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I will ask again, in short sentences and small words: how is your position on Vick any different from that PETA takes regarding hunting and fishing?

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Simple.
Thanks for the short sentences…

The difference is that Vick is accused of ACTUALLY torturing animals. His accusers went to law school and work for the Fed.

PETA will accuse someone of torture for putting a color and chain on a dog thereby limiting that dog’s ability to free range. PETA “accusers” can be found working at a bead shop near you.

And the difference is… ?

A: Reality.

PETA’s position holds no more credibility than if I was to urine down your back and tell you it is raining. 99% of what PETA is against is NOT torture. The rest, well… that’s what Michael Vick is accused of doing to his dogs. I think electrocution or strangulation counts as torture, don’t you? Or do you feel torture is an act that can only be committed by a human, on a human?

But back to my point for posting…. you agree Vick deserves punishment. We agree Vick deserves punishment. You’re seem bent over the way some reacted to the charges of torture resulting in death (easy tiger, nobody said murder) of dogs.

Some get angry. You… not so much. I’m OK with that. Why are you spending so much breath trying to tell a group of full-grown adults how they should feel in response to this indictment? Do you think you’ve found yourself, here on this fishing website, surrounded in a hotbed of soon to be converted PETA sympathizers that need you to save us from ourselves?

Double >>>

If that’s your goal, to set us on the straight and narrow before we fall under the spell of PETA… friend, I can tell you you’re too late. I’m too upset that some dogs got tortured to really be swayed by the passion in your voice.

And someone, anyone, tell me what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks Ray Lewis has to do with any of this?

Lewis played football. Michael Vick played football. I get it. If you can draw a parallel that goes beyond the football connection… I’m all ears. They are not connected cases. The charges filed are not wholely similar. The outcome of the former will not set precedent for the later and the events are completely unrelated. If you are somehow unhappy with the Lewis verdict… I guess that to me would be a seperate matter.

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I think it’s stupid to treat Vick on the same level as people who take human life. That is what PETA does. The same arguments made against Vick on this thread are used against hunters and fishermen by animal rights activists. If you don’t see the problem there, well, so be it.

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Rumors indicate that he indeed will cop a plea this week since his gang of criminals have already done so. The NFL commish is rumored to then suspend him. He is probably only looking at a year in the slammer and there isn’t a fine big enough to hurt this punks deep pockets. Lots of rumors though so lets see what happens.

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The NFL has officially denied the rumors that Vick will be suspended for a year…that, of course, was said before the “Vick will plead guilty” rumors came out. Given that three cooperating witnesses have accepted plea bargains in exchange for their testimony, a plea bargain by Vick seems the “best” option left to him.

The sentence likely to be handed down for Vick will be too lenient for some, and too severe for others. That means it will probably be about right.

Vick’s teammate Warrick Dunn (a well-respected veteran) indictated in a published statement that the Falcon players do not expect to have Vick playing at all this season, and they are OK with that. I suspect Vick will play in the NFL after the 2007 season, but not with the Falcons.

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I didn’t read your last 3 post I didn’t have 2 hours …

Big difference is Lewis didn’t kill anybody he was out having a good time minding his own business when 2 thugs started talking CHIT to Lewis and after hitting Lewis’s thug friend over the head with a champane bottle things went bad…..his thugs friends snapped and the other thugs got stabbed.
Lewis didn’t kill anyone and he ended up telling the truth.
4 games “nfl suspension” sounds about right for that.

Also IMO Lewis didn’t deserve to go to jail nor did he.
IMO Vick does deserve to go to jail and WILL go to Prison for this.

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That is worse than allowing one’s property to be used for dog-fighting.

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Huh? it was lot more then allowing dog fighting on his property.
Vick set this operation up he knowingly and with premeditation engaged in a conspiracy to promote Dog fighting, he funded the operation bet on the fights and was present when the dogs were tortured and KILLED which is Federal crime hence the Federal indictment.

Read more here about the operation that Vick started along with the Torture methods of these animals and the 18 page indictment, all of co conspirators except Vick “he will soon” have pleaded guilty to these REAL crimes.

