Devan S.

I have a couple cousins that ride trains for a living. Both can, will, and do make calls on a weekly basis for trespassing. They have and will comment on every picture posted on facebook about senior pictures, family pictures, or other taken on the railroad and have reported them. Both get incredibly wound up about the trespassing on RR private property going into the explanation about people getting killed and how it affects the engineer or conductor. I guess I don't get it. If your not smart enough to get out of the way of a 3/4 mile long, million ton train and you get hit then so be it right?

BTW The regulating criteria for Beaver is: Firm power until TRL and BS is within 2' of conservation pool.

Remember only one of 3 dams got the "emergency" spillway. You can bet they will do what they can to avoid having to use that.

Its totally unsubstantiated but I think the reasoning is that Beaver has the smallest drainage basin and based on historical data Beaver has to ability to pass all of its inflow short term. Meaning running right at full pool level is overall less risky. Compared to allowing Table Rock to run high. Bull Shoals is obviously last in the chain and is regulated based on downstream conditions so it will always be the catch all basin. IIRC Beaver has released on the magnitude of 90kcfs at a time and as I recall the maximum inflows were in the magnitude of 110kcfs. Table Rock is second in the list has 2 huge drainage basins north and south(meaning a storm tracking slightly north or south still puts water in the lake). Both the Kings and James can get very large inflows even if it doesn't rain a drop right over the lake itself. Inflows that historically Table Rock has not and will not pass through EXCEPT for an absolute worst case scenario. IIRC Table Rocks max historical release is something like 80kcfs or that ball park and max inflows is on the order of 250kcfs. The James river and Kings river alone based on historical maximums could be something on the magnitude of 120-130kcfs. The idea being once they let a drop of water out of Beaver dam unless they can pass it to the White downstream of BS they will not risk the huge release through TRL.

Even if they are marketed "Made is USA" chances are high all the components are shipped in from overseas and the bare minimum is done to them to be able to market as made in the USA.

I would say its less about the accomplishment. More about the experience and a token of doing it. The same way with literally any number these kids of deals.

There will undoubtedly be people that lie about it or use historical catches to get the bling. I don't believe there is any real verification process. I'm thinking I'm gonna give it a shot.

https://mdc.mo.gov/newsroom/test-your-fishing-skills-through-mdc’s-first-blue-ribbon-trout-slam Looks like MDC has partnered with trout unlimited to allow you to log/report your catches and end up with a pin and medallion depending on number of streams that you complete. I'm feeling intrigued, I've never fished any of the sections and I'm really not a trout fisherman but I am thinking about trying it out. Tell me under normal conditions, what would be the most difficult sections to complete? Barren Fork Creek in Shannon County Blue Springs Creek in Crawford County Crane Creek in Lawrence County Current River in Dent County Eleven Point River in Oregon County Little Piney Creek in Phelps County Mill Creek in Phelps County North Fork of the White River in Ozark County Spring Creek in Phelps County

have seen them quite a bit at Grand Lake in Oklahoma....have never seen it in Missouri.

Back to the topic at hand....Here is why I use CFS but generally I am floating..not fishing so walking riffles is something I don't want to do. Kings River will never show less than 2'; the gage is in a hole under the bridge. Get down in the 2.5' range and there may be riffles that just appear wet with no visible flow over them. 50CFS I am dragging through many riffles, 100CFS I may bump a big rock 1 or 2 times in 8-10 miles when choosing a bad line. 100 CFS is smooth sailing, 50 is a soggy drunk hike. Difference in gage height? Maybe 3 inches Why? because in that bigger deep hole it takes a lot more volume in/out to raise the water level 3" than it does in the shallow riffles where you end up walking through. In reality 3" would make sense if the measurement came out of the shallowest riffles but when the gage was measuring 2.8 vs. 3.1 ft. I'm not sure I can distinguish the difference in ft. in that hole where I can in CFS.

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.