jdmidwest

Crap or Carp?

They are good out of cold water. Meat is actually a little tough/chewy but good blackened on the grill. I keep some out of the TN River and have ate many out of the St. Francois.

SSSHHHH! The eclipse made it jump over 30 cents a couple of weeks ago in St. Louis in one day. A good ole Hurricane may make it go back to $4 a gallon. I am sure the oil and gas supplies are secure. May have to shut down for a day or so, but will still be there when the storm leaves.

I second the model paint, I have been using orange on my front sites for years. I picked up a large can of orange gloss enamel a few years back and paint lures with it too.

I can easily make it an all day float in that stretch. Get out and wade the runs. Paddle up from ramp and fish that area well too at Greer. I can also make a pretty good trip out of Turner to Whitten too. River is flowing good this summer, you will be floating fast if you stay in boat the whole trip.

You are welcome. You should bounce back just fine.

Keep chuggin along.

I did the grand slam last week also, but instead of a brown trout, I caught Pickerel instead. No Brown Trout in the stream I fished.

After a long dry spell of Treatments and Recovery, fishing has finally started coming my way. Week 4 after last treatment, I took the boat out and fished local lakes for a few hours at a time for a couple of days. Nothing spectacular, fishing really sucked in the hot weather. Last Tuesday at the start of week 5, we left out on a 3 day adventure to the lower Current River and Eleven Point. First stop was on the Current River and 3 or 4 hours of fishing brought about 24 bass to hand including the best one of the trip for me at 19", a nice fat smallie on a Rapala floating bait. Top water and slightly under surface was the best bite that morning. Off to Eleven Point, launched the boat and motored up from Riverton to Whitten and then fished our way back. We were amazed at the power of the flood and the changes made to the river. Many new holes and channels. Trees in the water and chutes. New gravel bars. It seemed like at the end of every hole, the water pushed out a new straight line path. Its really hard to describe, it was like a straight line wind up rooting trees and leaving smaller ones bent over. The bottoms were opened up and underbrush gone in some areas. But the river overall was in great shape for the late July season, running about a foot higher than normal this time of year. Fishing was good on this stretch, we boated about 30 trout ranging from stocker size to 17". My best trout was a solid 19" to 20" trout that I had up to the boat but lost it when it wrapped around the anchor bell and got off waiting for the landing net. Wednesday, we put in at Whitten and motored up to Turners Mill and fished down. Fishing was slow in that section, but still caught 20 fish that morning. That section of the river was damaged about as much as the other from the flood. It was hard to recognize some of the areas of the river from past experiences. That afternoon, we dropped the boat back in and drifted down river and fished for smallies. Fishing was great that afternoon, we ended up boating around 30 some bass before we headed for camp along with pickerel and a lone drum. Just like on Tues, topwater Rapalas were the lure of the day. We hit a nice big log with the boat on the run back and had to limp it back at about 1/2 throttle. That ended the 3 day trip a little short. The sores in my mouth have broke out again making speech and food painful. I have been told to expect this for another month. Strength has improved. I have started to gain back some of the 40 lbs I lost during the treatment and weeks following in recovery. Lucky the sun does not seem to bother me, or the heat. My skin held up well to the radiation, it tanned and did not burn or make sores like it does most. Taste is starting to come back, I can taste sweet and salt for the first time in 2 months. Eating meat and bread is a chore with the dry mouth. Acidic foods burn like fire on the tongue, cheeks, and gum line. Life is surely getting better, slowly.

Plastic weld should work. It is an epoxy type stick you mash together to make a putty. Then fill the hole with the putty and let it harden. About 5 bucks at hardware or Autozone. I keep a Water weld stick in the jet boat bag in case of a tear on the river. Works same way but hardens in water.

The Orvis Rock Mountain was produced in the late 80's at their mid grade rod. It carried the 25 year warranty and had a medium action. Good rods, never owned one. I started with Orvis at about the same time the rod series was phased out in early 1990.

