eric1978

Burns' documentaries tend to be more historical than anything else. I also wish it was more "Discovery Channel," but it's still better than most of the rest of the garbage on TV. I was actually pretty interested in the stuff on Muir. He was a really impressive guy and a major reason we still have some nature left to enjoy, so I think the time spent on him was very relevant, albeit a bit drawn out.

Really the two most popular and available brands are Old Town and Wenonah. There are some other cheaper brands out there. Wenonah, IMO is a little better canoe, but you'll pay for it. Check out their websites, and narrow down a few models that will fit your needs. They make many many models to fit the needs of any kind of paddling. With your two boys, I'd think you're gonna be looking at a model that's at least 16 feet long, with three seats. If you can't find a three seater to your liking, you can always get a bigger tandem and add a custom seat in the center. I'd look for something relatively wide, since with three people including two frollicking kids bouncing around in the canoe, stability will be a priority for you. Kids always have their junk all over the place, and tipping over means lots of lost stuff. Wider means slower and more work to paddle, but I'd give the kids the paddles, and tell them they're in training. Royalex canoes are really the most ideal, because they're tough and pretty light. But they can be a little pricey. Other types of plastic canoes are totally acceptable and are usually cheaper and a little tougher, but are also somewhat heavier, though usually not much. I'd stay away from aluminum and fiberglass, and the graphite, kevlar and other exotic materials aren't really practical for family use and are very expensive. Check out those websites, pick a couple models that would work for you, then check out Craigslist in your area. A lot of times you can get a great deal on a hardly used canoe. Check ebay, occassionally you'll find something there, although location is of course an issue. And check your local outdoor type places and sporting goods stores. REI and Alpine Shop have canoes in stock. Dick's has a decent selection, but varies store to store. Good luck and let us know how your hunt goes!

My first good fishing buddy had a bass boat. He taught me a ton about fishing and took me all over. Used to make trips to all the MO and northern AR reservoirs all the time. We went to Lake Fork in Texas three times. I loved it. Cruising around from spot to spot, finding fish, figuring out patterns. It was fun and so relaxing. But we kind of parted ways several years ago, and I discovered smallie streams, and I just love the simplicity of a canoe, the gurgling of the water, the ever-changing characteristics of each stream, the riffles, the pools, the eddies, the gravel bars, the bluffs...I could go on and on. Lakes have their moments, too, and MO has some nice ones. But you just can't beat silently gliding through valleys amidst some of the oldest geography in the world.

Okay boys, let's hear it. I've always just used the plastic junk paddles in the past, but since I'm in new canoe mode right now, I guess I'll invest in a quality wood paddle. I've heard some brands thrown around, probably most often Bending Branches. What do you guys like for brands, sizes and styles? This paddle will be for an OT Guide 119. Not really worried about hauling butt through slack-water or paddling upstream. Just looking for a versatile all-arounder good for manuevering and correction strokes. Thanks all.

That's when a DVR comes in real handy. I record it and watch maybe 45 minutes or an hour a night. You're right, though, my eyes start to glaze over after a while. Guess that's the trade-off with a Ken Burns doc. Beautifully directed and every detail you could ever imagine, but 12 hours of anything but fishing gets a little old. I think I'd perk up a little if they showed some stuff in the Ozarks. Hope we make the cut, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe the Buffalo in AR will get some attention. But that's considered a National River and a State Park or something, right? I don't know. Whatever.

Bass boat is on the list of things I will have one day, but right now, when I think fishing, I think streams. They are so much more interesting to me. And a canoe is a few hundred bucks compared to...well, we know what you can spend on a bass boat. I envision myself a retired old man many years from now, living on a good smallie lake and hauling my old bones around in a 21 foot Ranger. But for now, while I have the energy, my time is spent on the magnificent Ozark streams.

