ozark trout fisher

Thoughts: That is a very fat bluegill.

Barring a significant amount of rain, the flows on rivers like the Jacks/Current should be okay by the 10th. They are coming down, but it's slow. Boilerplate "watch out for junk in the river after a flood" warning. But really, that's going to be important.

This is good advice! Thanks for sharing. If you MUST drink and float (and we've all been there, let's be real) pick a river that isn't high, and wear a darn life jacket.

I hate to pull the "sources" thing......but yeah, I think Jontay is going to be on the roster next season. I am not certain, but I'll be rather surprised if he stays in the 2018 class at this point. I have no idea where to set the bar. With Tilmon and probably Jontay, the tournament becomes more of an expectation than a lofty goal. Still, yeah, our most talented players are all going to be freshmen. We have some veterans, and Phillips/Puryear/Barnett will still get a lot of run on next year's team, but it all comes down to MPJ/Jontay/Tilmon/Harris/Roberts. If everything works, this could be the first Missouri team to make the Final Four. We absolutely have that kind of talent. If it completely blows up, and the chemistry never develops an 18-19 win season could follow. I could be wrong, but I just don't see a team this talented doing worse than that. Of course it will probably be somewhere in between. My wild guess prediction is something like a 7-9 seed in the tourney. I bet they struggle early, and we'll all freak out and assume the experiment has gone off-track... but eventually the talent will show and we'll end up in the top 4 of the SEC standings.

I have some persimmon trees on a property I've recently acquired near the Osage River. Deer and other wildlife aside, I love persimmons. Get them after they are ripe and you basically have kinda tangy peaches, and in plenty on a good tree. They are great in pies. Gross as it sounds the best time to get them is very soon after they've fallen on the ground, sometime in October. Less chance of getting an unripe one that way. The sensation of eating an unripe persimmon really freaks some people out to the point they don't eat them at all...but it isn't that bad unless it's actually green. 30 uncomfortable seconds and a bad aftertaste, and you're in the clear. Persimmon wood is also very pretty and fun to work with. It's in the ebony family and looks/acts like it.

If I called you weird for that I'm not sure where that would put me. Where I work in Indiana, the Tulip-poplars (well named, their flowers look exactly like orange and yellow tulips) are some of the most impressive trees I've ever seen. Straight as an arrow and 100+ feet tall on the regular. Never stops being impressive. Shagbark hickories are one of my favorites too.....especially when they are old, that bark is just one of the weirdest sites you could possibly find in the woods. I can't really do any research on them (beyond basic, non-obtrusive measurements) because their bark is considered critical habitat for an endangered bat species. But they are very cool trees.

Unfortunately they only let me fill the $10/hour summer help type jobs, LOL. Snake ID is still a weak point for me. I have some ideas what it is, but I'm not certain. Obviously it's not the clearest pic, which doesn't help.

As some of you probably know by this point I am a forest/woodland researcher. Here are some pictures of my office.

Truly he is the Ron Swanson of OAF.

How did I miss out on this? I could have posted as Chief finally admitting the east side of the state is better or as Ness, talking about the various and sundry problems with the University of Kansas. I could have let Fishinwrench tell you that government knows best, or posted as Phil encouraging political discussion. The possibilities were endless.

The simple answer here is that we are not talking about the same river. You were referring to, among other things, how you'd like to have a reservoir on the Bourbeuse River, which, in fact, is extremely quiet, and also happened to be my home river/baby for about 10 years. If you want to talk about damming do not expect me to respond kindly. Same goes for the Meramec and Big, but for different (and for me, less sentimental) reasons. Although if I were actually presenting the case I'd have no trouble giving you a bunch of good, objective reasons why the Bourb is more ecologically and culturally important than you guess. For example I know the location of a number of well preserved native American dwellings/artifact sites that you are talking about putting under 30 feet of water. Yeah, I'm ready to use that information if anyone ever wants to dam it up. Maybe not a lot of people are aware of that and other similar things, but the fact that few outdoorsmen take the time to explore that river and the area around it is not an excuse to advocate destroying it.

A dam without issues? I'm sure I don't agree with that. I would consider "turning my favorite (and notably very quiet) floating/fishing stream into a gigantic water ski park that due to its location would make LOZ look serene" to be a major issue. I always get a kick out of how the solution to flooding is to create a much larger, permanent one. Humans are an amazing species, to be sure. I've tempered my stance on a lot of issues of late, but if anyone in a position of power even whispers about putting up a dam any larger than that of a fair sized stock pond in the Meramec basin, they will have an immediate pushback stern enough to make whoever is responsible regret ever broaching the idea.There are a lot of people who are dead serious about that one. That's a "quit my job and come back to Missouri to lend a hand, if it would help" level issue for me. Doubt I'm the only one.

