TnRiver46

I know this well, it’s how I put food on the table. The critters are nocturnal and you won’t find their tracks on a casual walk. They sneak the edges and swim the drainage tiles . Trapping ain’t for the faint of heart. Last I heard there’s coyotes all over Chicago and monster bucks in Illinois corn critters have to survive and showing themselves to humans is not going to help with that

Funny you would say that, they had a huge sale on them yearly out toward Memphis, can’t remember where. You could bring a whole pickup truck full and get like $2-3 a piece. They have to be alive though

Otter fur was quite literally currency which is why they were extirpated. People killing them to protect their ponds won’t make a dent

ive been in northwest Ohio all week and drove to Elkhart Indiana Monday. I’m no stranger to the corn. My fiancé grew up here. The critters are in the drainage ditches on the side of the road, even monster bucks. Lots o muskrat . We had an intern from Indiana work with us once, He’s a helluva trapper. A customer had a possum in her crawl space and said “why do I have possum, there’s no tree near my house.” Danny replies “ma’am I’m from Indiana where you can’t see a tree for miles and there’s possum everywhere” Danny still traps in Indiana all season and lots of people call for his services. The “barren” Midwest corn is full of fur and trappers

Urban development doesn’t make them go elsewhere. We trap them in backyard koi ponds urban wildlife is how I’ve made a living for 13 years now and my boss has been doing it since 1989. People think building houses makes animals run across a map, they actually just adapt and live in your yard . The only mammals capable of running across a map are coyotes and mountain lions. Coyotes are the most successful range expansion of the last 50 years and mountain lions aren’t far behind. We have big cats in Tennessee now, they came all the way down the Missouri River valley. There’s a coyote in every single county in the US and they weren’t on this side of the Mississippi River before 1980. “habitat“ doesn’t have to be miles of wilderness, animals just need food and A place to raise babies @MGF, otters lived in Indiana before white people moved in and dug ponds. Even if someone hadn’t reintroduced, they would have done it on their own . otters were gone from Tennessee around 1990 (so were raccoons and deer and turkey). This had absolutely nothing to do with “habitat loss” contrary to popular belief and here’s why. They reintroduced deer, Turkey, and otters in the 90s and populations have absolutely exploded. That means the habitat was already here. The reason the animals were gone is because people killed them all

Same teams every year, somebody wake me up when it’s over . And For the love of god someone please beat Alabama

1. Too many to choose from, Dayton boat dock probably be the best down that way 2. too many to choose from , bunch marine has a great reputation, Madisonville marine also good 3. most all boat ramps on chickamauga are free, there’s well over 20 of them I can think of. Just be careful during winter, some of them end abruptly. I’ve also heard of a minimum of 7 boats stuck on dry land down there this winter already (it’s very shallow everywhere ) 4. Chickamauga is busy on every single particular day, literally all 365. Watts bar and nickajack are the next obvious choices. There’s some more obscure lakes in GA and NC close by

How much do you pay for A baby possum? (I could be your new supplier, I’d probably take $1/apiece for em)

Seems like it would depend on which size jig and where you are throwing it

Ecology is ever changing but if otters were indeed capable of killing all the fish, the fish would be long gone by now. There are lots of concerns among fish populations and otters are at the bottom of that list. I guide trout trips on a 3/4 mile section of private trout stream. There have been otters there forever and they can’t kill all the trout. And that’s an artificial trout setting, not a chance they could wipe out a wild population. Louisiana is loaded with otters and fish this is an age old debate, not just otters. Hawks eat all the quail, snakes eat all the rats, bats eat all the mosquitos, coyotes eat all the rabbits, etc etc etc. it’s never actually true, predators would starve if they ate up all their food source. Mother Nature balances herself

lead bullet sinkers should be cheaper than all of it

Those are NOT cheap. I just rebuilt a transom and had to buy several, probably 10x more expensive than lead bullet weights of the same size

Wow!!!!

They catch plenty of bass but they have coexisted for a long long long time. The only time they might be able to “clean out” any body of water is a tiny pond. We will come trap them for ya in exchange for a guaranteed 10 lb bass on the line.........

Those two reservoirs and a few others are so deep they move slowly most of the time and the lower ends stay clear almost all the time. Check out south holston and watauga too!

I always use bullet weights for drop shot . I just tie them on with an improved clinch knot, I’ve never owned a bobber stopper

I have seen that. I still have itchy tick bites where the sun doesn’t shine and I slept in clothes in a tent. Needless to say I would never sign up to sleep naked outside

The worst ones that ever got after me were in Alaska. They weren’t massive like the SC version but they made up for it in numbers

Realistically, I don’t think a single person will ever forget 2020

The night time mosquitos in the SC low country have teeth . I’m still scratching from when I camped at edisto in June

Nah you’ll be fine, they are just hard to catch in oct/nov. they eat like sharks when it’s snowing

Nice! Two 7 lb in one year and I might consider retiring

Like I said , I can’t even snag a carp and they are easy to see haha. Our waters aren’t very clear, I’ve rarely seen a spawning bass in a reservoir

I got a 21” largemouth on a rapala husky jerk, probably my biggest bass of 2020. Biggest smallmouth was in April, can’t recall the lure though. Bitsy tube if I had to guess. I think the largemouth was just over 4&1/2 lb and the smallie was 4 even or so

Cherokee is awesome when it’s cold outside. The big tourneys they had there this year were in the horrible fishing period of the “ fall transition.” When they have tourneys there in February, they catch the heck out of fish. Even the guys in the fall tourney said they could see hundreds of smallmouth on the livescope but couldn’t make them bite. Fish in East TN are already one step ahead of Garmin