Devan S.

Knock on wood. Outside of rain its been pretty mild. Haven't had to break ice on a pond yet. I'm hoping we can make it through without much worse than what we've had so far.

Gage height would be highly dependent on the location measured which is only understood from first hand knowledge. There is no way to glean that information readily from the data publish on the USGS sites. Measure 1.5' in a "deep" hole and your in trouble, 1.5' in a shallow riffle no matter the width and your probably okay. The problem isn't necessarily related to gage height when it nears zero. It's what do you do when the water level is 2-4 ft. Most people with little to know reasonable knowledge would assume that 4ft would be an easy float but if that is measured in a hole then it may or may not mean anything since you could in theory have a hole 4 ft. deep with almost little to no flow in or out. Both measurements are useful but without the "rest" of the story gage height can and will be misleading. CFS is handy because they already give you the mean, median data to understand if flow is high or low compared to historical data. CFS easily translates all along a stream while gage height is highly localized. Once your familiar with a stream, then it ultimately doesn't matter what you use because you likely have enough knowledge to determine if something is float able or not.

Missouri River- I think near Hillis Island

Its been 15 or so years ago so I don't know exactly. I know he was a hook set so hard you fall out the other side of the boat guy. I figure I was stuck somewhat prior to hook set but probably could have gotten them out myself.

You meant to say Americans and bass fishing right?

hahaha it actually wasn't due to that....just ultimately went down different paths in life.

One time many moons ago....I had a buddy throw a topwater popper at me on a fishing rod. I saw it coming at the last second, instincts took over, I throw my hand up and caught it. He closed the bail took a few cranks and set the hook with mono, on a normal 6ft spinning rod, at 60-70ft. buried every hook into my hand, hand closed. Took an ER visit to get it all out. We're not friends any more.......

This is what gets me when it gets brought up at Taneycomo. I've been in fog so dense before that I can't see anything for less than 100 ft over there. I don't care if its a kayak, log, bank, shallow shoal, or another person in a full size boat. Your running on plane in fog like that and hit something, anything, someone is going to get seriously hurt/killed. Its like somehow we think because its a boat hitting another boat in the fog the damage will be significantly different. 20+ MPH and people get hurt seriously if not killed (BTW most of the people I've seen doing this were above 20 mph. Sure in bright sun the kayaks can still be difficult to see but its always the current, cold water, or fog that people use to drive home their point. There's plenty of other things to hit out there and the majority of them are only avoided by luck and common sense based on the conditions.

Crows are one of the most fun animals to hunt.

So the interesting thing is that if your at the front end of the supply chain, your forced to constantly cut costs(this goes for farming too). As anything progresses down the supply chain and gets closer to the final consumer the focus on cutting costs decrease until you get to the transaction from the final supplier to the final consumer at that point we often see increases in prices. Ever wonder how that works? Notice how meat and cars both continue to increase in price. Labor is by all means under pacing inflation and every part of the supply chain cuts costs to their supplier but that costs decrease never makes it to the consumer. (Every supplier in major automotive is constantly looking to cut costs to the end customer(ford, chevy, dodge). Yet you pay significantly more every year. The industry I work in day to day works to cut costs to our major customers on the pace of 3-5% of COGS per year. We are number 2 in supply chain and we push our vendors to cut costs by 3-5%. Our customers sell directly homeowners and yet homeowners are still seeing increases in the costs of the products they are buying. At some link profits are increasing and more and more its generally in that last link of retail in which the final end consumer hands over money. I have a relatively small herd of cows. I will never get rich off of it(most years I break even or they cost me money), I enjoy the lifestyle. Regardless of anything else I have to buy feed and fuel and those costs generally go up(when times I good I put my profits back into my farm in ways that save me time, money, or headache later on down the line). My prices I get for my calves can yo-yo almost .30 cents/lb at the sale barn. The feed lot that will buy they will likely experience the same yo-yo effect. The slaughter/packing plant will have some yo-yo in prices they get paid but it largely based on contracts with the final retail which is pushing them to lower prices but yet you will almost always pay the same price out the door of the supermarket. Unfortunately we have become a retail economy. There is certainly value to be added by my beef being able to be sold at any supermarket vs just to my neighbors but I think if you really looked where the profits lie you'll find the people with all labor, costs, and risk will be making the least money.

