Quillback

Sometimes I think of doing the DNA thing, but I like the family stories that might all be false. Had a great-great grandmother that was supposedly Cherokee that left her husband and ended up in a St. Louis hotel room where she shot herself. Had another ancestor that was in an Indiana regiment during the Civil War, was captured and sent to Andersonville. While there, it looked like he had died and they put him on a cart to haul him off to be buried, but supposedly he wiggled a toe, and was eventually nursed back to health. One of my great-great grandmas on my dad's side immigrated to Kansas from Ohio in a wagon train, she was 6 years old at the time, she had to walk as there wasn't room in the wagon. As an adult she was short and skinny and blamed it on having to walk from Ohio to Kansas. Based on family names, German, Irish, English and Scots are all in my genes.

Thought the same thing. AGFC had aTV show, it kind of comes and goes, but one show I watched a few years ago they were literally fishing for frogs. Bullfrogs are a problem at fish farms and they have to control their numbers, so on this show, they rigged up a pickup truck with a board hanging off the side like a diving board. They would slowly drive down the berms around the fish ponds and there'd be a guy sitting on the end of the board and he would be hanging just about over the bank. He'd see a frog and dangle a fly over it using a fly rod and those frogs would fall for it and end up as frog legs.

I made it this morning to Big M without being attacked by any critters so things were off to a good start. There was a decent Ned Rig bite today, cloudy day, not much wind - this is the kind of day that usually works well for me fishing a Ned this time of year. I caught 21 on the Ned, 5 keepers, one was a decent meanmouth. Couple of them were smallmouth and one 12 inch largemouth, the rest were los spottos. Had some retention issues today, lost 6-8 that were halfway to the boat that got off. Most fish were in 10-20 FOW, around primary or secondary rocky points. Having some trees on the points helped. Fished a 1/8 oz head with a cut Zinker. Slow drag on the bottom. WT 51

That is one healthy brown!

Good pink salmon! It is tough to get them with that coloration, once they hit fresh water they get ugly fast.

You got me with that one. ^^^

I bet a diorama with a bunch of bream would be pretty neat. 😉

Yeah Daryk, I think this one is pretty cool myself. But hate to say it as my sanity will be judged. 😀 I've seen some pretty good replica smallmouth mounts too, takes a good taxidermist with an artistic streak to do them well. I've always thought largemouth were boring, I love to catch them, but they're all kind of the same as far as appearance. I'm not going to question anyone's sanity or financial condition if they get one though.

Cool, I'm sure you'll be glad to be back out on the water!

Yeah, always been a fan of a suspenders myself, especially when the water is mid winter cold and the fish lethargic. But this slow sink deal gets bites, so I look at it as another tool in the toolbox.

The ones I have used did sink slowly. I'm thinking a foot in 5 seconds or so. That's an estimate.

I'm going to have one tied on next time out. I had a couple of good days on them in early spring on Table Rock this year, but haven't thrown them this time of year yet. I need the weather to get a little more cooperative so I can get out more. Way too windy for me today.

I like those Stunnas.

Well the date is November 30, but it sure seemed like January. Didn't launch until 10 AM and I waited for it to get above freezing. Nice north wind blowing to boot. Sunny, north wind, and cold, I knew I'd have to work for my fish. I fished until 4 PM, mostly threw crankbaits, caught 3 17-18 inch smallies, a 16.5 inch spot and a few sub-legal bass. Not many bites, but some good bites. Tried a new to me crankbait today, a Berkley "Money Badger". I threw the 1/4 oz size (on a spinning rod), even though it is a small crank, it gets down to 7-8 feet on the retrieve. I like it and plan on throwing it more in the future. Did catch one on a Rock Crawler also. Didn't throw the Ned much as it was too windy for me to enjoy fishing it - but I did catch one nice spotted bass on it in a place that was out of the wind. Lost one of my Money Badgers to a largemouth. It wrapped me on a tree, tried to get it to swim back the way it came, but it went the other way and got off - might have taken the lure as I could not find it. It was a decent fish. WT 53

Can't say I've ever been lost, but I have gotten a long ways away from the truck a time or two.

It's a 2-way street, I have learned some things from Dutch too. Some days one guy gets more than the other, sure doesn't mean I am a better fisherman than anyone. As a matter of fact, when we went a week or so ago, Dutch caught quite a few more than I did. I learned somethings about fishing that full Zinker from watching him.

Fished with Dutch today, we mainly threw the Ned and a full Zinker on some Shroom heads with EWG hooks that Dutch makes, and which he generously gave me a good supply of them. We had to hunt for fish, couldn't find any loaded banks, a one here and two there kind of day. We had somewhere around 25 bass and a couple of short wallies. Most of our bass were spots, and three of them were keepers. The spots are getting that winter time fat look to them and are pulling pretty good, lots of fun on light tackle. Fish were in the 10-25 foot range, cove mouths with trees and steep chunk rock banks. WT 53.

We've got UA athletes doing some TV commercials here locally. I'm sure that the first thing top level recruits ask these days is how much NIL money will I get if I come to your school. There's just too much money to be made in college sports, can't blame the players for wanting a piece of the pie. Scray thing is there's no salary cap like you have in the pros, no limits on what a school can throw at a kid. And now that the genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting it back.

Coach Muss can recruit, he also snagged ex-Mizzou player Trevon Brazile - talk about long and athletic! I'll be happy to see a good Mizzou hoops team too, lot more fun to watch the games when the competition is tough. Speaking of tough, SEC hoops this year has some good teams, good to see it as I was tried of the scene a few years ago when Kentucky was head and shoulders above the rest of the conference.

There's no cheating in cooking.

All things considered, AR playing KU in Memphis is a good bowl for them. MI beating OSU, LSU loses, I wonder if they'll move USC into the top 4? Time to move on to Hawgs hoops. They have a great team, inexperienced, but super athletic with some real talent. They can be a Final Four team.

It is hard to believe the Hawgs were at one time ranked #10. Defense was absent yesterday.

Nice variety of fish!

That mound right across the driveway to the right - looks like a perfect place to put in a putting green.

Going to start getting bird ready for the oven shortly. Happy Thanksgiving!