Vick operation and indictment

A year “nfl suspension” sounds about right and that will be the least of his problems.

I agree human life out weighs an animals but Lewis didn’t Kill anyone or I would agree with you.
Bad analogy IMO you bet.

Go ahead and whine some more if it makes you feel better.. he’s going to plead guilty and go to JAIL on this one, Sorry guys.

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If you didn’t take the time to read my positions, how can you reply to them?

I didn’t say Vick shouldn’t be punished, nor am I a “Vick defender”, and to imply that I am is dishonest. (In my original post I said Vick deserved some punishment.) If you had actually read my responses (and you admit you didn’t), you would know that. I said that your response and position is based on emotion and sentimentality, not reason…just like that of PETA.

I will ask again, in short sentences and small words: how is your position on Vick any different from that PETA takes regarding hunting and fishing? (Go back and actually read what I wrote before evading the question and mis-representing my position.)

PETA uses gory written descriptions and videos to attack hunting and fishing, as well as farming; you cited Vick’s indictment (which I read weeks ago) to bolster your case. I hunt and fish. I also grew up on a livestock farm in Minnesota. PETA writes gory descriptions of hunting and fishing (to say nothing of raising cattle and hogs) that would make Vick’s indictment sound like the activities of the local HSUS chapter. Like those PETA reports, your use of the Vick indictment is intended to get people to react emotionally, not logically. PETA also uses words like “torture” to describe hunting and fishing.

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No PETA member, just a crazy dog lover.
It’s an emotional thing for me. It sickens me to think about a guy making 6 million a year (doesn’t include endorsements) allegedly being involved in betting on and killing dogs. Why does someone with that kind of income have to be involved in the killing and torture of dogs for MONEY! I don’t get it! OK, he may not need the money so he does for sport?

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Again, as I said in my original post on this thread several weeks ago, I do not think emotional responses on the Vick case should be accepted un-critically. Dogs, and all other non-human forms of life, do not deserve the same moral status as humans, regardless of how fond we (and I include myself here) are of them.

PETA’s stance on animal rights is flawed because it rests on emotion, not reason. That flawed reasoning gains them a lot of converts, and they are making hay (and money) on the Vick issue. I cannot bow hunt deer here in Iowa City because the animal rights activists succeeded in banning it on the grounds that it was inhumane. Here at the University of Iowa several million dollars of lab equipment was destroyed, along with several years of neurological research, when animal rights activists trashed a lab. Their justification was that rats and mice are helpless victims of humans, and deserve the same rights as the human patients the trashed lab research was intended to aid.

Not incidentally, PETA justifies its opposition to hunting and fishing in part on the grounds that no one in today’s society needs to hunt or fish for food…just like their is no financial need for Vick to fight pit bulls. Therefore, PETA holds that hunting and fishing inflict suffering on animals for no other reason than the amusement of humans…just like Michael Vick fought dogs for no reason other than his own amusement.

If outdoors-people stampede down the path of saying what Michael Vick is alleged to have done is as bad or worse than what Ray Lewis is alleged to have aided and abetted, then outdoors-people should not be surprised when the “dog lover” argument is thrown back at them in the form of “I’m just a crazy deer/fox/racoon/cows/fish/bees or whatever other animal humans are accused of exploiting lover”. (I once listened to two vegans argue about whether it was morally right for humans to eat honey, or use beeswax, because the bees’ products were being taken from them by we evil humans. Free the Bees!)

Arguing that Vick’s offense is somehow worse than obstructing the investigation into a double homicide sets a dangerous precedent for those of us who hunt, fish, or rely on medical research to improve our lives. (The last one would include all of us.) All I need to do is walk past the hospital at the University, or see the over-populated deer in Iowa City that I can’t hunt, to be reminded of what animal rights activists can do when emotion wins out over reason.

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there were no convictions in that double murder case. Lewis was convicted of obstruction, nothing else. the fight started when one of the deceased hit one of Lewis’s friend in the head with a champagne bottle. Lewis was not an accomplice in the murder and wasn’t charged as one.

