Daniel My Brother

The average lifespan of a vehicle is about 8 years or 150K. With that in mind, giving a stranger 10k for a truck with 140k miles is a risky bet. It's hard to find the truck your looking for at the price you're wanting to spend. Not impossible, but hard. Good luck in your search.

If he catches one or two, I'm ok with that. By the third fish he's got my attention.

That. Is. AWESOME! I love when the guy tries to reason with the goose "What did I ever do to you?"

Not music, but sometimes I'll bring a radio to listen to the Cardinal game.

When I lived in Illinois I sold my boat to a Missouri man. Illinois doesn't require a title for outboards, so I didn't have one to give. I gave the man a signed bill of sale and he had no trouble using that to get the motor titled in Missouri. Border states like Illinois & Missouri, or in your case Kentucky & Ohio deal with this all the time. Call your state office, If everything is above board I'm certain you'll have no troubles.

Hi and welcome from Cape Girardeau.

I've read a lot of stories about people buying boats without title's and they all end poorly. If someone says they don't have a title, save yourself the time and trouble and move along.

When nothing else works, a gulp minnow on a dropshot rig is my go to.

We were driving by the cemetery when my daughter asked why we never see grave diggers. I told her that they don't dig graves by hand anymore to which she replied "duh, they use shovels."

Here’s some advice from a Dad who would like to see his grown daughter move out of the house. Get a better job! Get another job! Stop buying crap! Stop going out all the time! Put some money in the bank! You better be using protection! Again, these are the pearls of wisdom I give away for free on a daily basis. Feel free to use whatever applies to you.

Beautiful fish...all of 'em! I like the dog, too.

I caught my best on the Jacks Fork River. Mark's Best is from the Eleven Points River. Also some great fishing on the Current River as well. All in the same general area.

Me too! We had to drive nearly 3 hours to get to this one...but it was well worth it.

Thursday I get a call from my friend Mark. He’s planning a last minute wading trip to a couple of beautiful Smallmouth streams the next morning “can you make it?” he asks. With a little help from the boss I shift my schedule around and I’m in. When we arrived at the stream I grabbed my rod, rigged with a watermelon baby brush hog, and was fishing in under a minute. Mark grabbed his throw net and started catching bait. It only took him about 3 casts to get all he’d need. He prefers large minnows and suckers, up to 5 inches, but by the time he’s ready to fish, I’ve already caught 3 Smallmouth. No worries, Mark works fast and plans to catch up. We leapfrog each other on our way upstream, taking turns getting first shot at the next promising hole. The fish are cooperating, and don’t really show a preference for live bait over artificial. Mark starts a conversation with the fish “come on over here, I’ve got the real thing.” We get into a school of Goggle Eye and immediately regret not bringing a skillet. Pan fried fillets sound much better than peanut butter and jelly. Mark’s big minnows are too much for the Eyes to swallow whole and he misses a couple before deciding to cut bait. This move pays off, and soon he’s catching one Eye after another. By the end of the day we had lost count of the number of fish caught, or who caught more. 50 Smallies would be a conservative guess, most around a foot long. If live bait had one advantage it was as a follow up. Several times Mark followed me into a hole I thought I had fished dry, only to pull out one or two more. We fish together a lot. Sometimes he uses artificials, sometimes I fish live bait. I certainly don’t look at live bait as cheating or somehow easier. In fact, most of the time it’s a pain in neck. But if that's what the fish want, you can bet that's what they'll get. Here are few shots from the day. Hope you’re having some luck as well. My best, 18”, around 3lbs Mark’s best, didn’t get a weight or length Nice Goggle Eye tries to swallow a 4” Senko Mark with bait in tow holds a pretty typical Southern Missouri Smallmouth The scenery wasn’t too shabby either…didn’t see another fisherman all day. Thanks for looking, DMB

First off...you're having a baby! Congrats!! My wife stopped working when we had our 3rd child, and I don't think I was ever more broke than when we had our 4th. But kids grow up, wives go back to work, and if you're lucky you get a few raises, maybe a promotion, and eventually you won't have to sell plastic bottles to make money for lures. Have a great and peaceful dinner out with the wife, it may be your last for a while, and in the mean time keep selling those bottles to fund your fishing habit.

Very well thought out and stated. As far as "The Decision" goes, his defenders say it was all to raise money for the kids. His detractors see it as shameless self-promotion. It was both.

Great report as always.

Holy cow! Those are MONSTERS! Congrats to both of you.

Friday after work I was planned to go wading for smallies. I called a buddy to join me but he convinced me to come out to his farm and fish his ponds instead. I took my daughter, Emily, and she knocked ‘em dead with a green pumpkin baby brush hog, and even caught her first ever 4 pounder! A proud Dad. This was the best I could manage for the evening. A decent fish, but not quite scale-worthy. My friend Mark showed us both up with a fat 5lb 7oz fish. He was tossing a brush hog and fishing it fast. Saturday morning after the storms rolled through I took my daughter, Natalie, to Cedar Lake. She put a hurtin’ on the sunfish, catching ‘em one after another after another. I was tossing a Senko and managed a couple of good ones, too. But the fish of the day had to be this big flathead. He grabbed my Senko and took us for a little boat ride. I was praying that it was a bass, but deep down I figured it had whiskers. Still, a big fish is a big fish and I certainly enjoyed the fight. Sunday morning I again planned to wade the stream for smallies, but more heavy rain overnight changed those plans. Instead my daughter, Jayna, and I headed to the lake. She’s normally a bass fisherman, but after hearing about Natalie’s non-stop action on Saturday she picked up the bluegill pole and went to town. Never did make it to the river, but what a great weekend with my 3 youngest…I hope you all had a great one, too.

A 17,000 acre lake all to yourself!? Incredible. Very nicely done!

Outstanding catch! Way to go

...almost forgot, CONGRATS on the new boat!!!

If you've got an aluminum boat you'll want to get it off of those treated bunks asap. The way I understand it, there's copper in treated wood and it will slowly leach out and corrode the aluminum.

Very nice. You look like a young Howie Mandel.

Great fish, great pix, great trip!