ness

That's some sweet looking stuff there, and priceless time spent with your boy. Hell, you just may be alright. Tim: 'feral' has such a negative connotation to it. Makes them sound like trashcan-raiding tomcats or pesky hogs. I just like 'wild'

kdan, I hereby encourage you to snitch. It's a huge problem, and it has been for years. When you snitch you do two things: you alert the Conservation Agents that there's a problem in an area and you just may get one of the criminals busted. I'm not so mean-spirited that I want to see somebody get nailed, but I can look beyond that and know that it's a good thing -- because it deters him, everybody watching and everybody who hears about it, from breaking the rules. Here's the number -- everybody put it in your phone right now. 1-800-392-1111 I'm waiting...

I left, but then I came back. Then I left again. Now I'm back. This time it's for keeps.

Good pics, and thanks for posting that. Folks -- leave 'em alone until they're done. I have it on good authority that the Golden Rule applies to spawning trout, not just people.

Everybody knows trout are not native to Missouri. I'm not going to pick nits over the definition of wild, but the population of rainbow trout in the NFOW (and Crane, and Blue Springs) are self-sustaining, and have been for decades. Sure, they were originally planted there as stockers, and there's no proving that there haven't been some additional fish dumped in, but the MDC is not stocking rainbows in those waters. They're wild in most everyone's book. They spawn, and a small percentage of those make it to adulthood, just like native rainbows do in their waters. All fish, for that matter, produce a huge number of eggs because the odds of survival to reproduction age are so slim. Just because the odds are stacked against them doesn't make it ethical to disturb a redd because they're not gonna make it anyway. Just saying. I'm not sure why the trout spawn earlier here, but I suspect two things are at play: (1) Because they can. Spawning earlier means they're farther along in their growth when the warmer temperatures and lower water levels of summer arrive. In higher elevation streams, they have to wait because the temperatures are so low, metabolism is way down and free-flowing water is so scarce. Here, in the Missouri spring creeks, the high-to-low temperature fluctuations are much less dramatic. (2) Because their ancestors were selected and bred to spawn earlier in the hatcheries. That's harder to argue when Crane rainbows likely predate the human interference, but that may have some influence on the mix.

That's interesting to me. I've always thought the drawers were a potential problem -- either too few, too small, too something. And, when you've committed to a piece of furniture like that, you've got to live with it. I hadn't really thought about how inconvenient it could be to try and rifle through a drawer (especially one above eye level) until I read your post. Good point on the thread thing, too. I'm not a big fan of the 'pre-made workspace' -- I like to be able to move stuff, or put it away when I'm not using it. Gavin has some good points about height, chair and, of course, light. I think the surface is important too. I put a piece of white foam board down over my desk. The white makes for a good background, things are easy to spot on it and it makes for a nice bright workspace. It's disposable, and I don't worry about messing up my desk.

Cool story, regardless of your political leanings. BTW -- I think that program with the students going to Europe is fantastic. I read the articles (last summer?) from one of the kids that went over. I'm gonna check out that link. A couple years ago I was on a layover in Washington DC and a planeload of WWII vets landed. I've forgotten the name of the organization, but they arrange these flights so they can come see the new memorial. Anyhow, it literally brought tears to my eyes to see these guys, all in the twilight of their lives, coming for the day to see the memorial. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

But it's not enough!!! Just kidding, of course. It's often overlooked because we're so used to it. But we have it really good here. A friend of mine was an ex-pat in England for a few years, and he came back with a lot of stories about how different things are over there. One of them that sticks in my mind is that, in his words, 'everything is owned by somebody'. So, fishing or hunting opportunities are extremely difficult to come by. Public land is rare and under a great deal of pressure. The landed gentry control most of the good stuff. Turning back to Missouri, no, MDC doesn't get it right all the time. But overall, they do an excellent job and we should be thankful for what we've got. That said, let the grumbling continue.

Haven't started yet -- I'll be doing poppers of some kind, and it's usually an assembly line thing for me. It takes a little setup, and with all the bird hunting and holiday stuff, it's gonna be a while.

Reminds me of Dennis Miller saying he got his son a video game of a father and son playing catch. Just thought that was funny -- I've got no ideas for you.

BINGO! That's the real world, folks. Turning back time and recreating the smallmouth rivers that were -- it's waste of time talking about it. Work within the framework if you want to get things done. If you want to wax poetic, well, I suppose this is as good a place as any for that.

I didn't restrict the "cash cow" comment to license sales. MDC's revenue is sales tax-based -- there's lotsa stuff being sold in and around Taney.

