Gavin

The Current is a great bet...but its 5.5 or 6 hours from Memphis...lots of public land to hike and camp on for free and great wade fishing...The Spring River and Eleven Point are closer though..Not much hiking & camping on the Spring, but the 11pt is a gem....Wading isnt great but doable in spots...but the Ozark Trail runs the North Bank of the 11pt between Greer and Hurricane Cr for a couple miles, and lots of public land to camp on. Free public camping at McCormack Lake, and fee camping at Greer CG...Best to do the 11pt by canoe or drift boat though....Brian Sloss at Eleven Point canoe can hook you up in that regard. Read up in the Current R. and Eleven Point forums and let us know what you think. OzarkTrail.com has some good free maps of the 11pt. The North Fork of the White is withing striking distance to...but youll probably want to stay at Sunburst or ROLF and canoe that one. I'm usually canoe/camping on the Current with a bunch of friends for a couple days just after new year. Sometimes its cold, sometimes we paddle out in shorts, but thats our fickle winter weather.. Holler if you need more info.

Sorry to hear that...but it makes room for one more... Picked up some stuff for some blockhead variants at lunch...time to break out the saw and the disk sander and machine up some heads.

I'm sure that they already ARE in the creeks that feed Taney...some in the Lake too....Its just hasnt been a good place for them since the river was dammed. You can still catch em on the Rock though. It looks like they have a great smallmouth fishery on that Lake....Might have to give it a try one of these days.

The North Fork of the White is a wild rainbow stream...best one in this state. And the point really isnt debatable...They spawn when they spawn...and I'm not sure what triggers it...photoperiod...temperature...moon phase...genetics.......I'm sure that many factors play a part in it, but you cannot deny that those are wild rainbow trout.....Same can be said for Crane, Blue Spring, & Mill. The fishing on the NFoW isnt tailwater easy though. 5-10 fish is a pretty good day on the NFoW. Cheers.

Congrats! Best to you and your wife!

Surface is very important...My station is just an old yard sale desk with a sheet of white melamine on the top. Its only a couple bucks for a new sheet of melamine when it comes time to replace the top. Thread storage...nothing beats a sheet of pegboard and a bunch of pegs...same thing for hooks. Put em in a drawer or a baggy or tub...and you never know what you have....I put up 3 sheets of 4x8' pegboard in my basement tying area/fishing tackle storage area a couple months ago. I can find things now...

Nice looking reel...I'm not sure what its worth...but I'd check the completed auction listings on Ebay for reels in similar condition..3.5" diameter...should hold a 5 or a 6wt. It would look great on an old Granger, Heddon, or Phillipson. Cheers.

Great guy...I had the pleasure of his company a couple years ago. Some friends and I took him to dinner after he did a show in St. Louis...We told our waitress that Jack was our special guest from Boston...She asked what "the occassion" was...and Jack told her that he'd "just been released from prison". He was a real character and he will be missed.

Nature finds a way...and since smallmouth arent in Taneycomo in abundance...I'd have to conclude that its not a good place for them. Cheers.

Depends....those desks look nice, but it doesnt have enough storage...As for a fly tying desk...Find a good chair....find a desk any desk...buy an extension arm and a waste bucke for your vise...adjust the height of the fly so that you can tie with your shoulders relaxed..not reaching up or down...good lighting is a must too. The TV tyers that Tim mentioned are great...made by George Roberts....great guy...master woodworker and fly fly fisher. Tell him what you want, and he will make it for you. Cheers.

Eric, you might want to head over to Hargroves tomorrow and try to round up a casting lesson. First Saturday in December is Tom's annual Xmas party...Should be plenty of food, drink, & a band. I'll be up there for a bit. Cheers.

I think they have made some good progress toward their goals......The Current fishes better than it did..more quality fish in the 15-17" range thats for sure.....NFoW fishes better than it did..I think that extending the blue ribbon area to Patrick has improved that fishery quite a bit...particularly the brown trout fishing...Eleven point fishes better than it did before they started stocking it again. They the Bohigian CA on Mill Creek is a nice addition.....Enforcement is still a sore spot though. Cheers.