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Lewis was convicted of obstructing an investigation into a double homicide. That is worse than allowing one’s property to be used for dog-fighting.

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I agree. What humans do amongst themselves is largely by choice. What choice did the animals have in this case?

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For this argument to hold, we would have to conclude that the people killed by Ray Lewis’ friends chose to be killed. They chose to verbally confront Lewis’s crew, according to police reports, but I don’t think that calls for a death sentence.

Your argument, if followed to its logical conclusion, would hold that those fish in your profile pic are murder victims more deserving of justice than murdered human beings, since those fish had no more choice to be caught and put on a stringer than did Michael Vick’s pit bulls have a choice on whether to fight each other.

Your logic also implies that animals deserve MORE rights than human beings, because humans have free will and animals do not. This is classic PETA logic.

Animals are not the moral equal of humans, and thus they do not deserve the same rights as we do. Let me put it another way: domestic dogs are widely used in medical research in the United States. This is not analogous to Vick’s alleged offenses, since dog-fighting serves no useful purpose, and medical research does, as it saves human lives. I have no objection to sacrificing animal lives to save human lives, although I do not want the animals to suffer un-necessarily. I would NEVER support sacrificing human life to save animals, unless the human in question chose to do so. I am sure no one on this site disagrees with me on this. Why, then, does Michael Vick’s offense (taking animal life for no good reason) somehow warrant worse punishment than taking human life for no good reason?

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Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens was involved in a double homicide by stabbing

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Poor analogy IMO……

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Then what is wrong with my analogy?

I’m not sure what is hard to understand about it. Ray Lewis of Baltimore Ravens was involved in a double-stabbing in Atlanta. Two of his friends killed two other human beings with knives. The two killers made their getaway in Lewis’s limo with Lewis inside. Lewis initially lied to police and supported his friends’ alibi. As punishment for abetting his associates’ double-murder, Lewis was suspended for four games by the NFL.

Michael Vick may or may not receive a year-long suspension for aiding and abetting dog-fighting: Ray Lewis received a four-game suspension for aiding and abetting a double-homicide. I think aiding and abetting in the pointless death of human beings is a worse offense than aiding and abetting the death of animals, no matter how stupid the reason for killing those animals.

A lot of people think killing animals for no good reason is somehow worse than killing human beings for no good reason. I thought all those people belonged to PETA, but I was wrong.

Yahoo! Sports is reporting that the NFL will likely suspend Michael Vick for the entire 2007 season. Peter King of CNNSI says the NFL is only considering this option at this point in time.

If Vick is suspended for the entire season, my first reaction is that it is a little too severe. Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens was involved in a double homicide by stabbing, and did not receive a season-long suspension. Of course, that occurred under Paul Tagliabue’s watch, and current NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has made it clear that he will vigorously protect the League’s public image. That is why Goodell suspended Adam “Pac Man” Jones for the entire 2007 season.

As noted in my first post on this thread, I simply cannot equate the life of an animal with the life of a human being–that is what PETA does. That is why I think Vick, who is accused of dog-fighting, should not be punished at the same level as Pac Man, who is accused of being involved in, among other things, a shooting that left a man paralyzed. I find it ridiculous that the NFL would penalize Vick more severely than it did Ray “accessory to double homicide” Lewis.

However, the NFL is a business, and entirely dependent on public opinion to keep it profitable. From that point of view, suspending Vick for a year makes more sense.

I dipped Copenhagen for nine years, and smoked cigarettes for six or seven. By the time I was twenty I was smoking a pack of Pall Mall no-filters a day, with three or four cans of chew per week on top of it. I always said that when I wanted to quit, I’d quit. When I was twenty-three, I decided chewing was a waste of my time and money, and stopped right there. I haven’t had a dip since, nor do I want one.

I gradually quit smoking cigarettes over the next few months. First I would only buy a pack when I went out on weekends. Then I dropped down to just bumming off other people in bars. Then I stopped smoking cigarettes altogether–haven’t had one in years. Not the recommended way to quit, but it worked for me. Today, I am not tempted by cigarette smoke at all–I think it smells awful.

