jdmidwest

Holy crap, temps in upper 30's tonight around here. When is this weather ever going to straighten out? I am picking about 3 quarts of strawberry each day, but tossing several more due to excess moisture in the beds. Lettuce is growing crazy, spinach too. Snow peas are chest hi and putting on pods. Tomatoes are trying. Pole beans are climbing poles and cucumbers are growing. We need some sunshine, warm temps, and dry weather for a week. I don't even think it made it above the 50's here today.

Memorial Day weekend, you probably won't even get your feet wet wading. Just hop from canoe to canoe on the Huzzah or several other streams in the area. Grab a topo map and scout out some skinny water to fish.

Did you reset all to defaults in the setup menu? If you reset, there will be a question regarding deep water or something, if you answer it correctly, you will get the shallow depths back. Looking at the screen, it is showing depths of 400 ft., I doubt you will encounter that around MO. I don't think you hurt the transducer, I think the instruction for mounting show how to mount it inside the hull, dry. I only know this because I just bought an Elite 4 from an outlet store that sells BPS returns for $20 over the weekend. The cable looked like a dog bit it, but all the rest looked like new. Sealed the cable and hit the power to it. Loaded up and started working, but the depth was showing 60'. Scrolled thru menus and found the reset to default, answered the setup questions, and all worked. GPS locked in and works. I bought a Mark 4 DSI a few years ago on sale. I like the down scan and being able to see the structure, but I missed the fish arches. The Elite 4 shows arches and has an old traditional sonar. I notice the newer units have both the down scan and the older type sonar that shows fish arches. Both units give me good coverage now, I have one transducer in the back of the boat and another on the front off of the trolling motor.

I agree with Brian, the trout compete with smallies on the 11 Point for food and have crowded them out. Same goes on the Spring River in Arkansas. They feed on the same minnows and crawfish for the most part. Trout numbers are artificially increased vs natural reproduction in smallies. Smallies lose. And so do other native species like the pickeral and walleye to some extent. Most Ozarks streams were Prime Smallmouth streams originally before introduction of non native trout of any species. All trout in MO have been introduced, not just the Browns. Maybe before or near the last Ice Age, trout may have inhabited our streams naturally. But in the current time, all current trout strains have been brought in on a train from either the east or west coast and stocked, or some other man made form. The big dams changed the water temps below them and smallies moved out of those areas because the water was colder than what they thrive in. Spring fed rivers are close enough to optimal temps for smallies, they have existed in those long before trout were introduced.

You spelled WoW wrong, or maybe you did it in a mirror.

Ticks and snakes are tops on my list. I saw a photo of a nice little 81" rattler out by the Castor River yesterday. Neighbor killed a 34" copperhead next door and another one about 8". That means a breeder has dumped her offspring next to me. I have warned the better half to watch closely in the strawberry patches, a known hideout for the copperheads. Ticks have been bad already this year. And they are finding all kinds of new tick diseases. I had a tick stay on long enough during turkey season that started to turn clear. I found a yearling this morning that had munched in a few places on my leg leaving red marks along the way. I can hardly wait for a mess of seed ticks. BTW, poor kitty. It's a shame there are no mountain lions in MO.

Buy a test kit and see what the soil actually needs. Some fertilizers just make green leaves and do not help the plant bear fruit.

Around 75 and 76, I was slaughtering the white bass on the St Francois River near the Old Greenville access with my great Uncle Bo. He lived in St Louis and came down on weekends to our farm where he had a trailer. He had an old 14' jon boat with a 25 hp Johnson that would only run when it wanted. No seats, just the hard aluminum. I would either dig the nightcrawlers or trap minnows during the week waiting for him to come down. Most of the time we would catch a mess of Drum or White Bass and filet them out. If it was a drum, we would shuck the rocks out of its head and toss them in a jar. We had a collection of them, each one had the L shape on them, he called them "lady luck. Auntie would cook them down and make fish cakes for us to eat fishing or for supper. For kicks, we would head down to the dam and fish the spillway for a pot luck fishing trip. Carp, buffalo, crappie, bass, white bass, or drum would be the one on the hook. For fun, we would toss minnows and catch gar. Those were the days, good days I miss.

I sit my daughter in front of the TV and made her watch fishing and hunting shows from the get go. She was happy and content sitting there in her little bassinet seat. Her mother pushed her up to the bank and she watched from the stroller as I flyfished for trout. She grew up fine. She fishes and hunts. Loves to camp. Can shoot a gun really well. Her favorite thing to do is flyfish with me. Never too young to start.

I thought humor was the point.

The Ned Rig is there, it is buried deep in his gullet giving him indigestion and you can't see it..... If he had hit the Ned Rig, he would be in a frying pan.......

