Seth

One of my best friends since high school sat with me in the blind this weekend. Since I already have two nice deer in the freezer that I got during archery season, I let him have first dibs on whatever he wanted to shoot. Saturday was slow. We sat all day and only saw five deer. A good sized doe was the only shootable deer we saw that day, but she came out on my side of the blind and got in the brush before he could get switched around for a shot. Sunday was more productive. At 7:30, a doe and two fawns came out and started feeding 200 yards to the north. My buddy was waiting for them to feed up farther and offer him a clear shot at the doe. While he was watching them, I kept my eyes peeled to the south since bucks like to slip up out of the draws and skirt through the grown up field undetected. Sure enough, I spotted a buck coming up out of the draw and started skirting the edge of the food plot. Things were a mess in the blind so I just got down on all fours so he could step over me and get to the side of the blind where he could actually see to shoot. He was able to get a rested on the blind window pole and let the 7 mag bark just as the deer was about to head back to the timber. We waited till 8am before getting down to look for it. The deer only made it about 40 yards back towards the draw before piling up. It was a lot nicer deer than I had thought at first glance. I rough scored him at 142 5/8", which is far better than anything I've personally taken. I've got another buck on another piece of ground that I hunt that I'm gunning for so hopefully this will give me some good karma and he will come strolling past me at some point this week. Others hunt the property on the weekend so I only hunt it during the week days.

Been using Lakemaster 5.0 with the HD map for LoZ the past few years and it's great.

I have a Maxxum and like it. The lift assist on the Fortrex is nice, but not a big deal to me either way. The Maxxum mount feels sturdier to me as well. I want an Ultrex!

IF the water is still clear, you could probably just throw a pearl super fluke all day long and wear fish out. A wiggle wart bite might be picking up as well depending on how cool the water is by this weekend. They were deep at the heads of pools two weeks ago, but the water was still 70 degrees too. I'm sure it's dropped since then.

Just glue a piece of popper foam on a small hook and toss that in the flow. They think it's a small pellet of fish food and you will catch one every cast for a while. At least then you can say you ain't shuffling and you ain't snagging them.

I visit this sit with the Safari browser on my iPhone 8 and with Chrome with the ad blocker extension and have never had any sort of pop ups on this site.

I have a hard time laying off 3.5 year old bucks with a bow, especially when they are standing 10 yards away and slightly quartering away. This one has been on camera for the past few weeks and I was hoping he wouldn't come by me because I knew I'd have a hard time laying laying off of him. He had a pretty bad limp already too which sealed the deal on me deciding to take him when he came in.

Back when I used to bowhunt hard as soon as season opened, I'd nearly always have some birds patterned by Oct 1. I could take the shotgun, go out and pop my two birds and go back to bow hunting. Now I don't mess with fall turkeys unless one stumbles by while I'm bow hunting. Several years back I decided to take the shotgun and go after turkeys and had a nice buck come walking past me at 20 yards and all I could do was watch him. That was about the time I decided I wouldn't be in the woods without a bow after October 20th.

At least on bucks until gun season. I've not been in the hunting mood since it has been so warm this fall and I had fishing tournaments until mid October. I figured this evening was going to be good since the front blew through last night and it I just always seem to do well on those dreary, drizzly days this time of year. Things were pretty slow until about a quarter to six when I saw antlers pop up on the horizon. It was a 2.5 year old 8 pointer. He grazed around in the beans for a half an hour before heading to me and working a scrape about 10 yards in front of me. As he grazed, a big doe showed up, but she fed off to my north. After he made the scrape, he worked his way behind me and started munching on acorns. As he was doing that, I noticed more deer in front of me. A doe and a fawn were being bumped across the field by a little 1.5 year old buck. The doe and fawn looped around and went back to the west and the small buck stood about 30 yards in front of me. While I was watching him, the deer I ended up shooting came limping in to the scrape that was 10 yards in front of me. He worked on it pretty good and then the small buck came in and wanted to butt heads. They butted heads for a few minutes before the shooter eventually took a few steps forward and gave me a quartering away shot. I drew back and focused my pin on the opposite side leg pocket and let the Grim Reaper eat. The arrow buried to the fletchings and stopped when it made contact with the leg bone on the opposing side. He took stumbling and running low to the ground before piling up 60 yards away. I thought he was an 8, but ended up being a 7 pointer since one of his brows was just a nubbin. I can't believe I filled my buck tag on my first sit. It's kind of bittersweet knowing that things are just now starting to get fired up in the deer woods. Who wants to bet that I will have an absolute slobber knocker walk up and stand in bow range now that I can't shoot him.