I still smoke a cigar (or rather, half a cigar) after I catch my first fish of the day, or after a succesful deer hunt. I figure if all the Copenhagen and Pall Malls from my teens and early twenties don’t give me cancer or heart disease, then an occasional stogie won’t, either.

The lesson I took away was that if someone really wants to quit, they’ll quit. I didn’t use Nicorette (a giant scam, in my book), quit smoking groups, hypnosis, acupuncture, or anything else.

I talked to a guy below Burlington Street who said he saw a 34″ muskie caught there earlier this week. He insisted it was a muskie, not a Northern. I have caught a few Northern out of the Iowa, but never would expect a ‘skie. I suppose one of Macbride’s few muskie could have ended up in Iowa City–stranger things have happened…

I’m not hopping on the “PETA is right for once/torture Michael Vick if he is guilt” bandwagon.

The next time PETA, or some other anti-hunting group criticizes the hunting of coyote or fox with dogs, hunting coyote or fox with rifles, or sport-fishing on the grounds that it is cruel and un-necessary, how are sports-people who wish suffering on Mike Vick going to respond? PETA sees no difference between dog-fighting and fishing–how will all of you explain the difference?

I don’t like dog-fighting either, but animal rights fanatics have justified violence against hunters in the past on the same grounds many people on this thread have wished violence against Vick, if he is found guilty.

Coyote or fox hunting with dogs (I’ve gone along on a few such hunts) often ends with the dogs tearing the fox or coyote to shreds. PETA made a stink over a video of such a hunt on the grounds that it was both cruel and un-necessary. Are any of you wishing torture and violence on Michael Vick in favor of banning the use of hounds in hunting coyote? Coon? Bear? Cougar? Where does this slippery slope end?

Fine, you say–don’t use dogs to hunt coyote or fox. Coyote or fox should only be hunted with rifles. How then, PETA will ask, is shooting a canine (coyote are really no more than a wild dog) any different from killing it with domestic dogs, or fighting them in a pit? The vast majority of wild canine hunters do not eat their prey, so saying we hunt fox and coyote to eat doesn’t work. PETA will then say that there is no difference between shooting a coyote or fox, and fighting domestic dogs, as the canine ends up dead in both cases.

I could go on, all the way to PETA’s opposition to sport-fishing, but you catch my drift of why I don’t think we should be (a) saying PETA is right about anything, and (b) treating Michael VIck like a child molestor if he is found guilty.

I don’t like dog-fighting, because it inflicts completely un-necessary suffering on animals. I don’t like seeing a wounded deer suffer, but I feel no guilt about hunting and eating them. I don’t like seeing dogs fight each other to the death, either. However, I think a lot of people are letting their emotions get the better of them on the Michael Vick issue.

I like dogs, but they are not the moral equivalent of humans. PETA believes that all animals deserve the same legal status as humans, but they base that position on emotion (“look at the poor fish/dog/deer suffer”) than on logic.

Arguing that Michael Vick, a flawed human being but still a human being, deserves some sort of horrid fate because he tortured animals is not so very different from the “logic” that the PETA-linked Animal Liberation Front uses when they threaten hunters or trash medical research labs. I think a hefty fine, some jail time and community service, should be a sufficient punishment for Vick, if he is convicted.

Those of you who feel otherwise than I, don’t complain when PETA turns your own reasoning against you, and argues that anyone who “tortures” fish, deer, or pheasant deserves to be imprisoned and tortured so that they will know what the animals they “murdered” feel like.

If you want to know why there are high pesticide (and fertilizer, and herbicide, and silt) levels in so many lakes and streams, just check out the “Ethanol Industry” thread on the General Discussion forum.

The ethanol industry is currently able to stay afloat only due to federal government subsidies. Whether the ethanol industry will ever be self-sufficient (i.e. able to make due without taxpayer dollars) remains to be seen. Even if the ethanol industry is able to someday make it on its own, I don’t expect government supports to end–there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program. So, a career in ethanol seems safe to me.

