jdmidwest

Its kinda like the Morel, you have a hard time growing it. It is one of them wild things that if you could grow it commercially, someone would have done it. I don't think it is grown commercially.

Just came back from a flyfishing only trip to Montauk with my daughter this weekend. It was excellent. Nice fly pattern.

Thats pretty handy, I bookmarked it also. I always just used the river gauges site and looked at the dam site location. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/rt

Serious? Braunschweiger because it taste like the liver they feed trout? I have done that with smoked salmon and it is great. Does the trout get firm enough?

Just getting struck at by a copperhead would kill the weak at heart. I know mine skips a few beats when I have a brush with one. But the adrenaline gets it beating again as I jump away.

Not much gravel skimming around the place, the DNR has stopped it in most of the county. The county road district was the only ones doing any major gravel operations that I can remember and it has been several years since they did it. They have been using crushed stone for the most part. There was a large clearcut 20 years ago up one branch and timber is being cut all up and down the system, but not any more than they were doing 50 years ago. As a whole, the timber stands are better. Row cropping has disappeared and it is mostly pasture or grown up fields along the way. I think the water table is dropping all along the watershed. The Castor is becoming the same way. What used to be a nice river is diminishing down to a creek. I don't really think the gravel is rising up higher, I just think there is less water.

I forget the colors. Artificial only from Baptist to Cedargrove, 1 fish 18' or longer in possession. From the low water bridge at Cedergrove to Akers is regular trout area, anything goes, 4 fish limit. From the Ferry down to Pulltite, few trout, water returns to Ozark Stream with bass and other species.

It was a nice cool day on Sunday so I decided to make some more splits and increase the hive count. I took frames out of a few of the hives at the house and made 3 nuc hives to increase my count at the house to 7. Things went well and I only suffered one sting to the forearm, I mashed one and it stung thru the suit. Off to the farm and I halved the other 2 hives that I had been meaning to split out there increasing the number to 5 there. The other one that I took out a few weeks before was doing well and working fine. I hosed the new location down with some roundup to kill the poison ivy that was sprouting up all around them. This spring has been pretty good for the bees, lots of blooming stuff and plenty of bees in the hives. The hives are full of bees and brood. They have even drawn out the honey supers and it looks like I will be making honey after all this summer. Probably 20 or 30 pounds if I am estimating right, a few gallons. Here are a few pics of the hives. Green is the color of the year, I picked up a gallon of good exterior latex paint for $5. It was in the mistint section and cheap enough. Anything looks better than a plain ole white box and it goes good with the cedar. I have started making simplier hives for production at the farm, they are hidden where you can't see them anyway. Quicker to build too and cheaper.

Little early for froggin, they don't open till June 30 at midnite.

Poo.

If the plants start turning colors and looking poor, pull them out to prevent disease from spreading to others. Probably not much you can really do, I am sure you have a mud pit now like everyone else with this rain event. Tromping around a muddy garden really compacts it if you have clay soil too. You can always replant, it is early and looks like plenty of moisture this year.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. The little creek I grew up on is now filled with gravel and almost fishless in its upper parts. The deep holes are not just ankle deep. There was never a superfund site nearby. In stream cattle watering and cattle farms have disappeared. So has the row cropping to the edge of the stream and there is a nice ripearian corridor along it. I really draw a blank as to what is causing it. When I was growing up, all of the things we blame today were happening to the creek and it was in good shape. Now it is just a trickle except in flash flood stage.

Nice thing about being retired, you can weed the garden in the cool morning instead of the heat of the afternoon like the peasants that have to work do.

