LarrySTL

Way to go guys ! And yes, color me more than jealous.

There could be an untapped market here and we can look to our neighbors in Kentucky http://fw.ky.gov/carpmadnessinfo.asp or Illinois for role models. . http://www.peoriacarphunters.com/Home_Page.html Just think if all the meth folks took up guiding for flying carp. This might solve two problems simultaneously.

Its been around for many years and its a tax assessed on the manufacturer or importer. The proceeds are earmarked for the Wallop Breaux funds that go to the states for sportfishing. Occassionally Congress tries to divert some of the money from this to their Idea of the Day but that generally gets shot down pretty quickly as BASS and some other huge sportfishing muscle scream. Google will tell you a lot more than I can. I strongly suspect Gavin could too. To me, this is one thing the Feds do that works out ok.

Bobby Barrack's Perfect Frog and cut about 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch off the skirt. 50 or 65 lb Power Pro, tied direct to the frog. If you want to see things better and the water has any kind of color to it, or if you are fishing in any kind of froggish glop, the bright yellow PP will let you track things way better and doesnt seem to slow the bass down any. The tiniest little WTD twitches you can make with your rod tip down. Try to make it walk side to side rather than move forward. Yes it will come toward you, but thats OK.

We really ought to find a way to enforce a curfew, perhaps no posting between midnight and 4 am ?

You can't fix stupid.

If you follow this link and scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page, you will find Meramec at Cook Station, and both the Meramec and Huzzah "near" Steelville, wherever the "near" gauge is. A bunch of guys can tell you much more from these numbers than I can, but it looks to me like at Cook Station, the M is still at least 18 inches high, flowing far harder than normal, and the level dropping fast. To me that doesnt sound at all encouraging. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/MO/nwis/current/?type=flow

Beautiful fish, WTG guys...and yes I am insanely jealous !

Nice pics, nice fish !

I have never found a good inexpensive answer in the burbs unless you are single and dont have to put a female's car in your garage.

Al is lots more thoughtful and polite than what I might have said.

I sunburn like crazy and I had a basal cell skin cancer surgically removed from my neck in 2011. I bought one of the buff things last year ( I just looked, its made by Aqua Design) and tried it a couple times but it felt to me like a plastic bag over my head. So I am back to a ball cap, a cotton shirt ( or one of the knit columbia SPF things that actually doesnt feel like plastic to me), regular old smear-it-on SPF 30 sunscreen, and a SPF 30 Chapstick for my lower lip thats been split open several times. Add a checkup by the dermatologist once a year, and thats what I am doing. YMMV.

WTG Scott ! Wet wading ?

I forget where I saw it, and I dont think it was on Bassmasters, but I did see online last week a video of some local guy with Iaconelli in the local's boat, yanking Ike's boat off the shore and back into the water in the Sabine tournament. As folks said, those boats get used often and hard. They also get the same level of maintenance that race cars get with what amount to factory pit crews at the ramp each day with two semi's full of parts and mechanics. The parts are based on how fast they can fix things, so if you bang up a gear in a lower unit, they just put a new lower unit on. When the pro sells it at the end of what is usually 13 months, the buyer gets the hull and engine with full factory warranties as if things were brand new. And yes above 50 mph or so, its a whole different world not always in a good way.

I bought some last year. About $ 100 ( on the spring sale) at BPS in St Charles. I bought chest high breathable with the "stockingfeet". I got the chest-high ones. They were a BPS house brand,..and..like MoGuy, I bought the cheapo BPS canvas wading boots with the non-felt soles. I had to buy boots and waders separate because the bootfoot waders had boots that fit me attached to waders that were too small, or vice versa. I only used them a couple of times, but they havent leaked and did the job for me. The boots seem very wide for the size, but the other choice was very short for the best width, or spend about $ 125 or up which I didnt want to do. I have generally worm the boots for all wading since I got them, and they are a lot better than gym shoes, sandals, etc for me. I asked online first; you can find my post about it somewhere approx last Feb or March. Thats that search function deal. I am very glad I went and tried them on. IMO thats a must unless you are simply replacing a pair with the exact same brand and model. There was a *lot* of variance in sizes between models and brands.