Sounds like you caught them thanks for the follow up report. My step dad, wife, and I rode from Eagle Rock to Houseman in spring to white bass fish and no sooner did we get there it started torrential rain. Its a long haul that far in pouring rain. Now I just launch at houseman if I want to fish that far up. Although I have paddled a canoe from Houseman to Holiday Island and back once.

Nice! I've been out on the Kings river arm of table rock 2 times now looking for them and haven't corralled them yet. Wont be long and I'll find them.

I would second RPS.....Trolling and bottom bouncers I'm using braid anyways for the sensitivity so I have just been buying metered braid. Then I buy relatively inexpensive combos when I find one I like and I don't have to worry about loaning them out or them getting broken ect.

I'm not familiar with either the current or north fork so for them I would defer to someone else. However if your wanting to backpack I would head to the buffalo river. I would start at the Ponca low water bridge and head down river towards Steel Creek campground along the old river trail which criss-crosses back and forth across the Buffalo(you could coordinate with Buffalo outdoor center for drop off/pick up). I would hike until I got to the cutoff/intersection of the old river trail and the spur trail to hemmed in hollow and camp in that area. Spend the next day viewing hemmed-in-hollow, granny hendersons cabin, head up centerpoint trail head to view big bluff goat trail and back down to the river. Finish it out by hiking and finishing at the Camp Orr boy scout camp. The downside will be that there isn't any trout that far up and fishing is definitely sub par. The good news....you will get wet because you will have to cross the river several times(you'll find out what problems this creates over days). You will figure out a lot of the gear of the backpacking portion. You will get some miles on your legs and some elevation climbing. You will see the tallest waterfall between the Rockies and Appalachians. The area is easily top spot in Arkansas for hiking. You might even see some elk if you get lucky. You will also always be within 5 or 6 miles from a way to get out of the woods in case things go wrong.

I forgot to mention with the high water don't just blaze under the old railroad bridge at Beaver. I don't think it will be an issue but I went under one time that was close enough it made me uncomfortable on plane.

It's been awhile but I don't recall anything of concern between Eagle Rock and houseman at normal levels. I have been up to the Hwy 62 bridge just upstream of houseman in my xpress with prop motor without any problems(IIRC water was high but not crazy). If it were me and I was only looking for trout I would put in at houseman or holiday island to avoid the run. Every time I have put in at houseman to try and catch whites I had trouble keeping the trout off about houseman so there may not be a ton of trout downstream of there. @rps probably would be a better source of information here. When I last floated, I remember the major downstream shallow point was the old bridge piers just above the Hwy 62 bridge. If you can/or have google earth you can use the historical imagery feature to turn back the clock and look at historical imagery. It wont tell you exactly what the water level is/was but will tell you areas that appear out of the water first. For example here is the hwy 62 area in Feb. 2017: The red blob is just upstream from houseman. Blue circle is where the bridge piers are. In Feb 2017 Table Rock was 906-907 so I would expect with the current level and flows you can get through here with ease.

FWIW- The press release I saw on facebook which was probably simplified to general terms for the masses said: Up to 15,000 CFS (based on their webpage only shows about 12,000 cfs or 80% of what they posted they could/would release). about a foot per day (which the only real day it ran without rainfall was the 27th where it dropped between 6 and 8 inches just spit-balling the graph). Releases are weather dependent (looks like they shut something down because the tail water elevation came down over 4 ft. today) BTW it takes a whole lot more water to get rid of 1ft. of elevation @ 1127 than it does @ 1120 so they probably threw out a rough average of total CFS to get to 1120 divided by total estimated time they would release to give an idea.

