Mitch f

Well it depends what you mean by actual harm, did the guys physically touch Al's neice? no. Did they expose themselves in front of her? yes...actual harm done whether they touched her or not. People can have fun and get loud, thats ok. Like someone said, just act the same way on a river that you would in everyday life on the street.

Classic

The dorks just flat outnumber the enforcement, and it's just tough to try and prioritize how many cops go where. I want the law to hide in the bushes at night to enforce illegal gigging. Others want us to enforce poaching deer and other wildlife. Others want to cut down on drunks running watercraft into swimmers. There's just not enough cops to go around.

Kind of hard to improve on your routine!!!!

Statement of the year award!!!! The post was in jest but not entirely. I do enough with the family to compensate for my fishing but there's always a little tension if i'm gone 1 hour longer than expected

A buddy of mine works for this German company : http://www.dietrichs.com/ They have a Cad software that's whole intent is to design energy efficiency into new home designs. They can also use the collected point clouds from one of my scanning machines to evaluate the energy efficiency of an existing structure. Sorry it's not in English but it's so new and the product is being introduced in the US this week at a trade show. These are the small steps that can be taken to collectively make a big difference!

Turns out about every 28 days my wife gets upset with my fishing schedule, then a few days later she starts to relax and accept my love for fishing. So I plan my fishing trips one week to the day after the complaining starts....works like a champ. Was wondering if anyone on this forum has had a similar experience. Ps. I always give her words of encouragement like "the bathroom won't clean itself" during this time, with mixed results.

Thats an incredible fish! congrats! happy to know a few big ones are still there. area looks familiar

Yep, he caught a lot of fish

You need to keep going further upstream if you want consistent fishing. At a point 10 years ago you could say the closer you get to St. Louis the bigger the smallmouth get. This is not the case anymore. You may find an occaisonal monster around the area where you are fishing but I would venture to say that you could fish for 2 years and never catch even an 18" smallmouth, especially without a boat.

yep, the parents who are gun owners have a responsibility to teach their kids the right way. If my little girl got shot I would beat someone to death with a stick

I just call it natural selection

You better bring beer or buy it before you get there....dry county. We found out the hard way.

A few things strike me about that fish. First the fish was probably not caught by those guys because they didn't take the time to cast to the back side of the log. Second, the fish went for the bait after it slightly hit the log (I think it wakes them up sometimes). Third, the fish was still there after your last fishing trip...good news. Btw, got a waterproof iPhone cover now!!!!

yep, went out the other day and had to stop well before the hole to figure out where the runnable spots were. The problem was you had to be so far away from the small channel spots that you could barely see which way to go. The lowest Ive ever seen it I think. When we did manage to get to a hole with decent current we caught fish consistantly.

I don't believe you at all, the fishing sucks on that river!

That's funny Gavin, just this morning I was thinking we needed to amass existing data into a database and crunch the numbers, and determine once and for all which would be most favorable, you just did that!

1 tube of KY jelly 300

Matt, congrats! looks like you had a great time! topwater is as fun as it gets

My dad riding to high school on his favorite horse in 1938 on his home farm near Paragould, AR. And... Here he is last October for his 90th birthday with my little 2 year old He's a great guy and a happy man! and last at Christmas with our new technology!

That's hilarious! when we pulled up and saw the Missouri plates, I told them that I recognized the dealership where your vehicle was purchsed and I knew you were from STL and must be serious smallie fishermen!

I'm sure someone has an in who is going to end up owning the property at a reduced rate. The poor sap didn't help himself at all and opened himself up to a can of worms. Probably all for the young hippie girl nookie anyway.

To start off with, I had an absolute wonderful time with Andy and Al! this fishing was wonderful and the total experience was as good as it gets. After not being in a canoe in almost 10 years and a tandem one at that, I immediately found out how darn hard a solo canoe is to fish out of. I looked like a kid trying to ride a bike for the first time. At first, my only goal was simply to not tip over and embarass myself, after I felt a little more comfortable I actually tried to cast a little. This process gave me a great appreciation for Al and Andy's ability. Tuesday started with Al and I fishing the South Fork of the Spring river. I fished with Al several times out of my jet boat but have never seen him operate a canoe and fish. If Nirvana in stream fishing is possible, Al has it. He is so efficient with a solo canoe that he out casted me at least 3 to 1. Everytime I looked upstream he was about 25 to 30 feet off the right bank, going perfectly straight and all I saw all day long was his lure flying thru the air toward the bank and the splashing of a fish that took his lure offering. He was generous saying I caught slightly less fish than him...I probably only caught 35% of the number of fish he caught. He controlled the entire canoe with one hand and casted with the other. When he was done with the stroke, the paddle came to rest perfectly diagonally across his right thigh and the paddle end rested on the left gunnel. I heard some commotion about 75 yards ahead and saw the 20.5 incher really giving Al a working over and quickly paddled up to help and take photos, what a pig! The next day I floated with Andy on Crooked Creek, Andy is also an excellent fisherman and canoeist. We caught on average size bigger fish than on the South Fork. I suppose it was due to the 14" length limit. (who says limits aren't impotant). Andy caught a bunch more fish than I did as well. My canoeing ability got a little better every day. but found myself more often than not only being able to cast 1 or 2 times at a spot before I rammed my canoe into it ( it's hard to pull another fish out of a rootwad when you ram you canoe into it!!!). Andy caught a 19" in a spot with flat shelf rock in 2 feet of water. We didnt have the traffic to contend with that Al had that day, we only saw one couple with fly rods I think. Last day Al and I fished together again at the Strawberry river and wasn't overly impressed with the river. I did manage to catch a couple of 17's smallies and Al caught a huge spot, but the river was full of long slow deepish pools with not much current. We caught the majority of fish with the shorter holes maybe 150 yards or so long with the swifter current ( go figure!). Not as many smallies in this river either. All the rivers were good with top water all day long, with a few exceptions the first day on the South fork, where the topwater bite came at different times. It could have been because anytime we were within a half mile of an access, the number of fish weren't there because of the fishing pressure and the catch and keep crowd. All in all, had a blast and sometimes longed for my foot controlled trolling motor and a casting deck!

Gotta agree with you on that, They're just not sure of the long term impact...can't be good.

On the 2012 OAF Float and Boat.....or maybe just Float. We left Al's house at about 7:30 this morning, with a wonderful breakfast by Mary, we'll keep ya posted.