ozark trout fisher

It was surprising, but pretty impressive IMO. Despite being 1AA the MVC is a pretty good football conference and he's probably not going to get an opportunity at that level (unless he's willing to sit a year, rebuild his reputation, and play at 1A school which seems unlikely given his likely draft status next spring). There will certainly be some school desperate enough for a transformative talent to take the leap, but it will likely be a pretty unattractive destination. But if he stays on the field, he could make any small 1AA program with decent surrounding talent a powerhouse for a year. He's that good, not something to be lost in his off the field trouble. Maybe being out of the limelight will ultimately be a positive. I do hope the best for him.

Not sure what his mindset is, but the safe money is on him heading to an FCS (1AA) school where he can play right away, and then have the option of throwing his name in the draft pool next spring. Missouri State would seem to be a decently likely option if they would have him (Springfield being his hometown.) (Edit: turns out Missouri State isn't interested.)That's purely conjecture, though. But maybe setting aside football for awhile to deal with his issues would be the better approach.

I have gotten into baseball this year for the first time, just to get away from the offseason stories in college sports. But I'm enjoying it so far and it may become a bigger thing. I guess I'm adopting the Cardinals as my natural rooting interest, though I'm still more or less up for a good argument otherwise at this point. But not really because the other option is the Royals, and no. Just no.

Good on Pinkel for the way he handled this. No player, regardless of abilitity, is worth keeping around if they are literally a danger to others. That seems to be the case here, so he had to go. I hope he gets it together (at least for the sake of everyone he may be around in the future), but at the same time, I'm a lot more concerned about the alleged victim. That Mizzou agreed with me on this stance by cutting ties is refreshing. Nonetheless, there's no real positive spin here. This has been a disastrous few weeks for Missouri athletics, and whitewashing that doesn't do anyone any good. It's a long road back from here to where we can all feel proud again. Not that I'll ever stop supporting Mizzou athletics, but it has been painful and challenging of late.

It's a screwed up deal. It is now on Gary Pinkel to see that he's punished appropriately from a football standpoint. Sadly, the culture of big time college football intimidates people to the point where justice can end up taking a back seat.. I believe there is a quote somewhere that basically said the victim didn't press charges because she was afraid of backlash from the community. That's really depressing, and largely, because those concerns probably are not unfounded. The way college sports are viewed and put on a pedestal needs to be reevaulated to a major degree. In the meantime, assuming he's back at some point, I don't think I can ever cheer for DGB again. I do fear that the lack of arrest will open the window for his return, but I don't know who really wants that.

Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatright had the games they needed to. UConn's frontcourt didn't come to play, but didn't have to. Napier solidified his spot as an NCAA tourney legend. It was a fantastic game all around. Kentucky would never go away, but they could never quite even it up either. I just knew they were going to break through at some point.....but UConn's defense was pretty incredible, and it just didn't ever happen despite long scoring droguhts for the Huskies. Kevin Ollie needs to get offered a real, big money contract immediately. If UConn doesn't get him locked up for the long term it will be a massive, massive mistake.

Yeah, go Huskies. But even as a Kentucky hater, I have to admit that Aaron Harrison is on a pretty incredible run. He's broken the heart of every team they've faced in the tourney (with the exception of Kansas State, which was the only game that didn't come down to the last few seconds.) Even despite Harrison's heroics, I still think it's even tougher to pick against Shabazz Napier if the game comes down to the wire (which it seems very likely to.) The Kemba Walker comparisons are too easy, but they are not inaccurate. He's on a mission and I don't think Kentucky is good enough to stand in the way of that. Both teams are on a ridiculous roll, but the Huskies have been the better team all season long IMO. Kentucky's ridiculous athleticism will make it basically a toss-up, but my pick is 74-72 UConn.

