MattTucker

I like it too.......still want to hang together one weekend down there this fall / winter. --Tucker (I like the title too... )

Not trying to be as harsh as this sounds, but I am a little surpirsed by your suprise. I assume you are a guide, based upon your "client" comment. If you are a guide, then you should have known better than to simply wait for a horn and you should know to never trust a horn, a whistle, or a phone call when it comes to river levels on a tailwater in Arkansas. Always trust your surroundings and your own senses (there is also a pretty reliable phone network of guides on the river when the water comes up). I am glad you got out ok, but you got to keep your eyes, ears, and senses open for the protection and safety of your client when on stream. If something would have happened to your client, it would have been on your hands and not the corp. All that being said, it happened to me but luky for me it happened to me on my first trip to the White almost a decade ago, and I was out at Wildcat when the water came up. I managed to "river float/hop" back to the access and back my truck out of the river before it came up much further. Since then, i always have an eye on the water conditions. --Matt Tucker

I work in steel fabrication, and it isn't illegal to have pieces of rail beams. The problem is, generally a normal welding shop or fab shop won't have that kind of material lying around and in order to purchase it they would have to buy in stock lengths......that makes for an expensive anchor if you are only looking to buy one. At $40 for a piece cut to length with the eye welded to it, I think it is a good price and I would go that route (and I have access to that type of material). They do make great boat anchors.

That is where the line is hard to draw for me. Personally, I am really becoming a fanatic about HDR processing. In the HDR process, you are combining several images taken at different exposures to create a single image. Bringing out the various details and tones of a scene. I am using multiple images to create a single image, but in the end I don't consider that photoshopping an image because nothing about the scene substantially changed and I am using technology to enhance the detail. So I guess for me, I would tend to draw the line at placing subjects in different backgrounds or changing the sizing of features/subjects in the image. But it is a slippery slope between what is a photograph in its truest sense and what is art in this digital age. For me, the answer will continually change. --Matt Tucker

For me, photography is about creating an image that is pleasing to me and hopefully others. I view photography as a form of art, and not a journalistic reporting tool. So there is no question whether I will post process an image or not. If an image makes it through to edits, then it will get post-processed. My post-processing generally includes edits to exposure, saturation levels, contrast levels, sharpening (basic edits). My opinion is that any photographer that earns a living with a lens, will post-process. But for me, and probably Cheif Grey Bear and Al Agnew and ness, post-processing is different than "photoshopping". The question then becomes, where does the line get drawn? I am not sure, but it is an interesting question. I guess it begins with what your view of photography is. --Matt Tucker

Gates...........why haven't we fished together.......someone i could split a 30pack with.....

Jeff, it was a good trip and glad I finally got to hook up with you and Ray. Only wish we would have hung with the guys from OK a bit one night. Perhaps another trip. On a different note, few people realize how truly lucky we are to have the tailwaters we have in Missouri and Arkansas. They are unlike any other place in terms of fish size. They used to be better than they are today, if you listen to the old timers such as Dave Whitlock, Fox Statler, or Tom Rogers and a host of others. When I first started going to the White, it was the shear number of fish that surprised me. Then I noticed the average size of those fish and the ability to target the bigger fish. After years of trips to the White, a 20" fish is still a good fish, but depending upon how you are fishing....they can be a little more common than most people think. I have a personal goal to break 30" on one of our tailwaters............where else in the midwest can you go (lake run browns excluded) and know that every cast you have a legitimate shot at a fish that size? There may be a couple of other places, but the list is a short one. --Matt Tucker

It was good to finally at least say hello at the Wildcat Access on Saturday morning. Wish we had the same trip, but it is what it is and that is why it is fishing. It was a tough bite for us from Dam to Wildcat the two days that our group floated it, only three fish landed at around 20" for the trip out of our boats. The drift boat craze is definitely on down on the White though.....never have seen so many down there than this weekend. It was cool. --Tucker

Wise gets like that some times, it is like he doesn't want to share me. That and well floating under that darn bridge still creeps me out.

Ehammer, I did a double take when i saw the photo of the Hyde Highside. It is the same color combo and layout of the Hyde that i just traded in. It looks like there is quite the contingent of drift boat / skiff owners on the ozark streams lately, which is cool.

Nice fish. Dig the coloring. Funny thing is on Saturday, Wise and myself both rowed our boats straight past through that hole. I still love that cabin and its CCC look to it. One of these days a formal introduction will be had, Mr. Spencer sir.

Sweet.

Floated from ROLF to Patrick on Saturday (01/07) and threw streamers all day, except for a brief moment, and then was reminded from a voice behind me that it was Go Big Or Go Home. The voice was Brian Wise, as he and Jenny were floating with us in their boat. We didn't boat a fish on Saturday, although we did get three chases. Sunday, Paul and I floated ROLF to Blair and threw meat (it was a fast float, on the water at 7:30am off the water at 10:30am). We boated 3 fish, biggest was a 17" brown at Old House, the other two were rainbows. Back in a week or so.

We were throwing Sex Dungeons, Articulated Bully Streamers, Ice Picks, and Butt Monkeys.....Anything big and ugly.

I don't think we caught more than a dozen fish all weekend (and that is probably generous). The fish gods were smiling upon us that weekend. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats you.

It was crowded last weekend, but if you walked you could get away from the people (we also started earlier than others on the stream). Rest assured, my butt won't be there in the spring / summer. The place looks too darn "snakey" for me, oh and the locals did tell us stories of mountain lions too (if you believe that sort of urban legend). I would venture to say that most of the guys we saw this past saturday were from Arkansas (judging by the license plates we saw).

Tax season got you down G' daddy?