No worries by me. I just find it funny that according to MDC feeding of deer and eating from concentrated areas promotes the spread of CWD but all the homeowners along the lake and in residential neighborhoods get a pass because they are X number of feet from a house. Like it actually makes a difference how many feet you are from a house on if CWD gets spread but if your a farmer with 1000 acres and you bait then your suddenly spreading it. Quite the double standard. Falls for not just corn but also mineral as well. I cant count the numbers of deer I see by the mineral feeder for the cattle or in the feed pen looking for leftovers. ehhh whatever. I say feed away and shoot them all doesn't matter to me.

Okay I ask because I was fishing a channel roll off on table rock and had several marks suspended in the water roughly 15-18ft in 22-25ft of water. I was looking for walleye so I wasn't really looking for suspenders. I dropped a spoon and nothing. Wondering if they were crappie and maybe I should see if I can catch them. Care to share some screenshots of what you see on the graph if you don't mind and have some?

I don't think its baiting if you don't hunt or its so close to a dwelling. At least that is the way I took it in the CWD containment zone.

Are you actively searching for these fish with your graph? Are you seeing them on the graph?

Its a shame......for the regular 110s I substitute the mcstick but I have yet to find a good 110+2 substitute.....In my mind that extra depth really helps....who knows. I just know it hurts when you lose one. BTW that metered braid you recommended seemed to work well. I wish it had the intermediate markings like the Powerpro but other than that it seems it will do the trick.

Put in about 8:30 with 3 dozen minnows headed to try and catch a limit of crappie. The ramp at Kings River public access isn't bad.....its god awful. I'm to the point I would pitch in for someone to just put down concrete to get things reasonable. I've attached pictures for your viewing pleasure....the ramp is even buckling in places under the water. Solid 4-6" drop off the asphalt. As soon as I got to the lake and realized how overcast a dreary it was, my mind was changed so I took off walleye hunting. I was armed with a jerkbait and trolling rod and a box of cranks. Ran as far as hickory hollow without much more than a couple spotted bass trolling. Then bam....I had a topwater bite as soon as my clown mcstik hit the water and I'm on the board with a dandy 14" crappie. I did manage to loose a megabass on a cast. I cruised over to where I saw it hit and I suppose it was suspended down about 5 or so feet because I never could find it. Those snafu's really hurt. Hopefully someone that needs it, finds it, and puts it to good use. By this point, I was done walleye hunting and wanted a few more crappie so headed off and found another 4 crappies to take home. Saw several boats out and about, water temps were in the 45-47 range. Trolled and jerked roll offs into the channel and rocky points. Crappie were on pole timber.

The media plays up the "team" narrative. In reality those hardcore party elitist groups are a relatively small portion of the votes. Most people fall somewhere in the middle and even bend which side they vote for fairly often. That's why we historically vote in the other party for president fairly often, and always hear about "flipping" states and districts. You might get 60+% voter turn out for president and 40+% for mid-terms which means that a large percentage of voters literally don't give a flying flip at all. Since they don't care, then they likely aren't tied to the extreme left or right they are somewhere in the middle otherwise they would be voting and beating that drum. Unfortunately the people that don't show up to vote are often the ones that could and would make the most difference in who is elected. Presidential elections usually get the highest voter turnout but one could argue that that they ultimately mean the least compared to voting for congress and senate. Unless there is a SCOTUS seat up for grab. At this point in our democracy, any SCOTUS ruling will be premised on ideology because the constitutions isn't clear as drinking water on a lot of what brought forth today. It's exactly why there is even a debate about the 2nd amendment because someone can use the "Yes, but" psychology to twist the constitution to fit their ideology. Alternatively you can think its really all a charade. Candidates are chosen before the votes are ever cast by the elite, corporate money, and media that determine how the game is played and who gets to play(regardless of what Trump really thinks). The actual vote is just lip service democracy to pick between the 2 chosen options.

You ever want to come back a hunt the eyes on the upper end I've got a seat for you.