Of course I think that we need to take corrective measures to make up for the damage that we cause. But one pet peeve, is when people think they are bringing things back to the "natural" order. Maybe, just maybe that's possible, to some degree, in a place like Yellowstone. Even there though, not really, unless you want to close down the park to visitors and put a big fence around it to prevent wildlife from leaving it's boundaries. But especially in a place like Missouri: you walk through the woods and (in many areas) all you see is honeysuckle and sericea lespedeza and various other non-native crap. The idea that it's ever going to be "natural" again is pure fantasy. We can try to establish an ecoystem that is appealing, and has the appearance of being pristine, and undisturbed, but that's it. That's still a very worthwhile effort, but let's not go overboard with what we think we're capable of achieving.

Yeah, I agree. It can give you 1-2 good teams at first, but then you'll realize you have no core to build around. Then, everything comes crashing down the first off-season you aren't able to pull in an Alex Oriakhi or a Jabari Brown on the free agent market (because that's what I'm going to call it from now on). That's where we're at right now. We had better hope the younger players that are in the program (or soon will be) take a quantam leap forward.

So apparently the introduction of a non-native trout can lead to a reduction in the elk population in a massive national park. It makes sense when you break it down, but it also shows how little we actually understand about all the complex ways we can royally mess up these types of ecosystems. Because (even if lake trout had been stocked intentionally, by someone who gave a darn) no one was going to predict that they would become a factor in the decline of a major big-game species. No one thinks in those terms before we make any kind of decision that could make such an impact however many years down the road. It makes you wonder how many of these types of things go unnoticed, while we blame something else that has little to do with the problem. Because it would take a pretty good mind to even bother thinking to test something that (seemingly) far-fetched.

The one year transfer thing just sucks. I hate that we have (had?) guys associated with the program who act like he is accused. That said, if he is off the team and gives more minutes to J3 and Torren Jones, well, those are minutes not taken up by a 1 year mercenary who can ultimately have no impact on our program.

Those were the days. Kim English, Flip (before whatever got into him his junior year), Marcus Denmon, Ricardo Ratliffe as an automatic low post scorer. How was that only two years ago? It feels like a century.

Kim English was a great player for our women's basketball team, as well.

Now I wish this WAS an April Fool's joke, but the calendar has turned: Jabari Brown declares for the draft, on the heels of Clarkson doing the same. Brown has not hired an agent yet, so he could come back, but it seems pretty unlikely. Otherwise, next year could be awfully terrifying. Like 5-13 in conference play kind of bad. South Carolina or Auburn kind of bad, unless someone unexpected steps up, or Johnathan Williams all of a sudden decides to become senior year Laurence Bowers. I should point out that Jabari had a great career (if short) at Mizzou, and really kept this season from being pretty ugly. I have nothing but thanks for the guy, even if he stays in the draft as expected.

I suppose at this point (for those that haven't already picked up on it) I should point out to everyone the two words after the long break in my post. That may unlock part of the mystery as to why there's no news elsewhere about this.

I almost bought it for a second and nearly got started on a pretty epic, pages-long rant on how out of control our Ozark rivers were getting, and how this was the just the latest effort in an ongoing, diabolical plot to turn our Ozark streams into Missouri's own year-round version of New Orleans on Marti Gras. Glad I figured out this was an April Fool's joke before I got too far into it. Of course, I got plenty of material from my (rather interesting, and not necessarily because of the fish) weekend trip on the Current River to do that anyway, but I'll spare you.

Could use some rain. The rivers are not exactly hurting, but you'd expect them to be higher this time of year.

2 million for a sweet 16 finish.... The school knows it doesn't need to worry about ever paying that out.

So apparently Frank Haith has been offered (and signed) a contract extension, to everyone's surprise. It's for 5 years (until 2019.) Exact details on how much it's worth are not out just yet, but rumor has it that he's going to be the top payed coach in the conference (even ahead of BIlly Donovan and John Calipari.) April Fools.

I was thinking the same thing: having your face on TV and having your name withheld may be the most pointless thing ever. But the fact that this lady failed to understand that seems hardly surprising. Both parties seem ridiculously stupid/mean spirited here. Not sure if "karma" even applies.