Spring is here and it is time to split the hives. Pretty easy, take some frames with eggs, brood, and honey, put them in a new box and let them make a new queen. I split the hives at the house on the first weekend of May. I made 5 new hives there. Weekends have been stormy, so I took the morning off work today to do the hives at the farm. I moved one hive out to the garden apairy from the front yard. I then split the other hive in the front yard and packed it out to the garden. 2 more splits in the garden and I thought I was done for the morning. Walked back around to the front of the yard and ran into a swarm of bees in a bush. Looks like the first hive I worked decided to swarm, the queen left with a nice big wad of bees. Packed another hive to the garden. I grabbed a bucket and shook the wad of bees on the limb off into it. Packed them around and dumped them into a new hive. I watched them all walk in nice and calm. 2 more trips to the front yard and dumped more bees that had recollected on the limb. The queen had left pheremones on the limb that was attracting the workers back to the limb. It was my first swarm, and I was really suprised how calm the bees were. It was a big wad of bees as you can see in the pic, about the size of a soccer ball. All works well, I have 19 hives now between the 2 locations. When the flow calms down in late June, I will make a few more splits to get to my 25.

Calling for chance of rain every day after Thurs till next week. I am heading to Spring River this weekend and will just tough it out. Big rain came in over weekend and all full in Se Mo.

Why did you sauce the rib? A good rib is a dry rib. Easier on the whiskers too.

I have a friend at a local electric company that sells off the ones they replace.... The make good deck supports.

I had a plan about 20 years ago for the farm. We have a marginal area of about 30 acres that I wanted to plant in walnut trees. Dad had a cow. My dad hates walnuts, first tree to drop leaves in fall, last tree to leave out in the spring, Then there are the walnut hulls. Our houseplace at the farm is surrounded by walnuts for some reason I still have not found out why. I made spending money when I was a kid cracking and shelling walnuts for my grandpa's store. My other grandpa died of a stroke or massive heart attack one night in his sleep after picking walnuts at the farm that day. I love the color and grain of walnut wood and like working with it. I would rather pick walnuts and hull them than drive over a mess of acorns all day long. And the hulls make a good irritant to get worms to come to the top. Nowdays, you just have to pick them up and take them to a buyer and not have to mess with the rest. They are a money making tree. If it were not so heavy and dense, I would make a beehives out of it. I am tempted to make one anyway for show. I would have the local mill saw me a board or two.

What kind of reel is that? Looks like an old Herter's.

Always buy 2, just in case you like it and it fails, you will have a backup.

I wouldn't, something is wrong with the river and fish are gone. But some posts say there are lots of big fish there. Go. It is a nice float, plenty of cool clear water. They even found a shark at the K bridge once.

Plenty o skunks. Coons will rob you blind too if you don't secure the cooler. Dang thing about the campground, dogs are allowed. Bunches of city dogs that bark at other dogs, owls, strange noises, and skunks. Some get nailed, you can smell it the next morning. If something is scratching at your tent, don't bother to get up and look. It is either a skunk, coon, or armadillo. I always make it a habit to dump some food garbage a few sites over from mine in the woods, keeps the critters away.

I have one of those drawing dust in the shed. I used to use it in the popup when I was camping as a fridge. It worked well when I had 110 available and an inverter. I could put stuff in it and not worry about it floating around in water. I left it plugged into the truck one day and it sucked the life out of my battery. I had to wait for a jump.

They did it the old fashion way. Like they did in the old days before the net. And gas was less than a dollar a gallon.

Funny thing the way laws are written. I can drive to Arkansas, catch 5 trout, put them in a cooler. Then I can stop in MO and catch 4 more legally. But, if I get checked with 5 trout in a cooler in a parking lot with 4 more on a stringer, I will be breaking a law. The 5 in the cooler are perfectly legal, but since they are near a stream with a lesser limit in another state, they are illegal, by the letter of the law. It happened many times in the past, I would travel to Spring River and catch my limit. Arkansas has always been one more trout than MO. On the return trip, I would stop in on the 11 PT and fish MO waters. Many times I would catch more trout and keep a few. I never ran across a warden, but I asked one if I was in violation. He said, yes and no. The violation was if I left the cooler in the truck in the parking lot. If I dump the cooler off before I park and fish, I would be fine.

Jade Helm. Do you actually think a soldier would fire on an American Citizen? Law enforcer maybe, but not a soldier. They fight and die for what we believe in.

I read your post last night and run across this in the Camping World catalog I received Thurs. Does not have Blue Tooth or Blue Ray. But it has NOAA stations that are always more important to me on a camping trip. http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/jensen-wall-mount-dvd-radio-with-hdmi/57178 Then I looked on their website and found a few more. http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/jensen-am-fm-dvd-cd-usb-bluetooth-stereo/68990 Otherwise, run down to an RV dealer and see what they have to offer.