As soon as I'm finished I'll write up a parts list and dimensions for the woodworking portions. I'm still noodling on rod holders and other little conveniences, and will post them also as I go. I have a habit of modifying just about everything I own, so I have a feeling this thread may go on and on until my canoe looks like something NASA built.

Okay, here's the seat assembled on the new custom thwarts. (Haven't put on the backrest yet) I still need to cut off the excess bolt hanging down past the nuts and grind them smooth, but I have to disassemble for polyurethane, so I'll do that later. The risers are 1" Oak dowel, with a hole bored out down the center. I wound up having to use 3/8" carriage bolts because Home Depot didn't have any 8 inchers any smaller. Not really a big deal, just a little more weight. Next step will be mounting the seat in the canoe...report and photos to come

Kevin, I'll definitely call you on that float one of these days. I've got a couple of stretches of Meramec I've been dying to do in my solo first, but I'll be fishing all winter (well, most of it), and we should meet up one day. Cheers!

Oh boy...I agree with FishinCricket...let's go with C&R. I like you guys too much to get into politics and God. Or should I say, I want you guys to like me, for I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on those two issues on this site. And I'll leave it at that. Release fish good. Keep fish bad.

Yeah, I looked at the Pack, but they're almost twice as much, with the only real difference being they are 10 pounds lighter than the Guide. The Guide is about 2 inches shorter and a little deeper than the Pack, and actually, the material that makes them a little heavier is a little tougher than Royalex. I float some really questionable water sometimes, and do a lot of dragging and portaging, so the tougher the better for me. If I was gonna fork over the bread for a Pack, I'd probably just go one better and get the Vagabond. I think the Pack Angler version is a total rip-off, and I'd just do the mods myself and save a couple hundred $. Oh, and the people told me that $400 was the permanent price for the Guide, but I don't think Old Town is making them anymore, so when they're gone, they're gone. They still make exactly the same canoe, call it the Discovery 119 25th anniversary model, comes in red or green and is about $600. Marketing garbage.

I'm not sure if they have any in Springfield, Joe. I'd check their website. There are three in St. Louis in Chesterfield (valley), Des Peres (270 and Manchester in West County Mall) and where I am in St. Peters (Mid Rivers Mall). Also one in Columbia, MO, not sure where exactly. I know how you feel, man. I've been dying for a solo forever, but the tandem I share with my buddy has been fine until now. It's not the absolute best canoe, but it's an Old Town, it's close to the right size, it's not too heavy (43 lbs) and it's CHEAP!!! I'm pumped.

Your story about that gar reminded me of when I was a kid... A friend of mine and I would go crappie fishing on some river north of the Missouri. I don't even remember the name of the little river, but it was LOADED with gar. My buddy's grandpa would haul us around to catch crappie with cane poles out of heavy brush with live minnows, and just about every third or fourth fish would be a gar. Now grandpa had a real distaste for gar. You think some of us are crabby about spots...Anyway, years later we still laugh about how we'd hear him say in his gravelly smoker's voice, "whatcha got Scotty?" Grandpa would look down over the boat at the fish. "Ah, sonofabitch! Scotty, getcher BB gun." He'd pop the thing right in the head and unhook him. Sometimes if we didn't have the BB Gun, it would be, "Scotty, get your pliers," and he'd just rip the poor thing's mouth off of him so he couldn't eat. Pretty brutal to me now, even for an animal as ugly as a gar, but seemed pretty normal and comical back then. Ah, the good ol' days.