Hopefully the federal government will match the cash give-aways to the ethanol program with land conservation funding. Government subsidies have pushed corn prices up beyond where they would be if the market determined them. As a result, farmers are plowing up everything they can to grow more corn. I come from a long line of farmers, so I can’t say I blame them–it is a business, after all. I also collect a farm rent check and CRP payment, so I am probably a bit of a hypocrite.

The costs of increased corn (and soybean) production to uplands game, to say nothing of fisheries, are immense. Corn ground provides little cover for wildlife, and is more erodable than less-profitable wheat, oats, or hay. The soil that runs off corn ground clogs up rivers, streams, and lakes, hurting our fisheries. Corn also requires a lot of pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer, all of which are bad for water quality as well.

Saving quail habitat, driftless area brook trout, or native grasslands doesn’t have the public appeal of seemingly cheaper gasoline. (When the cost of the tax bill paid to support ethanol is figured in, ethanol gas isn’t actually cheaper at all for anyone who pays federal taxes.) I am not optimistic that the government will do anything to undo the ecological damage done by the headlong stampede towards ethanol production.

Just as you P18 guys thought it was getting better below the mouth of the Iowa…

The COE finally began dropping the flow coming out of Coralville res. this past weekend–that gradual drop was planned. Yesterday morning, when it became obvious that Johnson County was going to get a lot of rain, they dropped the flow some more to compensate for the heavy run-off. In a two-day span, the Iowa below the res. dropped two feet, and then rose two feet. I was just out tonight on the Iowa–the water is high, and the color of dark chocolate. A lot more Iowa topsoil is on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s good to see some action starting in Wisconsin on the issue of protecting big cats. With the dog days of summer coming, and the rivers dropping, the walleye are hard to find, so I’ll put in a few all-nighters for mudcat.

In all seriousness, is Minnesota moving on the issue of protecting big catfish? Down here in southeast Iowa where I live now, the “big catfish = dinner” mindset reins supreme. Release a nice-sized channel cat or flathead around here, and people look at you like you’ve grown a second head. So, I have little hope for Iowa on the issue of protecting big cats. It would be nice to catch more big flathead when I come up to Minnesota in August, though, and I’m not giving up on that.

The IDNR continues to insist that due to the high fertility of Iowa waters, it is impossible to over-fish crappie and sunfish, so it is fine to take thousands if you wish. This stance flies in the face of what Illinois, Nebraska, and Maryland have found, which is that stricter limits on panfish harvest in many waters improves the average size of individual fish without hurting numbers. Minnesota has had good results with tighter panfish limits, too.

What makes the Illinois, Nebraska, and Maryland examples notable is that those states have climates similar to, or warmer than, that of Iowa. The usual excuse given for why Iowa doesn’t need panfish limits like Minnesota uses is that Iowa’s longer growing season and high water fertility make panfish limitis un-necessary. Maryland, Illinois, and Nebraska’s results with tighter limits strongly suggests that Iowa panfishing would benefit from tighter regulations, too. But, implementing actual panfish harvest limits on some Iowa in-land waters would require thinking outside the box and breaking with tradition, and for whatever reason the IDNR is remarkably resistant to innovative behavior. I’ve e-mailed the IDNR on the issue of crapie and bluegill harvest limits in the past…don’t hold your breath on any sort of panfish policy change coming any time soon.

As for the problem of enforcing special regulations, I don’t think it is too much to ask that anglers actually read the free IDNR fishing regulations that are given out in any store that sells outdoors gear.

Here http://wfs.sdstate.edu/wfsdept/Publications/Willis/369-F%20Billington%20hybridization_Percis.pdf is a link to a PDF file containing the results of a study done by Professors Neil Billington and Rachael N Koigi from Troy State in Troy, Alabama.

Drs. Billington and Koigi conducted a study of the walleye and sauger populations in Lewis and Clark Reservoir (Missouri River) in South Dakota for South Dakota State University. Despite the fact that saugeye have never been stocked in Lewis and Clark, saugeye, and various combinations of sauger and walleye second-generation hybrids, are common in the upper Missouri River. Billington and Koigi note that these mixtures are due to the fact that saugeye are able to reproduce succesfully with walleye, sauger, or other saugeye.

