Coldspring

Well, what about land animals being bigger in northern latitudes?

I haven't been on that stretch for a couple of years, there are some gravel bars as JD mentions just down from Riverton. The river butts up against a bottom field and makes a sharp bend to the left, this is about 1 1/2 mile from Riverton. On the aerial map, I see a big football size gravel bar a little over 5 miles down from Riverton. Have no idea what it's actually like. Then there are some gravel bars in the Narrows area. There's surely more, but can't recall any.

LOL, I didn't intend that to sound like I'm an alky! I'm one of those lightweight backpackers and I use a lot of the same stuff for canoe trips. You have to consider that a case of beer and a 12 pack of soda weighs MORE than my entire backpacking setup )including worn clothing, food, and water. Gavin, I saw that map a month or so ago, and forgot about it. That's what I was looking for. The time gets away. It may take me the rest of my life to sample all of the Ozark float streams, if I can pull it off. I no longer care about doing the entire lengths of river or trails, I just want to get a good sampling of them all. What is the scoop on the McMullen Farm? Do they allow parking? That would be the perfect spot for me to start, assuming there's enough water in the river.

What are the mileages to put ins and road on the King's, above 62? Is it 7 miles from Rockhouse to Trigger Gap and what is Trigger Gap, is it Hwy 221? 12 miles from Trigger Gap to Hwy 62?

I think the only thing I've seen of the King's River is from 412, 62, and at King's River Falls. Looking at Google Earth it appears to have plenty of gravel bars. Are they uncampable? I'm a backpacker, so it's not like I set up a town to camp in, I can camp on an 8x8 spot, if need be. My beer weighs about as much as my gear, I think my canoe load is less than 150 pounds, including beer and ice. Is there some kind of guide to base the water levels on based on that one downstream gauge? I'm thinking I ought to hit it the first week after Memorial Day, if things are favorable.

I'm wanting to check out the King's, here pretty soon. I don't know the river's flow patterns, I checked the USGS gauge and it showed 220 cfs at Berryville on May 10. That seems like a low flow for so early in the year, so I'm guessing I had better hit the river in a few weeks? My normal procedure is to put in, paddle upstream, fish, two nights camping, then come back down. I want to see the new Nature Conservancy property, downstream from Rockhouse. Would Hwy 62 be the best place to put in? Are there plenty of gravel bars to camp on? Just general questions about the river.

I think I'm going to check out Crooked. I really don't know a lot about it, are there gravel bars to camp on, are there areas w/o homes overlooking the creek? Do I need to go there in June, before the water levels get too low for a canoe?

Was there a few days ago. Water was clouded up from the rains, but not high. That's about all I know.

Heard one earlier. Of course I live out in the sticks. Went out in yard to listen to it and spooked a coon, possum, skunk, and armadillo.

Unless you're a backpacker. Mid May through September is out for me, too many ticks, chiggers, entire forests of poison ivy, noxious weeds, spider webs, snakes, unbearable humidity. No really, I do look at all the brightsides, and I'm glad to call it home. The clear rivers are just swift enough to be interesting, yet allow me to be lazy. Even though most of them have sewer treatment ponds and towns up at their headwaters.

Golden advice there. I really wasn't sure if you were wanting to buy and hold till a stock "goes up" or if you wanted to trade often. There's probably more money made, by traders, in shorting stocks and option strategies on those same stocks than there is in buying and then waiting on them going up. Sell high, buy lower. If you're thinking it is easy to make 2% a week, think again, if it was that easy we'd all be rich. Making 2% a week gets really difficult when you have a 20% loss on some of your stocks, of course you might wait a couple of years for that one to rise again, but how are you going to get back to 2% gain a week on your account? Read up on the tax issues, before you give yourself a big headache. I was also assuming you really wouldn't have to worry about capital gains for a while. If you have the bug (you mentioned you like to watch stock prices change) make a few trades, it's interesting to watch charts and be in the action. You can do simulation accounts, but to me that's like playing poker for beans...and don't think that if you can show a profit on a simulation that you can succeed with real money...when it's real emotions change and they will make you do things that don't make sense. IMHO, watching stock prices change w/o being active and involved is about like watching a bunch of trophy trout swimming around and not having your fly rod. You can even do mobile and trade on the lake if you're so inclined, having a clear mind would help with decisions. But don't go crazy, just see how little money you can lose, and don't eat yourself up on commissions...you don't really want to spend over 2% of a trade on commissions, getting in and out. There are thousands of stocks to choose from, and if you're trading instead of investing, it doesn't matter if the company sucks, the key is that you want to price to change. Anyway, just get started and try not to lose too much!

One thing about the Mad Money guy says that is true, "Mad Money" is the money you have left over after you've put money away in "sound" investments (mutual funds, bonds, treasuries) and saved for your kids college education. It's money you can play with. Wish I had some! I'd say about all of the trading methods that you see advertised are scams. If anyone has a method that works successfully, why would they give their secret away? And backtesting? Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Seriously though, fund your Scottrade account, install their trading platform, and just start pushing buttons. Don't get crazy! I recommend trading ETFs to get a feel for index funds, commodity funds, leverage, the ability to short w/o actually shorting. Scottrade even has an office in Springfield, so if you need to go in there and start yelling at someone you can...it's not some fly by night based out of the the Bahamas or something. There's a whole LOT to it! There's is nothing simple about it, well nothing simple about actually making money. After you get a feel and increase your learning curve, there's a whole world of trading...futures, commodities, currency exchange, options, etc... Just get your feet wet and satisfy your curiosity, you gotta find out what it's all about. Still say it would be cheaper to buy an antique Payne bamboo flyrod and take it to Crane Creek to catch some mini wild trout for releasing, and if you broke it, still cheaper. Buy a bar of gold and keep in your car trunk while you're fishing, then you'll have that feeling of being rich, instead of watching some numbers on a screen turn red with negative signs in front of them.