Good luck with that list, pretty intensive. Better than watching the Gunsmoke series from black and white to the last full color ones like I did. The only thing I learned was I sure don't want to go thru this again. Week 4 after the last radiation is better. Able to get out and around again and feel like myself again. Working some now from home bidding jobs. Got the boat ready and going out in the morning for the first time 9 weeks. Taking care of the garden and yard work. Going to fight the bees next week for the honey crop. Several trips planned before I go back to work full time in August after being out for 4 months.

For some reason, when I think about Dale Hollow, dreams of big smallies always come to mind.

Picnic bench, OK. Not parking lot, beach, or off road area. Campsite OK. Driving down the park road, better keep it down. At least MO changed the name, address of person to just the unique Conservation Id Number. You still need date, species, and head count.

Enjoy it while you can, its been 9 weeks since my last fishing trip. And I only did radiation. I have been done with my 7 week treatment for 2 1/2 weeks now and just starting to build up steam again. I dropped over 30 lbs starting at 163. Food still only goes in with some kind of numbing medicine applied first. Mouth burns are healing finally. Starting the second week with the radiation, you will feel tired and not want to do much. You will lose taste and burns in mouth will make even liquid hard to take by the 3rd week. By the end of it, you will be sleeping more of the day than you will be awake. The radiation will continue to drag you down for about 3 weeks after your last treatment before you start to feel better. I had the radiation to the tongue and right neck. It really burned the mouth, to the point I could not talk much or swallow. I kept the white lotion they give you on my skin regularly and did not get the burns on the outside. It took the facial hair off and raised my hairline on the back of the neck. I have a permanent tan now on that side. It whacked my right shoulder pretty good, it bothers me. I have a feeling it will affect casting and shooting rifles for some time in the future. But is better than the alternative. I saw so many that were in worse shape than me getting treatments. I still feel I got off lucky with minimal damage.

Nobody is against normal enforcement. Shotgun methods like a checkpoint are just a lazy way for them to do their job. Had the same officers roamed the park with the same amount of dedication and effort, I am sure they could have doubled the amount of tickets. Probably more effective too. If they had made a public display of dealing with violators on the stream bank, it may make more think twice. At the checkpoint, only people driving thru would be affected. There would still be game poachers on the stream banks that did not know what was going on, and still violating the law. I agree with most, checkpoints are a waste of time and effort and only seem to piss law abiding citizens off as harassment.

MDC Officers are trained to enforce all the laws of the state, not just game laws. They are used on multiple scenarios because they operate on a totally different set of rules on search and seizure. Most law enforcement have to have Probably Cause to Search and find evidence, search can be refused until a warrant arrives. MDC Game officers are operating on a Seek And Charge search pattern. They do not need probable cause to search you or a warrant, you are to surrender to them everything since you signed that little piece of paper called a license. Signing the license gives them permission to validate their search because you gave them permission per the game code rule book. Anything else found in the search is fair game, drugs, alcohol, illegal anything else. They carry more power than any other form of law enforcement.

How do you get a ticket for fishing without a license in a car on the side of the road?

You would have thought all those "roaming" mountain lions would have done that job. Maybe the Elk pop exploded.

Dam, MDC have imported Mountain Goats into the 11 Pt Wilderness. What will they do next?

The snaps are for holding the posts in place when you are running under power. Snapless post are for secondary seating while fishing. Theory being, snapped poles would not jump out if you hit a bump and cause injury to passenger. I use the snapless poles for the front and back, snapped poles for the running passenger seat. I have found they hold pretty well with just the friction and never had one pop out.

They don't get that big sipping bugs. It takes meat to feed a body of that size.

You are right, the competition for food is greater and you will see more trout feeding in the daylight. They dump in 8000 small Brown Trout each spring in the upper 8 mile stretch and the same thing happens, more competition for food. But, predators and poachers do a number on them and things resume back to normal pretty soon Even catch and release has its mortality rates. The larger trout come out to feed at night and I am sure there are trout there still big enough to feed on stockers. There always has been. But you seldom see them except in the Fall during the spawn.

I doubt insect populations will suffer any more than normal. You have to remember that the ecosystem was designed for zero trout and has adapted well over the last 100 years the trout have been there.

Don't worry, enough will be taken out of there by poachers when they find out they are there. No need to change regs.