Hmm. Good fishing for bass and trout. Easy access and don't need waders. And the most detailed information. I never heard of either of those creeks til I read your post 5 minutes ago. Since then I put both of them in Google, and then in Google Earth. Doing that gave me potential answers to some of your questions. The problem is that 132 other folks are checking those same two sources for information, and 500 more will when they get back later today from the places they are wading, floating, and jetboating around. If somebody had the answers to your questions and posted those answers here, the concession rights to those accesses, both the official and unofficial accesses, might become valuable because from tomorrow through next weekend a lot of people might have been to every conceivable access. That means the fish could be able to recite the inventory control number of every lure in the BassProShop and Cabelas's catalogs. There are generally a couple ways to handle the learning curve. First is basically self-help. If you don't have google, and google maps, and google earth on your computer, download and install them. Fiddle with google maps til you can maneuver around a bit in it. It will do lots of things, and 5 minutes practice will let you see quite a bit of useful stuff. St Louis County library system has a few copies of 200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures. If you live or work in StL Co ( StL City too I think) you are eligible for a library card and can reserve a copy of it. At the same time join Missouri Smallmouth Alliance in the way that gets you a copy of that book. When you get it from MSA, take the library back its copy. Go buy a copy of the Delorme Atlas for Missouri. Online, at some Wally World's , and at the reference desk of the City and County library branches ( you cant check it out). Learn a little about the map software, and download a GPS app and a compass, on your phone. Put a state highway map in your vehicle. I suggest a $ 3 compass, a small flashlite from WW too. Add a water thermometer from BPS or Cabelas too ( $ 10) If you have an older vehicle without a locking gas cap, go to an autoparts store and get and install that too. It's cheaper than the first siphoned tank of gas ( yes, this is the sad voice of experience on this point). Scroll back through the archives of this board particularly in the General Discussions and the Rivers-Streams-Creeks sections. Read everything you can find about the kind of fishing, and the broad general area, you are interested in. Learn to use the Search function. As one example, if you can find Al Agnew's excellent post and thread on "ferrying" a canoe and find it way fast, you're good on the Search function. Read pretty much everything by the guys who have made hundreds and hundreds of posts. They know their stuff and you can trust the information they give even tho they won't tell you their best places. Learn to go to the USGS river gauge site(s) and how to find information there and to apply it. You can start at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/MO/nwis/current/?type=flow Another approach is if you have specific questions that are not "where is a really good place I should go fish?" ask here and you will get pretty helpful answers. Example "what is a good pair of waders for no more than $ 175 and what features should I look for and do I need to try them on or just get em mail-order?" You'll get legit specific answers. There are quite a few people here who have been fishing the types of places you ( and I ) would love to fish, and have been fishing them for 25 years or more ( in some cases lots more) but find that their streams get beaten to death by the crowds if they give out specific locations on the larger streams, or even just the names of their favorite small streams. You can generally get answers to "what general part of the Meramec is best in the winter" and similar questions; "what kind of topwater lures work for smallies and how early in the year should I try them?" More specific than that and you may get silence. Post here. Give your results even if they arent good "I went to a small stream, the water temp was 55 and I didn't catch a bass all day. I mostly threw Tiny Torpedo's and 1/2 ounce Rattle Traps". You may get some general tips and you will start making a few contacts who are willing to help. Attend the Mo Smallmouth Alliance stuff in StL County if you are local and if the presentation is of any even semi- interest to you. You will learn from the presentations. Talk to at least a few people before and after and you will slowly make more contacts and learn even more. There are guys here who will, if you ask nicely, take you fishing with them a time or two. Understand they will not take you to their best places, but probably will take you to a place they want to explore, or to a well known decent place. More contacts, more friends. Beyond that, look at those two places in Google Earth, look for accesses, and for possible accesses. Buy the Delorme Atlas right away and the 200 Mo Adventures as soon as you can get it. Then fill your gas tank ( and lock it) and start exploring. After a while you will have lots more information, you will know several people from here, and you will have done a lot of fishing. Unfortunately the streams and creeks are not like Table Rock Lake where you can ask in that group "Is the James River part of the lake any good in early spring ?" and actually get answers. The small streams are too fragile to take much pressure and too many of the veteran folks have had that happen to their best locations. Sad but true. This is not intended as "F. U." and hopefully doesnt come across that way but all of us went ( and are still going) through the learning curve. Mine started a couple years ago and the first few tries had me feeling like "geeez...can I catch ANYTHING in moving water?" It gets better.

Welcome, and yes there is a lot of great info on here !

Opps...make that 46 - 50 not 60

Water temps of about 46 - 60 down there now depending on which gauge. Very lucky that they got rescued without waiting longer. Brrrrrrr

One Bomber squarebill, a huge gob of Cordell's version of the rattletrap and of C's imitation of a Rapala or Rebel surface jerkbait, lots of Yum plastics in bags that had fewer baits than they should, and not much else at the one in Kirkwood today.

If there are any big bass in that pond, or if the pads extend out to 4 or 5 ft ( or more) of water, yes the frog could be a blast, though so could flipping/pitching any compact punchbait type thing ( jig w/ craw, sweet beaver, short straighttailed worm etc). I'd want a flipping stick or something approaching that and 50 or 65 lb braid tied direct to the lure because a big bass in that kind of cover will control things on mono or fluoro. Before the pads thicken totally, you may be able to get close, throw a spinnerbait into an opening, and thread it back between the pads by guiding it with your rod.

