LarrySTL

I seemed to do best with plastics this year on Zoom baits in Green Pumpkin, Green Pumpkin Red, or Watermelon Red ( which is brownish with some red flake) For solid black, in addition to Zoom, Culprit makes a lot of their worms in solid black.

There are some walleye folks in the Table Rock Lake forum, and I bet one of them wouild have suggestions if you dont get suggestions here and if Table Rock is a do-able range for you.

I was looking for my first pair of waders last winter and asking questions here, but I also wanted to stay in a "starter to waders" price range and a lot of the suggestions were too pricey for something I felt I might not use much. I ended up with a BPS house brand pair of breathable stockingfoot ones. I think they were normally $ 150 on sale for about $ 100. I've used them a couple of times early this year and been happy with them. I also bought BPS house brand boots. I think they were $50 on sale for $ 30. The boots ran somewhat lengthy for their size and very very wide. I would say I am happy with the waders and content with the boots although I realize that if I stick with this, I'll be upgrading at some point. I am sure the pricier name brands would last longer. My one suggestion matches what you are doing and giong to a store and trying things on. A lot of brands seem to be a little peculiar in sizing and I would have been sending boxes back and forth for some time if I had tried to mail order this.

You guys are tougher than me, or at least your stomachs are tougher than mine. I just looked and I have about half a 5 oz bottle of the regular Tabasco sauce left; I vaguely remember buying it and I'll guess that those 2.5 ozs were 6 months or a years use for me.

Congrats, keep it up !

Smallie, I'm sorry, but until you mentioned it I didn't even notice that the gal in the yellow bikini *had* sunglasses. I must have been distracted.

>on the Mississippi River at Bowling Green MO on the MO side< OOPS Turn right at Bowling Green and keep going to the Mississippi which is at Louisiana MO. Al, I have seen ( or at night heard) people do that same thing on Table Rock both at the gap between Point 9 at the mouth of the James and the island out there, and the gap on the west side of the island above Cape Fair at Virgin Bluff. At just the right water levels both those spots can look like there is 100 feet of water there.

About snakes, I dont freak at all of them, but for some reason water mocassins scare me. The one I saw two weeks ago was on a gravel road and I was in my car and stopped to look at it. No I didnt get out of the car and it still scared me even tho it didn't do anything except sit there and eventually slither away. I did think about running it over to kill it, but then decided it was just being a snake and wasn't doing anything to me so I didnt do anything to it. I do wonder something though about the folks who carry guns on the rivers because of snakes. The snake is lets say 15 feet away and my question is can you hit it with a handgun ? On the news and from a lot of law enforcement types I know, there are an awful lot of folks with guns who can't hit a human at 15 feet let alone a target that is perhaps 2 inches wide. Particularly if its moving at all, could you hit it ?

I think Todd Akin would favor mandatory carry. In fact perhaps mandatory carry of grenades. Or maybe he'd just give us each our very own tank.

I have done the drain plug deal twice. Once, which was almost a real problem, was on the Mississippi River at Bowling Green MO on the MO side. There is a muni ramp with a tiny wooden dock....and a railroad track between there and any place you can park. Yes, I forgot the drain plug, launched, stuck The New Guy in the boat...and went to park the truck. Immediately a train came along ,...and then I stood around for 5 or 10 minutes for the train to go by so I could get back to the boat. Also the current was really ripping along at that little dock. Fortunately the NG figured out the problem, found the bilge pumps and turned both of them on, so he was gaining on the flood when I got back to the boat. Funniest/worst I have ever seen ( I was only a fascinated spectator) Cape Fair dock on TR ages ago. Father of a friend of mine had a boat with a 2 inch ball on the trailer, but his truck wouldnt start, so he borrowed some other guys truck to use to launch. but it had the smaller ball on the hitch. He goes down the ramp fast...pops the brakes....jumps the ball off the hitch and the boat shoots out into the lake..still strapped to the trailer. Its floating. Its also about 50 feet from shore. Somebody grabs it and pulls it back as close as it will get to the shore. The boat owner jumps in, starts the motor, backs the whole shebang about 20 feet farther offshore....undoes the transom tiedowns, and while we all screamed at him, unsnapped the bow strap. Blub...blub.... blub...as the trailer sank and the little trail of bubbles drew a line out into the middle of the cove as the trailer rolled, underwater, deeper and deeper. This was in the days of flasher locators. It took him several hours that afternoon dragging a big magnet and about a 15 lg anchor slowly around to finally snag and retrieve, his trailer.

With it being consistently around that 2 inch spot...are you wetting your line before you tighten the knot ? Depending on the knot that can be critical especially with some floros. My second guess ...and its only if you are reeling your lure to about that 2 inch mark before the cast, is a rough spot on the tip guide on the rod.

