jdmidwest

I have friends that target the white bass this time of year. They use inline spinners, silver blades and red feathers. Look for feeding schools with activity on the surface. Both lakes fish about the same I am told, but have no actual experience.

A friend of mine spent some time this year in the Isles of Man. They freaked out when he talked about concealed carry and building AR rifles. Not something they can do over there. One of the blessings we have and fight to keep.

Live, local, late breakin. A black bear came to town and got shot because he was about to bother some children. We were pulling out at the boat ramp at Perry County Lake this afternoon when we got the story from a local old timer. He said it weighed 400 lbs. Looks like KFVS shrank it down about half. http://www.kfvs12.com/story/29316511/caught-on-cam-black-bear-loose-in-perryville

I took a bee to the foot yesterday. Learned not to wear crocs and shorts for even a simple task around them. It is swelled up even more today.

Stealth bug

Lane Spring is an interesting little area, I used to fish it alot when I lived in the Park Hills. I never spent a day there, but would drive out and camp the night, then fish the next morning. After that, I would leave out to other areas or float a bigger stream. MDC used to stock it during the summer and there were even a few holdovers in the winter sometimes. But they have changed it since then, I think most of the trout are below the campground.

You just can't use spinners and jigs in the bait zone, they will ticket you for that too. But if you put a dab of bait on a spinner or jig, you are legal. Bennett is its own special critter, backwards from what I like to fish. I like fast moving water when I fish for trout, almost all of that is in the bait zone. The only place I really like is below the main bridge at the hatchery. I have caught many there on flies.

Probably some guy took a female out west and had her bread. Then came back to Ark and started a herd. One got loose and had some bad DNA. Bet they did not think about that.

Power bait is not typically used by catch and releasers, try fly fishing, you will catch more trout. Your ethics are there, but the agent has probably seen alot of dead trout nearby. Park trout are pretty weak and fragile. Some don't even survive an encounter with a barbless hook. Just stick them on the stringer till you get 4, go to the truck and change clothes and catch some more. That seems to work better in trout parks, those numbers on the tags are too small to read from afar.

I have seen the otters clean rivers out of frogs, snakes, and crayfish that have never been connected to any of the Lead Mines. But on a lighter note, I really am suprised that the sinkholes do not appear more. There are 100's of miles of mine shafts under about 5 counties in the area that are bound to break thru in the future. Water is a powerful force. There will probably be more of it in the future, no way of stopping it unless you fill the tunnels back up with cement. And we know that will never happen.

That poor feller is missing all of his crawdads, tadpoles, and snakes because of the dang otters. Blame the MDC, not the Doe Run Co.

Well, at least at the end, they stated it was all based on fossil finds, and a creation of latex and stage props. Someone only watching the first half hour would not have known any of that. 2 hours of fluff.

Main garden finally dried out enough to retill and replant. Replanted okra, cowpeas, and zucchini that failed to come up last time. The monsoon and cool weather causes a fail to germinate. Moved over to the sharecropper garden and tilled it up good. 2 and a half rows of corn failed to come up, probably due to the rain and it being the wet side of that garden. Replanted the corn and filled in the spots on the other rows that did not come up. We are several weeks behind here on most things due to the rain. Raised beds are doing good with the exception of the tomatoes, they are puny. Peppers, beans, cucs, lettuce, sugar peas, onions, spinach are all doing well in the raised beds. I am going to expand on them for next year and plant almost all of my veggies in them.

Facebook is the devil I have never met, don't care, don't need. I wish I could have the luxury of high speed internet, mine is a 4G Lte hotspot with a 5 Gb limit. You don't stream anything on it. I sometime bust the data limit posting a few pics on here or doing the monthly MS updates. Dish TV is a luxury, we have a simple package with no movie channels. But most of the crap requires a foreign language to understand, a credit card to buy the crap they are selling, or an interest in reality tv. I do like the military and American History channels. Comedy Central makes for some fun. FX has some good shows. But this show really takes the cake. I would have much rather seen the actual science behind this based on the fossilized finds. It would have been more realistic to me knowing how it really works. Walking with Dinosaurs was pretty good.

I want to go back in the dead of winter just to see what snow is really like sometime. I think I could have enjoyed my 2 trips just on the scenery and experience alone. It is a wonderful area.