Both my dog and my brother's both managed to get bit by a timber rattler in the Shawnee National Forest. We were way back there, so carrying them out to the truck wasn't fun...and as you mention, the vet bills very much were not either. It also happened on a Sunday, when no vet office in rural Southern Illinois was open, and we actually had to convince one to come in by basically saying we'd pay him whatever the hell he asked. I remember he put something on their paws (where both were bit) that is generally used to extract poison and other nasty stuff from wounded cattle. Guy said he'd never tried it on a dog, but no anti-venom was available for rattlesnakes for people in that area, let along a dog, so it was our only shot. It was a nasty, months- long recovery but both were ultimately okay, if more wary of snakes than they were. We really thought they were gone. My pup (who was younger, and more seriously affected, seemingly) was quite literally foaming at the mouth on the car ride to the vet, it just seemed a matter of time. But the odd, mismatched treatment worked. I knew they'd ultimately be okay when we've stopped at a McDonalds drive through an hour or so later, and both demanded to take part in the festivities.

My biggest problem with this is that spears are far too inefficient. I find that I can't successfully deplete the fish populations of my favorite rivers/streams that way, so I've gone exclusively to dynamite and gillnets. It's effective, but still not quite enough. I'm currently exploring the possibility of utilizing nuclear technology in angling. It's a slightly different modification of the "A-rig" and the splitting of every atom in the stream, fish, and surrounding land reduces fillet time considerably.

One thing I like about snakes is that they tend to give off that musty smell when they are pissed at you. Learning that was really helpful for me. I respect snakes and their place in the outdoors, though I'll readily admit my fear. I would never kill one if I didn't have to, and thankfully I haven't yet. But I judge no one who has to in order to protect their family. We'd all do the same.

After the Tilmon commitment Mizzou has a NCAA caliber roster, in terms of talent, for sure. We needed one more good big man and now we've got the best one that was left. It's just a matter of how the team gels. MPJ, Tilmon, Roberts, Harris, and Robertson are all newcomers, and all figure to demand minutes. Will guys like Puryear and Barnett accept reduced, while still hugely important roles? I think Terrance Phillips is not a concern: even with Harris and Roberts I still see him as the starting point guard, he just won't have to play 35+ minutes. I think Jontay does reclassify, and if so, that is almost too much talent to wholly fail. Almost being the key word. I can't believe I'm saying this after a 8-24 season, but I think right now the bar is something like a 8-9 seed in the tournament. With Jontay, if things come together....you cannot rule out anything. For perspective, Mizzou currently has the 11th best national title odds. That doesn't mean anything, but it gives you an idea what might be on the table if things go well.

At some point outdoorsmen have to get to the point where the single greatest issue facing our resource isn't something we have to tiptoe around. It's happening, half the darn state is underwater, and if it hasn't smacked you in the face it will soon enough. I for one am done trying to pretend it's something we can afford not to discuss. I'm not arguing anything. I'm long since done with that. Believe what you want. I am a natural resource scientist, and the future of our streams, forests, and everything we hold dear, in the face of climate change is something we need to plan for. It's not a debate, it's a reality that it's past time to face.

Yep, you can only blame so much of it on development. That may be relevant in parts of the Meramec watershed, for sure, but I'm pretty certain that's not a primary cause of these "super-floods" on the Jacks Fork and the Current. Or the North Fork/Eleven Point/Black. Heck, back in the "day" landowners were on the regular burning half the watershed each spring. They were clearing land at a much higher rate than now for beyond marginal ag-land. That situation has mostly improved in the region, although of course there is some work to do. But it's not why we're all of a sudden having huge floods seemingly every year. The truth is we know why these kinds of floods are happening. As Al says, we can either accept progressive (not progressive in the political sense but as in "it's only gonna get worse") climate change as the primary explanatory variable and start planning accordingly ...or we can pretend it's just a blip on the radar screen, and continue to suffer more and more dire consequences.

But I get its excessive, I'll try to cut back on that

I edit a lot, sorry. Don't wanna cause WWIII, mostly.

Thank you. Really. That came from all our hearts.

I spent about 20 minutes editing and re-editing a post trying to say what you just said, but mine was gonna be 3 paragraphs long. So well said...

Edit: I do not wish to continue this. People are in trouble, and this isn't the place for this beyond stupid argument

Eh, guilting people is rarely productive. I agree we should be helping those in need. If you want to post instructions for where/how to do that, I'm sure you would get a favorable response. But you can't really shout someone down for asking a fishing question on a fishing forum.

STL people, better pick a side of the Meramec, because you after this (early) evening, you aren't crossing it for a while. . http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/i--expected-to-close-tonight-modot-says/article_5eb2374d-6ca4-5274-b283-f2ebd2dfb6fd.html