Looking on the VA Game and Fish website, you have a redbreast that looks like our longear with the long gill flap. The color of the photos is somewhat muted. You can barely make out the blue. The barring in the top fish may have just been because it has been caught for a while. http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/fish/details.asp?fish=010180

Smallmouth could prosper again on the rivers if the competition from the introduced trout would go away. Sure, close to the dams would be too cold, but farther down the native smallmouth would gain ground again. They thrive in Canada in colder streams than the tailwaters of the White and Norfork. I went and toured the new Federal Conservation Center at Mammoth Springs Federal Hatchery this weekend. Pretty impressive display of taxpayer dollars spent. I especially like the mounted immature bald eagle that looked like it was involved in a stickup. His wings were held high in a surrender mode, poor taxidermy. Ground was broke in 2011 and completed this spring. It does not say what they spent on it, but would have kept other hatcheries going for a while I suspect. https://www.facebook.com/MammothSpringNFH The NFH needs to spend more on hatcheries and less on showcase buildings like this. Their websites tout how much revenue is generated in tourism and recreation dollars by stocking the fish. More fish mean a better economy. http://www.fws.gov/mammothspring/

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/longear-sunfish Ear flap gives it away.

Dang Billet, those deer are just nasty. Try mixing some antibiotic with that feed and some Ivermectin for the ticks and other crap that is on her. Maybe a little Frontline too.

I think that is for a higher end garden, not just a family plot. But if the free cheese is there, might as well make a stab for it. It is only tax payers dollars that pay for it.

Longear sunfish. Probably brighter when you first caught them.

Warm Fork of the Spring River is mostly in MO and joins below the dam at Mammoth. I have fished it around town and did ok, nothing spectacular. The South Fork in Ark. is a better river to fish. Bigger water, bigger fish.

Them there fishes should be good eating, with all of that nice clear moutain fresh water. They will probably taste like they were marinated in Coors Beer.

I have always wondered why they have not come up with a Frontline for humans yet. It can't be all that bad, most people take a higher regard to their pets than their own kids nowdays. If it does not hurt a pet, why not try it on a human? Ticks have been around for as long as I can remember. I used to get loaded with seed ticks during the summer when I was a kid. Mom would dab fingernail polish on them to smother them. Dad blames the horses for the ticks all around the farm now. We raised cows and pigs when I was a kid and did not notice the ticks on them. Pigs always had lice, cows had flies. Chiggers are something that have never been a problem to me. I did get some wade fishing one time, I must have hit a nest of them at knee high level. My knee started swelling and itching a few hours later, full of many tiny little red bumps with a red spot in center.

There has been that scare tactic before, I think it was the Clinton Administration. The Federal Cool Water Hatchery was shut down for a while in Mammoth by them. It is back up somewhat and there is a brand new multi million dollar visitor center there. The money is there, they just have to allocate it properly. They are repairing the dam at Spring River hatchery this summer so they can ramp back up to normal production. Maybe they will pick up the slack of the Feds if they shut down, The flood of 2009 damaged the dam and water flows to the hatchery. This renovation will help restore the flows and production. If trout stocking stops, maybe the streams will return to its world class status of a smallmouth fishery?

Used too, tick diseases were rare. Now I hear about several people getting something each year now it seems. Rocky Mountain, Lymes, and now the Heartland disease. And tick bites seem to fester up more now than before. I will have to try the Vicks.

I am already missing the freezing weather and cold. Hot humid days full of things that like to bite and pester. Buffalo gnats bloomed the last few weeks from all of the rain, there were times I wished I was wearing my bee gear when I was on the lake fishing. In my nose, ears, and mouth all day. They have been bad around the house also. Mosquitos have been hiding in my strawberries waiting for me to pick them. Swarms of them come buzzing out when I start picking. Deer flies have been nailing me too. A big horse fly nailed me on the back while I was replacing the battery in the mower tonight. Then the ticks. I was surprised that I was able to work the bees for a whole morning Monday at the farm without picking a few off of me. I switched to shorts, and was soon picking them off of me while helping Dad in the garden and just sitting outside watching the thunderstorms roll thru. Then last night something was itching and sure enough, there was a yearling chewing on me. Of course, there was a bee sting to the inner thigh, but that was my fault. Swelled up and itching all over.