jdmidwest

At least he saved the collars, those are getting pretty pricey these days.

I personally would not buy a kayak less than 12' for fishing or anything else other than paddling a fast stream. The 12' length tracks better, has more room, is stable, and turns ok. I have 2 12' yaks and love them, sold a 13'8" because it was too long on small streams, and have used 10' yaks and do not like them.

IF you read the article, there are a few oddities about it. How does a single beagle hem up deer and run them in circles? Do y'all have places that a 10" beagle can hem up a herd of deer? Also note the fact that he pulled the owner after 3 trips through the park. Is there any legal hunting season for beagles in Ark. on Feb 27? Our rabbit season was over on the 15th. I really do not take anything I read in the paper to heart. Does any one know the real story?

Exactly. It was $12 a night to pitch a tent last year, probably higher this year. Plus the additional fee if you reserve ahead of time. Of course, there are only about 10 first come, first serve primitive sites, so you really need to reserve for a weekend of camping. I have been going up on Sunday and camping that night, so the pressure is not that great. You can camp outside of the park at a Privately run venue for the same $7 or $8 bucks a night per tent. Now add the extra buck to the daily tag for the park to use their parking lots? To spend money at the Park store, sit on a park bench we have already paid for? Come on. I

The land is already bought and paid for, no expense there. A little money here and there for a minimal staff, mowing, trash service, etc. What else could they need? Spending alot of money on a Fish Grinder, Offices, Garages, etc could be put on hold till the economy turns around in 3 years. Face the facts, all Government Run Entities waste money because they don't have to earn it. If they need more, they raise taxes and fees.

The spot I spaded up last week dried out fine this week. It still froze and thawed, but crumbled nicely yesterday. Temps should hit the 50's this week and lettuce should germinate. I know some that have lettuce sowed on Valentines day. I always buy my plants at a local shop, don't have the time or space to start them at the house. I will probably turn over the garden to help it dry out this week.

2 Nice weekends in a row and I just had to get the garden going. Last year was miserable, cold, wet, hot, cold, wet, etc. My garden was worthless last year. Too cool and wet for okra and peppers. Squash did well. Lettuce crapped out, kept getting beat down with the rains. I have the strawberry beds cleared off. Last weekend I spaded up a lettuce patch and planted it today. Cut back some trees to kill the shade. Did a soil test today to see what the garden needs this year. I need to add Sulpher, sand, compost to fix the soil back to good again. Days are getting longer, will start to have time after work to get a few things done. Thinking about building a hot box to speed the lettuce along.

The questions seem to revolve around raising fees on everything and charging fees for things that are free now. Boat launch fees, cutting trash service, adding a fee to the trout tag to raise money for the park, etc. My thoughts on the matter and I made use of the blank box. It is a tough economy, everybody is making due with less and adjusting accordingly, so should they. Instead of needing more money, they should cut back and tighten up the belt. I certainly do not have any money to give them. I don't feel that I should pay to use public land that has already been purchased with my tax dollars. They continue to get 1/10 of one percent of sales tax dollars to maintain them, which should be sufficient. If sales tax dollars are down, they should operate on the funds saved up when sales taxes were in surplus. But no, they tend to spend every dime, and not save. The MDC had the same problem, attempted to raise license fees, and we revolted. They listened and kept fees the same. Amazingly, the cutbacks and closures that they said would happen have not taken place. Was it a bluff? Take the survey and speak your mind, keep our State Park System free and affordable.

I really don't want to be a jerk here, but he enforced the law and put a stop to the problem. Granted he could have caught and held the dog, but the dog was apparently causing a problem and the owner was not in control of his animal. The owner is at fault here. Having raised and used hunting dogs, one that runs deer is pretty well worthless for anything than running deer. If they start running deer and are not punished for it, then they have to be dealt with. As a dog owner or any owner of any kind of livestock, you are required to be responsible for your animals. If one of my horses gets out and gets hit by a car, who do you think will have to pay for it? As far as the goat, look at the problem we are having with feral pigs here. All because someone let a few loose. I don't know the whole story with the goat, but people release unwanted livestock all of the time into the wild. Unfortunately, the story may not be the whole truth. Newspapers tend to slant things to sell papers. There is probably more than what was reported.

MO DNR is hosting a online survey till March 11 gathering opinions about State Parks. You can fill in the blank at the end with your own thoughts. Here is the link State Park Survey

Interesting article in the local papers today about backyard chickens. Seems like they are causing a stir in the local towns. Nothing like fresh eggs and a little grilled yardbird as far as I am concerned. I did not know that they made Diapers for Chickens. Gotta Love the Net. Backyard Chickens

The dog was running deer and out of control of its owner, 2 faults. What is the problem? Is there more to the story than what I read? Seems like the officer was in his rights to protect the park land.

