My grandpa told me that a long time ago, purely speculation but i always thought it was because a lot of fish gorge themselves when the river is coming up then they are not hungry for a few days.
If people didn't float with friends there would be. While fishing a few years back i had to pull a drunk woman out of a log jam in front of the Y bridge in galena, she was so drunk she could not function floating on a cushion, she floated right past her take out point.
She was lucky someone was fishing there that day her friends were not close enough to get her and didn't seem to be in much of a hurry.
I was fishing tablerock the other day around point 15 and there were a bunch of jugs coming down out of the james then some yahoo coming out of flat creek in his ski boat did his darndest to run over every jug he could. Wasn't even my jugs and it still made me mad.
A ccw firearm is a last line of defence tool it is not something to defend your things with any responsible gun owner knows that and for those of you who do not carry because you think you would get angry over an argument, High five! If every person cared to think about it before choosing to carry we would have far less gun toting knuckle heads to worry about.
My father came down for a visit so I talked him into going out and trying to catch some catfish ahead of this storm, Been about 6 years since he and I fishe'd together. I didn't want to make him bushwack to one of my holes so I figured I would pay the $6 and go fish the point at shoals so we get there and fill out their little envelope drop my money in the box get about 200 yards down the little road and it has a cable going across it with a sign saying, no vehicles beyond this point. Not even a quarter way into the campground nowhere near the end of the gravel road. So a little frustrated I figured I Would go get a refund but when we got to the store/office building it was closed and no one in sight.
This is an isolated incident rarely do people get shot on the river and there is no law saying people can't be rude there are plenty of police in city's wich is where ( in my experiences ) you will find some of the most obnoxious people on earth.
I really do not like the idea of more law enforcement on the rivers, more patrol less privacy IMO there is nothing more annoying then getting half way through a shoal and being forced into the bank by a water patrol jetboat just to check licenses and poke around in a cooler. Unless a patrol boat was at that gravel bar i don't think things would have went any different.
I couldent keep them off a hellgrammite fly last weekend bass, catfish, sunfish, goggleye, if they saw it they ate it, and you can never go wrong with hoppers and craw patterns this time of year.
I would much rather have catch and keep fishermen operating within the law then the loud drunken litter bugs i pick up after every time i float.
I tend to stay off the river on the weekends to stay away from the rif raff and it gets worse every year, at least in the places i frequent.
Yea JRO is great really good fishing on any of their floats, i recommend the cox ford trip. But the river gets hit pretty hard on the weekends i know it was full today.