Probably a saugeye. Notice the solid black patch at the base of the dorsal fin–pure sauger don’t have that. The lower tail fin is clipped out of the picture, but I bet there was a decent-sized white spot there. I don’t see the sauger body patches, but I think I see some saugerish black spots on the fins.

There are more than just 50/50 walleye-sauger crosses swimming around out there. Saugeye occur naturally in the Mississippi (they are stocked in reservoirs in Iowa), and are unusual among hybrids in that they are fertile, and can breed with walleye, sauger, or other saugeye. As a result, there are 3/4, 7/8, and 15/16 mixes of walleye and sauger in the river, too. I catch a few fish each year in the Mississippi that at first look like typical pure strain walleye or sauger. On closer inspection, these “saugers” have a larger white spot on the tail than is typical, or the “walleye” have a smaller white tail spot, or faint patches on its side.

That’s a pretty big mudcat (AKA flathead), alright. The story simply calls it a catfish, but no doubt it is a flathead. When I lived in Winona I know people caught an occasional big channel cat in there, but I don’t recall any flathead coming from the lake.

I wonder if this flathead found its way up the drainage creek on the east end of the lake, was the result of a midnight stocking, or a old survivor from the DNR’s bluegill-control experiments…

Back in the 1980s, the DNR stocked Lake Winona with flathead, channel cat, and dogfish (yes, dogfish) in an effort to improve the size structure of the bluegills in there. Obviously, none of those efforts worked–turns out the problem was over-fishing of mature bluegiils.

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The details of the incident are starting to show up on the internet. It’s incomprehensible to say the least. When I read it, I felt like vomiting. What causes a person to do such things will always be a mystery to me.

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Can you say…………. ‘ROID RAGE!!!!!!

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I’m not sure it was, strictly speaking, “roid rage”. Benoit strangled his wife on Friday, waited until Saturday to smother his son, and then killed himself on Sunday after sending two text messages that would get people to check the house. In other words, this crime did not unfold as a blind rage.

It may well have started that way with the killing of the wife, but then he took a day to think about what to do about his son, and then another day to do himself in. Benoit also made sure that someone would find them. That is not the act of someone who simply lashes out in a senseless roid-fueled rage–there was some forethought and planning on Benoit’s part.

The only good thing Benoit did was to kill himself, and spare the taxpayers the bill for a trial and prison or execution.

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Even though I realize that there is no validity to any of this it would be a positive move for Culpepper even if he never takes a snap. He will at least be able to tell his grandchildren that he was once a member of the greatest NFL franchise in the history of the game and that after all the years he spent in the NFL that he finally got to be part of a winning team. Every NFL player, whether he admits it or not, wants to play for the Green Bay Packers.

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Somewhere, Tom Brady, Terry Bradshaw, and Troy Aikman are no doubt losing sleep wishing they could trade careers with Tim Couch and Don Majkowski. Couch and Majkowski both got to play for the Packers, after all (even if Couch never took a snap in the regular season).

Tony Mandarich didn’t win any rings or impress many people in his NFL career, but since he was wearing the big G on his helmet he is undoubtedly the envy of Charles Haley, the only NFL player to win five Super Bowl rings. And Brett Favre won one Super Bowl ring in Green Bay, which is obviously better than winning four or five anywhere else.

Joe Montana may have four Super Bowl rings, but that pales in comparison to the career of Randy Wright, who had the enormous good fortune to play QB for the Packers when Montana started winning championships.

Act fast on this issue, and counter the lies of the anti-hunters. If you don’t, those of you in IGH will find yourselves in the same sort of situation as Iowa City. Bow-hunting is banned in The People’s Republic of Iowa City on the grounds that it is “inhumane”. So, to control the population of starving deer, the city pays sharp-shooters from Connecticut around $100,000 per year (of taxpayer dollars) to come in and shoot excess deer.