Havent tried the PMS, but it must be a good fly cuz the pine squirrel pegs are often empty at the St. Louis area fly shops....Wonder if Leonard's fly is gonna add em to the endangered species list;>)!

On second thought...I'd have to agree with Matt...the NFoW is producing more quality brown trout these days...My friend Chris caught a 28" male brown on a fly there last year, and another fellow caught a 30" female last week...both on a Pat's Rubber legs stonefly by the way...Plus my friend Bobber caught a 19.5" bow there last week. The NFoW doesnt hold the numbers that it did in the early 1980's, but its better than its been in a long time...The Current is still better for numbers though and it seems that there are a lot of 16-17" brown trout in that river at the moment. I've caught 7-8 of them that size in the last two trips down there so there must be a bunch of them. Next year should be a really good year for fish in the 18-20" range. Cheers.

Has anyone sat down to tie yet? I havent...will probably do some kind of popper.

It cant be welfare, because its always cheaper to buy fish at the market.

Best of luck with your new venture! I hope you do really well with it.

The accountant in me says $7 to raise trout seems way too high...The pay to play places like Rockbridge charge around $4 a pound for trout and I'm sure they arent selling trout at a loss. Not sure how many trout they stock in the urban lakes these days, but I tallied it up when they came out with the trout plan a couple years ago..Think it was around 50,000 trout for the urban program.....Google Missouri Trout Plan and you can tally it up for yourself. Even at the preposterously high cost of $7 a fish, 50,000 trout would cost $350k......I'm sure folks around the state get more than $350k worth of enjoyment out of that program, some might even get a dinner or two. Sounds like a winner to me...guess I'll stop knocking it and go fish my local mud puddle. Cheers.

I wasnt around in 78, but I've been camping at Sunburst since the mid 80's..Justin & Amy are great folks...they've been down there for a good amount of time and I think that they are doing a great job with the place. Best place to stay on the river IMO.

I'm not sure how it gets paid for...but I'd imagine that STL & KC generate more than enough sales tax to cover the cost of a ten or twenty thousand trout. MDC's money is off limits to the pols, so it cant be used for other purposes...And I think thats good mostly... I'm not sure how the trout program gets funded.....Maybe some of the municipalites pay for the fish delivery...I dont know..Lots of folks are out fishing though. I see folks out every time I drive by Tilles or Jefferson Lake. The folks I see fishing are generally men of voting age, but occasionally they bring their kids or grandkids. Caught a few over at Tilles last Tuesday and some at Jefferson Lake last Wednesday. I tell you what...those fish have seen some pressure since early November and they arent that easy any more. Cheers.

Rubber legs work better.

I havent been a fan of the urban trout lakes..but they are very popular here in St. Louis. The usually stock em the first week of November and its catch & release artificials only until February 1...After that its catch & keep, anything goes. The program isnt going away anytime soon, so I cant see a reason not to stock another lake depending on its proximity to other catch & keep trout opportunaties.

They are mutants...Real goldens are native to the Sierra's...Kern river etc. and they are stocked in some of the mountain lakes out west...What AFGC stocked are hatchery raised mutant rainbows...They call em Goldens or Palomino's....but they arent golden trout. Google Palomino trout and you will find lots of info on them. I call em Judas trout because they mix in with their native colored brethren and give their positions away. Not a fish worth maintaining IMO.

Stayed at Montauk with the fam & some friends this weekend...Not much time to fish, but I got out Saturday & Sunday AM...Limited time, so I didnt even bother with the fly rod. Didnt matter much...They seemed to like my jerkbait well enough. Caught two nice browns on back to back casts at Tan Vat on Saturday then 5-6 small ones...some guys went up, so I split for Parker but drew a blank down there. Fished from Baptist down close to Ashley on Sunday. Caught around a dozen, One surprise rainbow, and a smallmouth for the Trifecta.

Looks like a spot to me...not a LM, not a smallmouth...