Keep your money! (Even though we may have hyperinflation in the near future) Go to Vegas, buy gold bullion and more fly rods. You'll thank me later. The markets are probably a bit propped up now...with the money printers going full steam who knows if the Dow will hit 30,000 or dive back to 3,000 or less, where it probably should be. I think the old days of buying and holding maybe just that, the old days. This whole economy is overleveraged to the max, indebted way past the max, and unsustainable. You saw how easily things can happen, last weeks "Flash Crash" comes to mind. Don't ever think that everything is transparent and there's not manipulation behind the scenes. Most of the volume isn't coming from investing, it's happening from computers that are swapping shares back and forth in the blink of an eye. These big fish(with eyes in the back of their head that see into next week) are the ones that are making the money, and they nearly always make money, slowly leaching it out of the little minnows in the market, who get chewed up and spit out in the slightest turmoil. Books can't teach you, chart analysis can't teach you, patterns are nearly meaningless, fundamentals are out the window with all the cooked books. I think it's something like over 90% of active traders end up losing, and the one's that succeed lose about everything more than once before they figure it out. Then most of them end up losing it eventually. Sorry to sound like a pessimist.

Come to think of it, I haven't heard one at home this year. Take them for granted. I usually have one nesting along my woods trail. They are hard to see unless you walk right up on them! There were several of them driving me crazy when I was camping along the Eleven Point, a few weeks ago. I think domestic cats get them around civilization, among other things. I have cats coming to my wild bird feeders and killing my blue birds and such all the time. If you love your pet cat, keep it at home.

You didn't happen to see half of a black fly rod laying on the bottom of the river, just down around the bend from Jam-Up, did you?

Well, you can beat them for the money by going to eBay and getting another version not called Allen. Or you could get the special introductory price that only Justin offers if you PM him directly. Or you could ask Justin to send you a complimentary fly line, fly box, magnetic net holder, or if you're not happy with the reel he might even send you more fly line, or even another reel for your trouble. I'm not against anyone trying to start up a new business, but right now the current business model is having the stuff shipped in from China, posting on various forums that they are offering a special discount on this retail new $100 reel for ONLY $50, having some friends register on the forum and bragging about how great they are, and then paying for advertising on the forum so that any critics will get squelched by the moderator that is so glad to keep his forum going with much needed advertising dollars. You could just order a carton of the reels and go into business for yourself, you could even name them after yourself. Here is the Alpha and XL reel, that's also where the fly boxes and line comes from. http://www.pulanxin.com/display.asp?id=1278 http://www.pulanxin.com/display.asp?id=1499 I think Allen @ Co (not sure who Allen is?) has plans to start building some of their stuff in the states, but you know it will be priced up there with the rest of them. I'll wait and see what they come up with in the future. But for now, I'll stick with my Chinese imported Ross's, or Lamsons, or whatever. That's all I'm going to say about it, I just don't understand what the big deal is about these reels. If it works for you that's fine, I guess. I've laid hands on a couple and won't be laying hands on anymore of them.

Exactly! I happen to have a Ross myself, now. I do agree that some reels are a little inflated due to the name and the middleman mark-ups, and the Allen might be better than the $15 Cortland, but I would rather have the $28 Scientific Anglers at Wally World if my fishing was depending on it. I'd bet you can get an Allen less than the retail, just ask. Or, you could just go to eBay and get one of the many non-branded, precision machined, large arbor, carbon disc drag reels that are just like it. http://cgi.ebay.com/Fly-Reel-Large-Arbor-6-8-wt-NEW-2010-precison-machine-/110529541936?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19bc12f730

I wouldn't give $90 for an Allen, there are established brands that make decent reels for not a whole lot more. I'd rather have a $15 Cortland from Wally World, but that's my opinion.

Buck Hollow is down to 200 cfs flow now. It's not really that far (two bends) from the access downriver of Blue Spring to Jam Up, so I think you could cover some distance upstream and downstream from there. I once waded and hiked gravel bars from Rhymers up to that access, in January, in river sandals and shorts, it was 80F and water wasn't high at the time. Not saying it was an easy task) Not sure how the smallmouth pop. is on the Jack's. I've been wanting to check out the Big Piney, myself Any tips for the upstream stretches there?

Looks the part, but I'd put your emergency-in-the-truck St. Croix in your vest, lined up. Just sold my Alpha.

Very inspiring photo, you can bet that I'll be fishing that spot! Isn't that the haunted area?

Nice pick of the the smallie. I've always wanted to float the Kings, and, after reading about the Nature Conservacy aquistition, I decided this would be the year. I'm definitely going to check out the Kings in the next 6 weeks!

I believe he's referring to those that toss their culled trout. Agree on the cigarette butts, there are plenty of smokers on the river on weekends, you can't hardly breathe out there.

These are nice flyboxes, especially at that price.

Wish I could afford your boat, Tito!