Sunday TV is usually pretty lame, so tonight I decided to watch a little T Rex Autopsy on Nat Geo. Part of Dino Weekend, this is the grand finale. Smelling BS when they delivered it to the top secret facility under heavy armed guard. Assembled a team that actually scrubbed up to go in. Then they attack the fake mess of a fake dinosaur. How many people will start thinking that the government has actually found an intact dinosaur that looks like it died yesterday? I know that alot of what is being filmed was actually gleaned from a fossilized find, hard rock version. But what they are depicting makes it look like its a fresh, still warm corpse.

Some of the streams in the eastern part are actually working there way down to hard rock. The solid limestone beds will not eroded much further, so you get long expanses of flat, shallow stream bed. Until some flood event comes along to rip thru it, that is what we will have. But with most streams, as you float along you will notice bluffs. Many many years ago, water started eroding them, cutting thru them to form what we have today. Most streams carried much more water than they do today. I imagine, there was a time where Missouri was flooded with ice water from glaciers and rains like we have never known. Those carved and scoured what we see today. And they created all of those old gravel beds too. During the age of the dinosaurs and long before, we were just a shallow sea. We had volcanic activity. We had great marshy areas. The St. Francois granites are evidence of the volcanic activity. The limestone bluffs are uplifts of a great seabed deposit. Coal fields are the ancient marshy area. Missouri has changed alot over time, I assume it will continue until the sun goes red giant and devours us.

That could be some fun on a fly rod with a purple woolie. I will tell my buddy that lives around the block. He is looking for something to do this weekend.

I always use a weed bed, log, or a rock to anchor to when fishing out of a yak. I usually fish out of a sit on top, so I can hang a foot over pretty easy. Weed beds, or moss works good to slow you down or even stop if the current is not strong. Many times, I will get out and wade runs before I blast thru with the boat. Not much difference from fishing from a canoe for the most part. Like Al says, let the water work for you. Eddies are good, as long as you take a shot at them before you park in them. They will hold fish. So will the weed beds. Watch for snakes in weeds.

What were they stocking?

For best results, run a dedicated grounded white wire to each light, don't rely on the ball of the trailer to ground the lights for you.

I always put the oil in at the house where I can measure it and put the gas in at the pump. The remaining drive to the water does a good job mixing it up. About the trolling motor, I doubt you will notice a difference in 2 lbs of thrust. But the upgraded newer motor and electronics will probably be better on your batteries.

Thanks guys. It has been a tough few weeks. I got the news he was failing while camping at Spring River 2 weeks ago. I went to see him for the last time on the way home and visited with him a while. He knew who I was, but was pretty confused. I was there when they told the doctor not to do anything out of the ordinary to try and save him. He had a stroke over a year ago that weakened him, and had a few more during that time. That was what finally did him in. He was 85. We shared alot of things in common, he was a fly tyer, a hunter, a reloader, gun collector, knife maker, and loved fishing the rivers. Even though he was some 30 years my senior, we were as close as any of my other good friends. I have lost many of my family in my life, aunts and uncles, grandparents, but this is the first really good friend.

Odd combination of colors. White is usually ground on trailer lights. Play with the lights and see what you can get. Brown is common for tail lights, yellow and green is for signal, white is for ground on the wires if I remember right.

Many moons ago, my cousin introduced me to one of his classmates. We later became room mates in college years and fished together every chance we got. He was the one that introduced me to trout and the 11 Pt. River. He taught me the fine art of topwater and more about bass fishing than I had known before. He had a fine teacher. When he left off to Med School, he asked me to take his Dad fishing some. All the sons were away from town and Richard needed someone to fish with. We hit it off too and spent many summers fishing the waters and streams of SE MO. Almost all of the time was spent in a canoe, in which he was a master. Thousands of miles were logged without a tipover, Richard in the back all of the time. You could not get him to give up control of the boat or the back, it was his spot, and he knew it well. The sons returned in a few years, and many trips were spent as a group. I got to know his other two brothers pretty good, as well as the families. We became a close knit group. Then Richard's health started failing, and the boys said to stop taking him on long trips. We still had a few deer hunts together, but the fishing time alone came to an end. I got the text Wed, Dad died, was all it said. I carried Richard to his final resting place in the woods yesterday on a ridge overlooking the Black River. The final words at the gravesite from the preacher. Richard and God are in a canoe. God says to Richard, "So That is How to Catch a Fish". Richard says to God, "Whatever you do, Don't Cast Behind The Boat". Everything will be fine.