ness

So, is she on the market or not?

Wait a minute there mosouthpaw, it's ok to dig a pond and stock it with bass, as long as there's a 2/3 majority of the club members and 100 percent agreement as to the species, and they've got to be wild but not necessarily native bass (without a red eye). Trout of any kind are ok, excepting of course for sea trout, which aren't really trout whether they're native and/or wild. But, you could probably get an ok if they're stream bred, but that ain't gonna happen if there sea trout, see? Blue gill are ok. Green sunnies or any of the lesser fish are right out banned. Dry flies only, 100 percent C&R, but that really goes without saying. Hope this helps.

Somebody needs to ask him. Ain't gonna be me though......

DOG PILE!!! Just kidding. Welcome to the forum. I think the discussion was legit and the only got derailed when the topic of respect for the guy came up. Hey Cricket -- what kinda cigarette was it? I'm guessing it was a Kool

Ahem! Corn and marshmallows, fished from a dock...how positively boorish! Grandfather said this would occur when fishing was allowed among the hoi polloi.

When it comes to fishing tackle, Santa doesn't ride in a sleigh, wear a red suit and come down the chimney. My 'jolly old elf' comes in a brown truck, wears a brown uniform and brings stuff to me right here at the office.

Awe, come on man -- that wasn't nice. It smells of tackle snobbery, which just rubs a lot of people the wrong way and helps give fly fishermen a bad name. He's a guy out fishing, following the rules and caught a helluva fish. What difference does it make what tackle he was using? Would he be more of a sportsman if he was drifting a glo-ball with a Winston / Abel setup?

KC -- I love to fish for crappie, and eat them, but I haven't done it in several years. Just one of those things that gets pushed aside by the daily grind.

Thanks for the info. I would have been scared to sand on a blank like that, fearing I'd get down into the fiberglass. But, really I've got nothing to lose with that old war club of mine. I'm gonna put that on the (ever-growing) list of things to do this winter.

You know, this is just a personal preference. He was operating within the rules (like you said) and he decided to keep it. I'm a C&R guy, almost exclusively, but I'd probably have kept that one. And not to eat -- to hang on the wall and brag about. Get me a new avatar too. You know, important stuff like that.

Finally got back to look at the rod. Nice work there! I'm curious what you finished the blank with, and how you applied it.

Who all?

I think the current stockers are more mutt than 'McCloud'. They have introduced McCloud blood into some that they've stocked in 11 Point WILD trout area, but there's all kinda stuff mixed in with the current Missouri and Missouri Arlee strains. Here's a good article if you want the particulars: Missouri Trout

You're just plain wrong about that.

John, I think your confusing the concepts of wild and native. I didn't want to have to go to the dictionary, but ... Wild: –adjective 1. living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated: a wild animal; wild geese. 2. growing or produced without cultivation or the care of humans, as plants, flowers, fruit, or honey: wild cherries. Native: –adjective 1. being the place or environment in which a person was born or a thing came into being: one's native land. 2. belonging by birth to a people regarded as indigenous to a certain place, esp. a preliterate people: Native guides accompanied the expedition through the rain forest. A lot of folks use the terms interchangeably, but they're different. Wild means they've been out of the hatchery long enough to adapt to their environment, i.e. learned to find food and avoid predators. The term is commonly used when describing these trout (NFOW rainbows) because they behave differently than trout fresh from the stocking truck. And, that's a distinction that's important enough to warrant being called 'wild'. I use the term stream bred too -- it's a little more specific than wild. But wild is wild, and native doesn't fit any trout swimming around in the midwest. As to your DNA comment -- well, there have been DNA studies done, on Crane rainbows at least, and they're pretty confident there's no 'stocker' in them. They're extra special in my book. Again, rainbows in NFOW, BSC, Mill, Crane, etc. are wild -- by definition.

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.