Baitcasting will give you greater accuracy, the ability to use heavy line ( if thats something you may need) and to handle heavier lures, say above 1/2 ounce. Baitcasting reels dont do well with lures below about 3/8 or 1/4 oz, and below 8 or 10 lb mono they are often difficult. There will be a noticable learning curve with a baitcaster til you get past throwing backlashes but newer reels make that less difficult. Once you get past that learning curve, loosening the tension controls on a baitcasting reel will increase your casting distance. If you want to flip or pitch, which are mostly useful in a lake, baitcasting is a must. If you plan on dragging bigger bass out of nasty cover with any frequency, nothing beats baitcasting. As Al said, if you want to make a lot of casts, particularly accurate casts between logs, under brush, etc spinning cant touch baitcasting There are a couple of factors in casting distance but to me the main one is length of the rod, either spinning or casting. When you get to 6' and head toward 7' you will really notice it. But its all a trade off and 7' could be a real pain in a narrow stream, or anyplace with lots of junk overhanging you, 7' could be hard in a canoe and if its sticking out on a float stream, its likely to get a couple feet of it snapped off. Much less so in a pond or lake. With any given spinning rod, the other big determiner of distance is the diameter of the reel spool, and whether you are keeping it pretty full, almost to the point where it starts throwing lots of loops. If you have a very small spinning reel on anything other than a short ultralite spinning rod, moving to a medium size reel will get you a noticably wider spool, and therefore noticably more distance. Smaller diameter line gets you distance too with spinning tackle. If you had 10 lb mono spooled and switched to 6...or to braid...or nanofil...you'll get more distance. Obviously there are other limiting things about how light a line you can get away with. To me and others may differ, there are perfectly functional spinning reels in a range of $40 or $ 50. Most folks throwing baitcasters are probably at $ 75 or more, sometimes way more and I would say the average price folks on here are paying for baitcasters might be $ 125 to $ 150. You can spend $ 300 or more if the budget allows that. Like lots of people, I use both tho I use them for different things.

Well I have never bothered to figure out how to quote here, so for now I will just do this "You need to do a little research into what the govt defines as poverty/poor. It is currently defined, as I said, as not being able to keep up with the Jones's." The actual current Federal definition is $ 11,000 per year income for a single person, and $ 23,100 per year for a family of four. Fifteen percent of the US population and about twenty percent of US children live below those financial levels. Says who ? US Dept of Health and Human Services. I'll spare folks from my rant about the St L City public schools other than saying that pathetic would be an accurate description of most of them, and of the better ones, such as the few Magnet Schools, watch the news in July and see the parents lined up on sidewalks 24/7 for two or three days to try to get their kids into the magnet schools. I live in the burbs in a suburb that nobody would think of as rich, but that has well rated public schools and which sends a substantial percentage of kids to college. I work primarily in the City in a neighborhood where over half the school kids are poor enough to be on the Fed school lunch program and which has one of the highest school dropout rates and the highest per capita murder rate, in the metro STL area. Anyone who believes those two sets of kids have remotely equal chances is dreaming. If its so do-able for folks to bootstrap themselves out of poverty, why is the percentage of our population below the poverty level steadily increasing for decades, and why is the number of those who are middle class steadily decreasing at about the same rate ? Lastly, why is the percentage of wealth held by the richest 5 or 10 % continuing to increase at a rate that alarms me ? If we look at other countries in history, when the "haves" have much much more than the "have nots" for long, and the "nots" become more than about 60 % of the population, some really ugly things start to become common. I'm dont know the overall answer, but I agree with Al ( and others) as to the general nature of the problem, and also with those who say that some major changes need to happen. At a national level lately I feel like both the Republicans and the Democrats would rather point the finger at the other side, and kick the can down the road months or years at a time, rather than risk their personal political futures by making some tough decisions.

20 years or so ago, many of the manufacturers had their own individual way to rate TM thrust, and there was no standardized way to measure it. Some rated it at what I'll call the initial surge of electric power, some at the power it put out after that initial surge, etc. Some rated it at the propellor, and some didnt. It was not unusual to find a "weaker" TM which actually had a lot more thrust than a TM with a higher thrust number. As one example, the old Evinrude foot control TMs had a lot of thrust for a 24 v motor even though the rated amount of thrust on them looked pretty poor. This may still be taking place though MG and MK are about the only remaining manufacturers. Wrench or one of the other good mechanics could probably elaborate on this.

And theres a Lakes section of the forums, with a very active one for Table Rock, lots of information, quite a bit of it about smallmouth.