There are a lot of businesses that depend on those tournament anglers outside of the summer months.

Good job taking out the song dog. I've only been able to get one of those with my bow so far. I'm fixing to start logging some hours in the stand starting this Sunday. Once youth season is done, I have quite a few vacation days planned to spend in a tree. We don't have much on the cams for mature bucks right now, but anything can happen here in a few weeks when they start looking for love. Plenty of 1.5-2.5 year olds and a few good looking 3.5's as well as plenty of slickheads. Shouldn't have any problem filling the freezer anyways.

I haven't used Nano, but I started using the FG knot to connect 15# Power Pro to 8-10# fluorocarbon. That knot is amazing and it's easy to tie after you do it a few times. The Alberto was my knot of choice until I found the FG knot. Hi Viz 15# Power Pro with an 8-10# fluorocarbon leader is my choice for bass fishing most of the time. I've got a medium-light crappie setup that I keep 6# test on that I will sometimes use for when I'm throwing a grub or a NED rig. That rod gets used for shooting docks for crappie than bass fishing though.

This wouldn't be as funny if I didn't know what Mitch did for a living or the fact that he owns the company that makes literally the most life like crawfish imitation on the planet. Honestly, until this thread, I had no idea that this device existed either!

Mosmallie's also won an early bird prize. Some people have all the luck! We caught a lot of fish Saturday, but only weighed one for even 3 and fell short with 2.86. Yesterday was just brutal. I think we caught a dozen fish all day and half of those came behind one dock. I thought it was going to be game on first thing as we ran through the fog to get to the back of Little Gravois. We had the area to ourselves for the first hour, but the fish weren't playing. I figured we'd do well fishing topwater around all of the wood piles, but never got a bite. That pretty well set the tone for the rest of our day. I wanted to fish some main lake deep stuff, but it was just way too rough for my 1860 aluminum rig. The big cruisers were throwing some monster wakes all day long and we took on some hellacious waves over the front deck. The biggest surprise of the weekend was a 14" crappie that I caught on my chatterbait in 2' of water chasing shad.

Hopefully about 71500 worth this weekend!

I still need to pick up one of the 7'6" models for drifting under a float on Taney. The 6'6" model I bought last year is amazing! I've got a more expensive 6' Falcon ultralight rod as well and I still end up using the Airstream more often.

Good luck all! Hopefully one of us finds one of those LoZ giants and wins a few $$$.

One that says TackleHD unless it is chilly then it will be a long sleeved black one.

Something tells me that a lot of the guys running new bass boats aren't paying $2k a month in payments for 3 years.

That brisket you made at the first craw shack open house was delicious!

I think that is just about standard from dealers anymore. Cowtown gave me a 10 year loan without even asking when I upgraded to my last boat. As long as there isn't an early pay off penalty, I don't think it's a bad deal. I paid mine off in three years, but I at least had the option to pay the minimum if something came up and I needed to put the extra money I was paying towards the boat to something else.

Good thing you blurred out the background. Oneshot might sneak in and catch all your carp!

The fish we enjoy chasing would more than likely be safe. Oneshot only likes the ones that have the good kissing lips.

That was my first year that I really started fishing for river bass on the Gasconade. It got down to 1.30 on the Jerome gauge in July that year. It got down to 1.40 in the fall of 14 too. Last fall it barely got below 2' through the fall.

Luckily it didn't cost me anything since the motor has warranty, but it is still annoying when they don't actually fix the problem. I'll mention this stuff to them when I take it in for the three year maintenance later next month. Once my warranty expires on my engine, I'll just bring to you when I have issues. Based on what you say and how others see you as an outboard mechanic, i'd feel better just letting you take care of my engine.