as an organization is, to have a light shined on that organization and what it is doing. That includes very questionable uses of our money, in ways the public knows little about, from payments for an easement to the paying of real estate taxes for a select group of people. The list here, of what looks like a duck to many of us, could fill this entire page. Ripperger and I are discussing a reversal of what the MDC long insisted was a fundamental requirement of new hunters: the hunter safety courses that had to be taken and passed before a hunting license could be purchased. It is now easy to bypass that. As of this past hunting season any new hunter 16 or older can simply pay an extra $10 as long as they are going out with a licensed hunter. You could be a new hunter who never picked up a gun and couldn't load it without help, and be hunting in a few hours just by paying an extra $10. Ripperger argues it isn't just another money-making idea, that it is necessary to do this in order to keep new hunters entering the field. And so I asked, "Why not just give the by-pass card to the new hunter for free? Why charge for it?" He is now pondering that question, with many others we have for him. Finally, we have a voice the MDC is listening to. If you would like to join our new conservation movement, you may contact me at Common Sense Conservation, Box 22, Bolivar, MO 65613 or e-mail us at lightninridge@windstream.com. There is no membership fee. Larry Dablemont is an outdoor writer and photographer. He lives in Bolivar.

From Larry Dabblemonts Webpage. Thought some of us might want this information. Common Sense Conservationists WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH OUR GROUP, "COMMON SENSE CONSERVATIONISTS" IS TO BEGIN TO SHOW TO THOUSANDS OF MISSOURIANS JUST WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION, AND CAST A LIGHT OF TRUTH ON THEIR CONCEALED OPERATIONS, THE BELLIGERENCE AND ABUSE OF POWER BY MANY CONSERVATION AGENTS, AND THE HUGE AMOUNTS OF MISSPENT FUNDS WHICH WE ALL PROVIDE TO THEM THROUGH TAXES AND LICENSE FEES. I WANT TO DO MUCH OF THIS WITH A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, AN EIGHT PAGE NEWSPAPER, WHICH ALL MISSOURIANS CAN USE TO LEARN AND STAY INFORMED AND TO VOICE OPINIONS AND TELL WHAT THEY HAVE SEEN AND EXPERIENCED. AND I WILL USE IT TO TELL YOU OF THE ABUSIVE PRACTICES AND SPENDING AND CORRUPTION WHICH WE FIND IN THIS DEPARTMENT. It may sound like an ambitious project, but "Common Sense Conservation" will grow into an organization of thousands of Ozark country people, and perhaps in time thousands of Missourians from all areas, combining to turn around what has become a very corrupt and bureaucratic Missouri Department of Conservation. With it we can develop leaders and a voice to stand up for what is right. We are not out to destroy them, but to see them become once again, an agency devoted to the wise use of our natural resources in this state, and the preservation of our state-owned areas, the sustaining of forests and streams and of fish and wildlife, for hunters and fishermen and those who merely enjoy the species we do not consume. I am not just a hunter and fisherman, I love mature oak forests, and clean rivers, and song birds and all the wildlife species which I simply see and enjoy without a gun in my hand at all. I know there are millions of hunters and fishermen just like me in the Midwest. We have long used our money to preserve and protect, and we want to continue to do so. The Missouri Department of Conservation has forgotten the "conservation" part of their mandate, and much of the upper echelons are made up of individuals who grew up in city suburbs, and have little interest in anything but trying to benefit themselves from the tremendous amount of money the department now has. Not all of them are that way, and I know it. There are many who work for the MDC who are our allies. The department still has some good honest people, who want to see strides made to preserve and protect our wild places and wild creatures. Many of them have worked with me, while concealing their identity in order to keep their jobs, and they have vowed to keep helping us. I have learned much of what I know today which upsets me so much because old time employees of the MDC are so upset too, about what is happening. The reason this agency has become so corrupt and inefficient is because there is so much money, and they have been able to completely control the use of it, and hide the results of what they are doing. Right now, I can relate to you some situations in which conservation agents have been more or less running roughshod over people who have done nothing wrong. In the spring issue of my magazine, the Lightnin' Ridge Outdoor Journal, I will print an account of a half dozen cases involving agents which you will not believe. I can't write about all of those abuses in my regular outdoor newspaper columns because there is just too much of it for the space we have. We will begin to print some of those situations in this website in coming weeks, as we gather all the facts. As I point this out, remember that the Department wants to increase license fees because they do not have enough money. And remember