Alright, let's go with the $10 per fish number, 'cause that's all we got. And didn't somebody say there were 30,000 fish allocated to the program? That's $300,000 -- and that's peanuts. Their budget is something like $140 million, so that's 0.2% I did find MDC budget info here. Somebody with more time than me might be able to glean some real facts from this.

Thanks for saving me from reading the other 4-page thread! So, we're talking about private money? (I guess NFWF is private). Doesn't really matter anyway because nobody ever declines free money. Taney/Branson is a cash-cow for the state, and this has got to be peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Kudos to whoever worked to have this money spent. Now if you guys feel strongly enough about abolishing the urban trout program, or helping smallmouth reclaim their native territory, then get to work. Squeaky wheel, and all that.

Sure, it's unnatural, but it's gonna be that way until the dam is gone -- and I don't see that happening. If you want natural (and I do too) there are places to go for that. And, Branson isn't one of them. Not knocking it -- it is what it is. Anyhow, I was talking about the urban program. I haven't been keeping up with the Tanycomo discussion, because I really don't care too much. Seems like these discussions generally circle-back to the enforcement issue. And believe me -- I'm all for reallocating some resources to that -- everywhere. But, debating the 'naturalness' of Taney or grumbling about the urban program are a waste of our resources. I'd much rather see a movement develop that encourages the MDC to improve enforcement. I truly believe we could get some movement on that issue if we put some effort into it.

I skipped over this thread several time because I didn't get the subject line. But, I finally figured it out (doh!) and think that sounds like a cool project. I can't see the pictures at work though. Can't wait to get home and see this one. I've been kicking around the idea of doing a fiberglass rod, and have an old and very ugly glass 8-weight that is a candidate for a makeover. This may just be the inspiration to do something with it.

Well, I'm afraid I don't even know where Backcountry Outfitters is, but I wish you the best of luck with your new venture. I always try to use the 'independents' whenever possible.

Again, I think there's some incremental sale of licenses that factors into this. I don't have a clue how many, but there are some for sure. I doubt they're hiring any extra people, or buying any equipment to do this. Likely they're using the existing people and stuff -- so, the marginal cost is the cost of the trout mostly. Likely, one of the side-benefits is keeping some staff busy that doesn't have as much to do in the fall/winter. I can't argue that this is the best use of their money. They've got a huge, guaranteed revenue stream, and they're gonna spend it all -- every year -- just like any other government agency would. I also doubt this causes a lot of folks to become trout junkies, and creates a bunch of extra traffic on our more fragile trout streams. It's a whole different animal, and I'd guess it's largely a different clientele. Sure, I'd love to see them pay more attention to the places I fish with the money, especially in the area of enforcement. But moaning about the urban trout program is a dead end. There's money coming in and money going out, and without solid data we can't really make a determination if this is a good deal. If you just don't like the idea of fishing from a mud puddle, well don't do it. But I'm not going to fault the people that do, or the MDC for making it available.

Eric, It's kinda hard to know where to start. As to fishing from a mud puddle -- so, it ain't your cup-o-tea. Lotsa people fish them -- I do occasionally. I don't think anyone has offered up data as to the cost/benefit of the program. I've always assumed the licenses approximately cover the cost. My county (KS, Johnson) does a similar program and funds it with an additional 'trout' fee on the county fishing license. I suspect they've looked at the economics, and they keep doing it. Underpaid teachers -- welp, ain't going there. But you can be sure none of MDCs money will end up curing that problem. Politics-free zone, so I'll stop here.

That's all great, but the fact remains: they're butt-ugly.

I'd have to agree with fiveweight. Why do this? Were they on sale? Hopefully 'natural selection' will purge these ugly bastids quickly.

Visit My Website

Call me old school, but I like books. I'm just not going to sit in front of a computer and read too awful much. The web is a great resource, but not the best resource. It's a hodge-podge of information that's poorly organized, often incomplete or incorrect. It's easy to get sidetracked, making it a poor use of my time. And, there's such a thing as too much information. I use the internet for little bits of info here and there, and occasionally print off something and throw it in a notebook or cut and paste it to someplace more useful to me. But a good book will always (yep, always) be better than the web.

I've got an older model handheld GPS too, but like Gavin, I rarely use it. I just bought a new car, and as much as I wanted the in-dash GPS because it's cool, it was going to cost about $2,000 to get the package that included it. If I'm going to an area I'm not familiar with, I'll sometimes waypoint the car or something hard to find with it, but that's about it.

I'm no lawyer, but anybody can sue anybody for anything. If your ride ends up dead or injured, you'll likely get sued and have to prove you weren't negligent, at your own expense. A signed waiver is a plus, but doesn't mean you can't be found responsible. I carry an umbrella policy that covers me for about anything outside the scope of homeowner's and auto insurance.