Greasy B

Mid September for wading because the water levels will be much more predictable. March would be your best bet for larger fish but wading would be a crap shoot.

Gosh, so many rivers so little time. A couple of years ago my brother and spent a week floating up and down paradise valley in our one man pontoons. We caught a bunch of fish and had a blast. That week convinced me that a drift boat or raft is the only way to go. Even if we took turns rowing we would have fished effectively more than fighting the wind in our personal pontoons. This trip I'll have to do my best at balancing fishing with sight seeing so I don't torture Linda with my usual combat fishing style. The brother and I are planning a trip for mid September. That trip will be gonzo balls to the walls fishing from dawn till dark. The last several years we spent two weeks on the North Platte around Saratoga. With the drought coditions in southeast Wyoming we will probably seek out a tail water. Maybe Green River or Big Horn. I would suspect the Yellowstone would be one of the few freestone rivers that would have enough water to float and fish well in September. Still need that drift boat though.

Al, I'll take a look at our itinerary tomorrow morning at send you an email with a date and time we would be available as well as my cell number. It would be great to get together for a visit and it would only take a few minutes to tie the canoe on. Billet, you've got me courious about the creeks around paradise valley. I'll need to do a little exploring while I'm in the area. Mike,

Al, My girl friend and I are staying at Chico Springs for a few days early next month. Maybe we can work something out. Mike,

I ran across a Tracker river John on white river last weekend. I'm not sure when they stopped making them but it was a beautiful boat, 22' long with a wonderful rocker that would allow it to turn on a dime. I think Charley Cambell helped design it. I don't understand why i don't see many true river johns north of the Arkansas line, IMO they are the ideal boat for our Ozark rivers.

By our own narrow perception of time.

That's a sad story. Were the authorities notified? Are there any water quality laws that could have been enforced? This type of degradation is happening on our Ozark streams but generally at a slower less obvious rate.

Sad!

Some good videos, it's giving me the itch to do some wade fishing. Thanks for excluding music and the usual banter.

My buddy caught one 20 lbs + on a bluegill popper downstream from Kelly some years ago. It was slurping mulberries. He was using an old whimpy 5 wt. It took so long to land it we didn't get any more bass fishing in that evening and didn't get to Yellville till after dark.

The difficult access and shuttle makes stretch of river one of the last in the state that is not pounded by hords of fishermen and dunken idiots. Lets hope it stays that way. Last year was the only time I was privileged to do an overnighter and yes it was very hard to find a gravel bar that was not posted. The river camper must exercise much discretion and respect when choosing where to spend the night.

Thanks for the encouraging report Phil. I'll try to repeat your performance this weekend.

The water was passable on that stretch last weekend. Your good to go.

How far up from Red Horse can the jets navigate? Having a jet myself I have had to adjust my usual destinations and dust off the canoes. I would agree that there is a bit of a silver lining to the low water, I just hope it's temporary.

Yea, we flipped a coin and Piney won. Good trip, I'll see if I have any pictures worthy of sharing.

I seen some jet dudes beat the crap out of their boats on Piney this weekend. I'd say there are at least four boats that will spend the rest of the summer parked In driveways.

At the rate the water is dropping the recreational boat traffic on the middle river might be low enough to allow a peaceful float. August and September are looking good for those of us who have given up the middle river because of all the boat traffic.

In the late 70's if you would have smelled reefer you probably would not have seen a fight. If all the party had was booze a fight would have been a certainty. Not that I condone this of course.

I think we ruined our yard by planting tall fescue. Use a designer fescue like jaguar. Cool season grass is the only way to go.

When the alarm went off at 3:00 AM I thought good lord what have I got myself into. When we shuttled ourselves 15 miles up the river I thought good lord what have I got myself into. When we decided to split the river down the middle with Al fishing the right bank and Mitch and myself fishing the left bank I thought how am I going resist casting to the right when the fishable water on the left disappears. As it turns out launching at that early hour was a great idea, the air was cool, the fish were active and the river was deserted. The early start went a long way toward clicking off 15 miles too. Dividing the river down the center worked out very well. It left some fresh water for the boat in the rear and we switched lead enough so that when Mitch and I were in the rear we could fish either side, though casting to the right bank was hardly worth it after Al had raked it over. I want to thank Al and Mitch for the great company and a memorable day. I’m looking forward to doing it again. I only took one picture.

PM sent, let's go fishing!

The key words are "with a partner that is handling the boat". First you have to find one who can handle the boat then you have to find one who's willing. That's a lot harder than just keeping one hand on the tiller and chucking a plug with the other.

Where you been? Hell, this weekend we had the perfect storm at Paydown. Just enough rain to scare away the joy riders and just enough water to get up the river. Fished from 3:00 Saturday till 3:00 Sunday and seen no other boats, even caught a few fish. I'm putting together a plan for another overnighter this weekend give me a buzz.

I remember being very intimidated the first couple of times I walked into Kelly Sporting Goods on Lindbergh. I had never known or ever seen anyone fly fish, the sport involved all kind of techniques and equipment that I had no idea about as well as terminology I couldn’t pronounce much less understand. At the time I was borrowing books from the public library by Ray Bergman and George M. LaBranche so all the equipment they used was out dated. All I knew was that if I was going to get any better at fly fishing I needed better equipment than what I could buy at Grandpa Pigeons. I put up with sneers and snickers as I asked one dumb question after another. When I met Tom Hargrove at Outdoors LTD in Clayton all that stopped and my education started. It’s true that pathetic blowhards open their mouths in fly shops thinking that someone might be impressed; they simply reveal the depth of their own pettiness.

In my experience hardware will definitely out catch software, especially on larger streams and rivers. I would love to fly fish to Smallmouth exclusively but most of the time it would be a waste of effort. On any stream where the bottom is not visible in most places hardware is the way to go. On smaller streams If you can manage to show your fly to the fish before it sees your shadow or your line you may be able to catch as many as conventional tackle, false casting and noisy wading will put a lot of fish down.