For those of you not familiar with Iowa City, it is a University town, whose local politics are way out there in Michael Moore-Rosie O’Donnell territory: think a smaller version of Madison, Wisconsin. The voting public in IGH and most other places is more in touch with reality, but that doesn’t mean a small group of clueless anti-hunters can’t wield a lot of influence.

The idiotic solution of paying six figures to an out-of-state organization when local bow-hunters would pay for the privilege is still a compromise: the bunny-huggers want Iowa City to pay for deer birth control , at $500 per doe. I am not making that up. I attended one City Council meeting in Iowa City, because I had to hear these people for myself. One “animal rights activist” stood up and wailed that if we killed animals simply because they are “inconvenient” to us, what kind of example are we setting for our children. This sort of cluelessness is the mindset that has to be fought with logic and actual evidence.

The fawn should be fine. When they are very young and can’t run well, the doe will leave her fawn alone for hours at a time, usually bedded down in tall grass. Young fawns have very little scent, and their brown and white coat blends in with dead grass in a way that has to be seen (or not seen) to be believed. Lying motionless in the weeds is a better defense against coyote, wolf, etc., than trying to run away. (I can tell you from personal experience that the lay-in-the-tall-grass defense does not work so well against farmers with haybines. )

When threatened, the doe will try to lead potential predators away from the fawn. That seems to be the case here. I agree that the doe will come back and retrieve her fawn when the coast is clear.

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hit Osakis Fri. for crappie, the action was dead! jumped to a couple different smaller lakes for opener day,action was very slow

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Sounds like a typical Osakis opener…

I’ve been fishing that lake from the time I could crawl, and Osakis typically doesn’t pick up until Memorial Day. That is when the weeds come in and the water stains, making fishing for pretty much everything in there easier.

More generally, I consider the Minnesota walleye opener the most over-hyped event in fishing. I am a native Minnesota, but I have to admit after five years in southern Iowa that the first half of May is the one time of year I would rather be fishing here than back home.

I voted “yes” on the on-line petition. Since most points have been hashed out thoroughly, here are my reasons, in a nutshell, for favoring two lines per angler on open water in Minnesota’s in-land waters.

The only good reason I can see for keeping the one-line limit would be increased mortality of fish released after capture. On a hot bite, people will catch more fish with two lines than with one if they have the bite dialed in, and it seems likely that a few more released fish will die as a result of stress or injury.

The problem of released fish mortality, if it is a problem, can be addressed with adjustments in bag limits, if it enough of a problem to matter. Besides that, I agree that a legal limit is a legal limit, regardless of how fast it was caught. Fish hogs are going to do what they do, no matter what the rule book says.

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Thoughts and prayers out to all involved.

I wonder if the sinking was caused by the transom being damaged during the attempted tow…

…My heart goes out to them.

CR

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A horrible incident indeed…

The search for all four people continues this morning. As if this isn’t already bad enough for the families, recovering bodies in the tailwaters can’t be easy with the current, depth, and visibility, making the wait that much worse.

I have a 14′ v-hull, and I have had a couple of close calls below the locks and dams, but those were due to carelessness on my part, not horrible luck. Be careful out there, people.

As for why they boat swamped, I wondered if they tied the rope off to the bow or the stern. But, if you had four people in a very small boat, I think you might be pushing the weight capacity way too close, and even tying the rope off at the front and towing the stalled boat that way might have been enough to pull it under. I haven’t heard anything official one way or another on what exactly happened.

We Viking fans do have a strong-armed young quarterback and an elite rookie running back. Both of them have futures, which is more than Favre can say.

There’s a nice walleye/saugeye bite going on the Iowa below Coralville res…

For the last week I’ve had to decide between hunting for morels and walleye
fishing in my newfound spare time before and after work–I usually went with the morels since they will be gone very soon, but I hit the walleye a couple times too, with good results.

I’ve never fished it…but Twelve Mile was poisoned in the summer of 2005 to eliminate yellow bass and carp, so I doubt there is much in the way of crappie fishing there yet.

I found around twenty grays near Iowa City yesterday. I would have gotten more, but I ran out of time.