Got a call today from a friend, said they saw me on TV. Apparently there was a show on TruTV that documented the party on Spring River last summer. The part filmed at Riverside in July caught me standing on the bank watching the festivities. We all had a little Brown Bottle Flu that morning and were waiting for the rain to roll thru when AF&G agents come rolling in from every where. They launched a big River Boat and pushed it upstream. They all set up in the middle of the camp out in the river on a gravel bar and started checking floaters as they passed thru. It was fun to watch. We knew several of the agents, so we went down to watch. It livened up a cool, rainy, dull Saturday morning. There were lots of violations, bottles, floatation devices, and underage possession were all we saw. No game violations or drugs while we were watching. Most were issued warnings or tickets. They had 2 undercover agents in kayaks positioned above the falls at the end of Bayou Access to make sure nobody turned around and tried to get away. Other parts of the show were filmed later in the year, downstream.

While nymphing, I usually use Orvis braided leaders or a leader I make myself out of braided material. The extra thickness holds it in place. When I use tapered mono leaders, the indicator is above the tippet/leader knot and it usually stays there. I only use the setup in shallow runs and clear water where a larger indicator will take attention away from the small fly I am fishing. It does not carry much weight without sinking since I only use a section about 1 1/2". Unless I streamer fish or dead drift, the only portion below the water surface is tippet on all my nymphing setups. I typically lean to a medium 4 or 5 wt rod like the Orvis HLS, Superfine (Old and New Series), or Zero Gravity. I only used the rubber band ones in Alaska when I was using bigger flies and rods, and they tended to walk around. Locally, I never use more than a palsa float, or a small foam bobber with a toothpick.

Hey, I resemble that remark. Us "oldtimers" buy a cheap level 8 wt Orange fly line of the cheap variety in the bargain bin, use our nippers, and strip the plastic part off the fiber core, thread the plastic floating part on the leader, and use it when we need to "Finesse" a trout with a size 18 or smaller nymph. You don't even have to split it, just thread it on a braided leader or tapered leader and it is pretty well adjustable the entire length. Old worn out lines do not usually float that good.

There is a company I did some work for near here in Brewer MO. called Frac Tech. They mine sandstone out of the property and crush it into sand. It is one of the components that they inject into the structure along with water and pressure. There is something else they add to make it flow better. Side effects are usually groundwater disappearing, site disturbance, and sinkholes. It is a cost prohibitive process, I would think with oil prices low it would be idle right now.

I use the pinch on foam floats in Chartreuse. It does not spook them, actually have several strike the float. In spring streams I think they better resemble duckweed that floats down the stream. It contrasts better with Amber Polarized glasses than orange or white. I bought some of the 1/2" flour orange Thingamabobbers at Reed's Cabins last fall outside of Montauk. I have not tried them, still laying here on my bench. They come in white, pale yellow and red I think. Westwater Products

I took the pistols out for some range time yesterday. The 22a tuned in and made tight groups at 25 Yards. It was fun to shoot and balanced better than the Ruger 22/45 it replaced. The 6906 shot well too, I just need to make the front sight a little more visible. I carried the 6906 all day yesterday, it was light and comfortable.

GRRR! I could loan you a PC Can't help you on a MAC. Don't you have access to a PC? ACDSee has a Mac version and works with images and movies. It supports several formats and works the same way.

Faststone image viewer lets you create a slide show and add music to play while the show runs. You just select the pics, select the music, in your case the narrative, tweak how you want the show and you are done. I don't know if the narrative would be in time with the pics though. You could probably do something with Microsoft Movie Maker also. The trick would be the timing with the narrative. Faststone Image Viewer

They will be following the baitfish or lurking down deep. Is there any treetops or structure sunk in the lake? Look around that. We have crappie in several ponds, in the summer they will be in the center in the deeper water. They take plastic grubs and mister twisters well. It helps if you can find some structure, they will lurk around it.

Interesting article. I wonder what the record smallmouth is under Alternative Methods?

Does Tiger get to drive a golf cart?

I think they make them listen to Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton on the Big Screen while Rosy O Donnell whips him with a chain. That would take the life out of any man.

For the past 3 days, all that was on the news was Tiger Woods was going to give a speech. Then he gave a speech and then all of the slants were reported on the speech. Who cares? He is a golfer that cheated on his wife. Who cares if he works it out with her. Who cares if he is going to Sex Therapy. Who cares if he has any more endorsements? Who cares if he never plays the Masters? There will still be a winner, and the game will still be the same. Nice thing about outdoors sports, there are no high paid celebrities. Imagine, Bill Dance got caught cheating on his wife. It would be a personal matter, would not make the news, and we would all pray that they work things out. Not that would ever happen. I doubt that Bill Dance ever made the billions that Tiger did and had all of the groupy's hanging out at the access waiting for him to take them to the sack. But then again, not our concern, it would not be something we would have even needed to know about. Fishing would still be the same. I would even watch it on TV on a rainy day the same as I did before I heard the news. By the way, I just used his name and would not want to infer that Bill Dance ever cheated on his wife.