The rod being a lighter action should not make the line break. As Al said, check the rod guides etc, run a dry Q tip round in the guides and see if it snags. My guesses would be a bad spot on a guide, or a spool of bad line ( yes that happens sometimes), or a problem with the knot-tying. If there is no rough spot nor any place where line is catching in the reel, you might try some more casting, just putting 3/4 oz of bullet weights on and no actual lure. That at least will let you lose 20 cents worth of lead, rather than $ 8 lures, if it keeps breaking.

"if I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die..." Bruce Cockburn

How bout them Cardinals ?

I will confess that I started this thread because on Friday about an hour after taking apart my cell phone and camera to let them dry on a small towel in the car after submerging both of them.... I found myself about 15 feet away, smack in the middle of a gravel road, from a really well marked fat water mocassin maybe 3 feet long and no way to take its picture before it slowly slithered away. Yes, the picture was ready, but I wasn't.

OK... I get it..nylon rope, etc. Reel him in. Now what ? How do we unhook him/her/it without losing a few fingers along the way ? Please do excuse my sarcasm, because the question itself is sincere.

I am using a several years old 4 MP inexpensive digital camera that I bought used and its fine for what I want to do which is take a few pictures on float or wading, streams. I tend to shove it in the pocket of cargo shorts, or hang it around my neck on a lanyard, and either way I worry about wading too deep and submerging it. So, do I just buy one of those $ 3 chinese see-through "waterproof" cases on Ebay and hope they really are waterproof ? Do I buy an inexpensive waterproof camera ? I appreciate all suggestions, but I will likely ignore the ones that would cost more than perhaps $ 25. Thanks

Gavin, try Nu Finish. It works well on cars and fiberglass boats at pulling that chalky oxidation out and its not a huge amount of work to use.

Two years ago I was asking the same things and I am still not out of the woods but I can go out and on a decent day expect to catch an ok number of smallmouth with a few of them decent size. I did exactly what this thread is saying to do. The Delorme MO Atlas ( best for figuring out how to get to a particular access spot), 200 Mo Smallmouth Adventures ( best for deciding where I wanted to try to get to) and the USGS gauges for water flow and depth. I am nowhere near where some guys like Al and Gavin and Smalliebigs are, but I am past the point of feeling inept and I can figure things out a lot faster on a given day. Last year took me more than one outing to catch a smallmouth; this year took me about 25 minutes the first day. Etc. Some of what you are looking for is small enough that its not on a state highway map. The creeks can be small enough that the riffles would not float a stick, let alone a yak or canoe, especially at this years water levels. Al told me longgg casts, that if I could see the fish they already saw me and I was too close, and he was right. Dull colored clothes. If you can make the cast without even getting your feet in the water, stay on the shore. Look for seams in current, between faster and not-as-fast water. I won't say dont throw at the calm largemouth-looking water, but don't spend much time throwing there. I'm using 8 lb line and thats pretty common. Lots of topwaters, especially walk-the-dog ones, and some small to medium size plastics in places where the bottom isnt wall to wall snot moss. Be quiet, be subtle in the approach, and cast as far as you can. I'm still clomping around in the boondocks exploring, but now I am catching some fish while I explore. Repeat as needed. On a non-fish note: locking gas cap on your vehicle if it doesnt already have one, and put the "security screws" on your license plates. Good luck, you can do this !

At one of the MSA meetings earlier this year, an MDC guy was asked this and his answer was what Al is saying, that its about the soles ( rather than the uppers) of the footwear, that therefore normal tennis/gym/etc shoes would be legal, and that all this applies only in the designated areas. I find it hard to imagine an MDC guy telling somebody to come out of a stream and show him the bottom of their tennies, but I would agree that carpet/etc glued to the bottoms would be a violation.

Very good !!

I havent used a Carbonlite but I do have a couple BPS rods in that medium price range and overall have been very happy with them. I'll second the comment about figuring out what amount of weight (worm, hook, sinker) you want to throw and finding a rod suitable for that. The lure weight descriptions on BPS rods has generally seemed accurate to me. If you took a reel and a couple of weights and a worm or to to the BPS in St Charles, asked nicely and offered to leave your credit card at the register, they might let you take a rod outside, put your reel on it and throw it for a couple minutes to know first hand.

Bought the locking gas cap yesterday at an auto parts store. $ 18.xx plus tax. Now it looks like I need to go back and buy the heavy see-through license plate covers ? Are they trying to grab the whole plates, or just the little renewal stickers ? Dang !

Well I think its a great picture, even if I did only click on it because of the title.

The MDC guys who were at SMA at Powder Valley a few months ago said the Paddlers Guide was being updated. It was one of those "coming soon" deals with no specific date. I would guess that the moment its out, MDC will advertise the heck out of it and those $ 100 prices on Amazon will tumble way down for the older edition.