It was at Parker. The truth of the matter is, I did not report it to the NPS, though I should have. Why? Well, it literally happens everytime I camp there. I guess I've become so used to it that it feels like simply a matter of course. And quite frankly, I assumed it was illegal, but wasn't 100% sure. But all of that was not an excuse for not doing anything to stop it, and I'll own that. Your second point: yeah, that thought crossed my mind, and it's something hard not to think a lot about every trip to the Current. Never quite had that happen before, though I cannot say it was terribly surprising. I can't say I felt at all threatened, but perhaps I should have.

Anderson's a great coach, and he deserves his chance at Ol' Mizzou before his career is over. Whenever the next coaching search gets started (next offseason?) I'll be pulling hard for him. Haith is a better choice if we are okay with winning somewhere between 17-22 games on an annual basis, and probably making the tournament about half the time. Between Miami and Mizzou, that's about what his resume says he is. Here's a simple fact: despite those who say otherwise, Haith is not, and has never been, a bad coach. He is, on almost every level, slightly above average. For Miami, that was fantastic. He took a dead program to a whole bunch of postseason appearances (mostly NIT, but one NCAA berth) and had them competitive most games. Add a little bit more talent at a place like Mizzou, and that turns into a whole bunch of 20 wins seasons and around .500 records in conference. Sometimes (like last year) that will result in a tournament berth, and sometimes it won't. Is that bad, no. He strikes me as the ultimate "safe" coach, who doesn't have much"flame-out and go 9-22" potential, but also very little potenial to be the guy to break the final four drought. But Kim Anderson is the kind of hire that says that's not good enough, and we are willing to risk the possibility of failure for the possibility of him building something on a D-1 level like he has at Central MO. Count me in.

Well, my rootiing interests have become very simple. If Florida wins the title, I win my bracket pool. So, go Gators. I have no other dog in this fight. I like Wisconsin, though, so I hope they can beat the Miami Heat or whatever that team from Lexington is called in the semifinals.

Yeah, it's awfully funny how that works. ATVS were literally crossing the river until 2AM (maybe later, but I was sound enough asleep by that point I didn't hear them or care.) The obvious question is what the heck someone is doing on an ATV that time of night, one can only suppose it ain't anything good. I somehow doubt they are searching for a good spot to night-fish for browns. Still a good weekend. There will be annoying people wherever you go, I find. Met several nice folks on the river fishing too, so I guess it kinda evens out in the end. Turns out the guy I was there with got some pictures after all, so I'll post a few whenever I get recieve them.

A report from a weekend on the Blue Ribbon section: Got to the river around noon on Saturday. Set up camp in our usual spot along the Blue ribbon section of the Current and got to work. The fly was, as usual, an egg pattern, tri-colored to start. When we arrived, it was bright sunny, and the water quite clear. Not perfect conditions, but we were able to find a few willing fish nonetheless. We were in the lower part of the Blue Ribbon section, and the catch tends to alternate between mostly brown and mostly rainbow depending on the time of year or some other factors that I fail to have an understanding of. This trip, it was mostly browns, with the odd stocking sized rainbow mixed in. Either way, it was a beautiful early spring afternoon and the (relatively) few fish we caught were enough. Evening brought a nice mayfly hatch. Don't ask me what the heck the insect was, because I don't know (and don't really care.) An Ausable Wulff (#14) was plenty good enough, even though the bugs were tiny. Trout are not inherently smart creatures, and I avoid "matching the hatch" at pretty much all costs. It isn't necessary 95% of the time. That mini-rant aside, the fishing was a bit slow this morning. Egg patterns did a decent job, though. When the fishing is slow on the Current, I have a couple of trusty riffles that almost always have a couple of willing trout waiting for me. I visited one of those and picked off a few rainbows to make myself feel satisfied about the morning's fishing. Then it was off to home and infinitely less enjoyable things. No pictures, I apologize. I fish the same general area and catch the same type of fish over and over again, so the urge to document that every single time gets pretty minimal. One final note: people that drive ATVs across the river in the middle of the night can begin to get a bit annoying. even beyond the obvious and serious damage they are causing. Also applies to some genius in a big pickup truck who took it upon himself to shine a spotlight on our camp in the middle of the night, and give us a good rebel yell for no apparent reason. There are some people who are just bad at life, but hey, they keep fishing trips from becoming boring.