to that interest they received on moneys they have in bank accounts amounted to about 3 million dollars in 2007 and 2008. You see what I mean when I talk about how they keep any light from falling on so much of what they do? We need you to join us as a member of "Common Sense Conservationists". No one is going to make money out of this organization we hope to form. And we need leaders who have nothing to gain but the hope to see things done right. Each community will have it's own leaders, who will be volunteers. We aren't asking for membership fees, or anyone to pay dues. We just need you to join us and show that there are thousands of us who are fed up, and want to create a change. If you have sat around and complained, you have done nothing. Come and join us, and be part of an effort to put an end to what has been happening with this agency so rich and powerful, they believe they can do anything they want and answer to no one. Think of the influence 10,000 of us can have on that agency if we demand a change, and refuse to buy licenses, and organize to pay fines of any of our members who are charged because of it. Our first meeting was at Mtn. Grove, MO, and we had about 250 people attending, and from it, signed up our first 300 members. We hope to be able to begin sending our members the newsletter in February sometime, and we solicit your views and experiences for that publication. We intend to set up similar meetings in Ava, Salem, Gainesville,Bolivar, Nevada, Joplin, Cassville, and Piedmont in the next month. Contact me if you would like to help set up a meeting in your area. Most people are not aware at the iron-clad hold the Missouri Department of Conservation has on the news media. Television stations go to them for one-sided information and newspapers constantly print the propaganda written by MDC experts on the outdoors who see to it that only what they want to see in print ever gets printed. The Springfield News Leader has a weekly outdoor page which is almost entirely controlled by the local Missouri Department of Conservation media specialist, Fran Skalicky. At one time Skalicky was an employee of the News Leader, a sports reporter. He uses his state office and is paid a state salary to spend much of his time donating exclusive free material to the News Leader, who in turn allows no dissenting views to be published concerning the MDC in that section. I was once a regular outdoor columnist for that newspaper, but when local ownership was ended and the paper taken over by the liberal New York Gannett organization, I was called by the new editor, a lady by the name of Kate Marymount, and told that I could no longer write anything critical of the MDC and that the content of all columns would have to be approved by her office. She said they would refuse to print columns which I wrote casting any negative light on policies or practices of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Shortly afterward, sports editor James Woods contacted me to tell me, with a great deal of profanity, that he wanted to see no more of my columns mentioning God in any way. Shortly afterward, I stopped writing the column at Mrs. Marymount's insistence, because I was not willing to accept those directives. Today I write an outdoor column for 27 different newspapers in Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas. But many of those papers are very hesitant to use much of what I write about the MDC because they are afraid of the consequences of pressure from that agency. As I post this, I am writing a letter to the present editor of the Springfield News Leader asking him to allow us one column per month to point out much of what is going on in the Department of Conservation, and to express the views of many of us out in the Ozarks who feel that the truth is not being told. I will offer that once-a-month column for no charge, and use it to give experiences of some of the folks who have experienced unwarranted abuse from Conservation Agents who are simply using their power to run over people who have no defense. Judges will not hear them without lawyers, and lawyers cost far more than the option of just paying a 100 to 200 dollar fine. If they will accept this once a month column, it will be used to express views from all of you who are joining me in this group which will come to be known as "Common Sense Conservationists". Please join us, and let others around you know of what we are doing. http://larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com...sts-what-i.html

Anywhere on the www that I could find one at a reasonalbe cost. My boat has the control unit just no transducer. Any help is appreicated as always.

I like the bass pro Micro Lite 6'6" http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/s...0002000_100-2-2 but they are usually not one piece. Occasionally you can find them on sale for $29. Regular price $45. There are more expensive rods out there and this is the one that Zig Jigs recommend http://zigjig.net/cf%20rods.htm , but be prepared to drop some dough. I myself don't like to invest in anything more than I am willing to lose to the river or lake and you'll have $60-$75 in nice equipment, or $200-$250 in top of the line.