Well, my best fishing buddy is having a baby in about two weeks, and he's gonna be out of commission for quite some time. Since I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot more fishing alone, the tandem is now less than ideal, so I picked up my first solo canoe today, which I've been looking forward to for years. I've been drooling over Vagabonds since I found this site and Riversmallies, but I just didn't have the cash to drop a grand on one (well, my wife SAID I didn't, so...). I bought the Old Town Guide 119 from Dick's for $400. The only color they have available in that model is the camo, which I pretty much think is hideous and hate, but for that price, I guess I really don't care. I could have spent an extra $200 to get the same canoe in red or green with a Discovery decal on it instead of Guide, but I would need my head examined if I did. Went straight from Dick's to a little pond to get a feel for it and see if I'll need to move around the seat, and sure enough, yes I do. I'll be moving it forward about 5 inches and raising it about 3 inches. I'll be using the molded seat they give you with it, which is pretty comfortable structurally, but sits way too low for me. I want to be higher up, and I'll just learn to adjust to the lesser stability. Anyway, I'll be documenting all the modifications I make, and will be posting the progress with pictures as I go. I stopped at St. Charles Hardwoods today and bought a nice chunk of 8/4 Ash, and milled it down to two 1 3/4 X 1 3/4 struts for the seat. Routered the sharp corners and sanded nice and smooth, gave them a coat of Tung Oil, and I'll put a couple coats of polyurethane on them tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they use Ash for the thwarts; anyway it matches perfectly. More detailed photos to come as I make more progress. Any tips or comments along the way are welcomed and wanted!

And that's a wrap. Well done, gentlemen.

Smallies may be hit or miss at that time. I might start with some kind of wobbly crankbait to cover lots of water. If they're not going after that, I'd try a brown hair jig or tube. Try a Senko. Suspending pointers can be productive in October. If we have a really mild autumn, you may still be able to get some on topwater if the water temps stay above 60, but probably not likely.

Man you guys got some fat spots on TR. Very nice fish! Do you find them in the same areas the smallies are hanging out?

I'd shoot for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Good time to catch a big boy.

Those little parasites are nasty. I don't usually see them in the fins or tail as bad as that, but often in the gills and the meat if you cut them open. They are what really deters me from harvesting spots, and I bet a lot of others feel the same way. Where's Bear Grylls when you need him?

Stupid gar. That's a drag about your rod, but I'll bet you had fun for a minute before you knew what he was. Nice spot. I could spend a whole day catching spots that size. I think they're prettier than largemouth.

I had a Water Skeeter toon for a while some years back. It was really snazzy and I thought it was great...until I used it. It weighs a ton and it's awkward to haul around. You have to inflate/deflate it. You have to worry about punctures. It's hard to reach gear and whatnot while you're on it. It doesn't have a lot of "cargo area." It's too wide for skinny water (pretty much anything with "creek" in its name is out). It's like trying to paddle an aircraft carrier through slack water. The list of negatives goes on and on. The one thing I can say about it though, was that it was super comfortable. A decent royalex canoe that seats three would be great for you and your boys, and you could use it on a lot smaller waters than the toon, plus it's faster, easier to paddle, and simply more convenient to haul around and use.

It might make you trout boys cry, but that was AWESOME!

Indigenous (ecology) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Native species) Jump to: navigation, search Look up Indigenous in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. For other uses, see indigenous. In biogeography, a species is defined as indigenous or native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural resources, with no human intervention. Every natural organism (as opposed to a domesticated organism) has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native. Outside this native range, a species may be introduced by human activity; it is then referred to as an introduced species within the regions where it was anthropogenically introduced.

laker, If you had fished in the Meramec River system back in the 50s and 60s, you wouldn't have been catching spotted bass, because they weren't there. They are native in the waters you were fishing when you were a kid, and they lived and continue to live in harmony with the other species in those ecosystems because they've had millenia to adapt. As far as overpopulation goes, that's the farthest thing from a problem for smallmouth on any stream in the Ozarks (that I know of), spotted bass or not. Even if anglers were required to catch and release every smallmouth they caught, there still wouldn't be an overpopulation problem due to poachers, giggers, otters, invasive species, habitat degradation, guthooks, stress deaths, etc... I'll just put it this way: If you could time travel, would you rather fish your favorite stream a few hundred years ago, when it was untouched by man, or would you rather fish that same stream now, with many of the fish taken or choked out? I know which one I'd choose.

I wonder if the fishing was any good back in the 1850s?