ColdWaterFshr

Was indeed a great weekend. Had the fish of a lifetime come unhooked after 5 seconds of play. Watched it swipe at the bait twice, and then when I slowed it down, it nailed it. It looked the size of a german shepherd. Gavin was tearing the smallies and big browns up all day. Biggest for me was 20 inch brown, and a couple more around 17. The EHC took a few dinks, and then stoneflies and globalls were the ticket down below Cedargrove. Lots of good times on this trip. Woke up early one morning, stood up out of the tent in the early dawn light to see 2 bald eagles flying very low on the water and straight upriver, so close I could hear the swoosh of their wings.

No browns? or even stocker sized browns? the rainbow escapees are always stacked up by the hundreds right below the mouth of the spring. always. And I agree with you on the inconsistency, but mostly in regards to finding and catching any browns, which is what that section is managed for unless they have given up on it.

Shazam, what a helluva trip!

Ditto that! Very generous. Thank you!

Really enjoyed those pictures and thank you for sharing. The one shot with the red canoe, the emerald green water, and the pine trees glowing high on the ridge top -- that one could win an award. Your pics made me dig into the Paul Dallas archives. We ran the Frog on March 20, 1998 and the gauge at Rudy was reading just a little over 6.5 and dropping. The only reason we ended up there was because Big Piney and Mulberry were blown out and we needed a white-water fix. Pleasantly surprised to discover it's most un-bayou-like characteristics! So me, Hoffmeyer, and a crazy canadian put on when the Frog was rip-roaring and ran it in undecked, no-flotation canoes. And Old Town Discovery and a Mad River something or other -- ordinary rec boats, so you get the idea . . . .and twelve-packs of beer rolling around loose on the floor of the canoe. A couple of dunkings and we built a fire on a steep side of the riverbank to keep Hoff from getting hypothermia as it started to rain on us and was about 40 degrees, and he got too close to the fire and burned his leg pretty badly. We all laughed. Good times.

Leonard, Can you post up a picture and the recipe under the tying section? Thanks, Paul D.

Whoa, dude. The fanny pack and those shorts. You look like you migrated out of Richard Simmons sweatin to the oldies video. Please erase this photo from my mind.

Wow!

There's a good chance it could contain one of those cards, Forsythian. A 1984 Paul Dallas BLBTC (Big League Bass Trading Card) in mint condition sold for a record $1.38 on eBay last week. It was Paul dressed in a suit and tie holding a Shakespeare flippin stick and immediately behind him was a quintet of babes wearing bright red lipstick and impossibly short skits, their faces dolled up with their hair pulled back tight in a bun. His good friend, the rockstar - Robert Palmer stole the concept and even used the exact same hot girls in his famous MTV video, "Addicted To Love", bringing him nearly overnight fame and fortune and didn't even bother to tell Paul thank you. Sadly, few cards remain, but you can still get an idea of the quality of babes that used to throw themselves at Paul, and still do to this day:

Well done! Nice father-son trip.

question was whether you KEPT them, not necessarily ate them. Could be swimming in your koi garden pond for all I know, or being lacquered and mounted onto a nice piece of driftwood. Just curious of the daytime shots on the water, then the nighttime photos from a driveway. Its okay whatever you chose to do with them TFR, we'll still be proud of you!

Nice fish. Just curious, not trying to stir the pot, but the last couple pictures looks like were from driveway (after you got home). Did you keep these fish?

As I think Gavin said, this is all a ploy, to call attention to the problem and eventually try to get concessions on some other front. Politics. Not a tea partier or occupier, but govt wants to grow itself constantly and they are always broke because of it.

My sister owns the house in Springfield that used to be their basement studio.

Or call Paul Dallas and just pay him in Tito's vodka, beer and cigarettes. Not very dependable though.

I enjoyed that as well. Many hours spent fishing that spring hole as a kid, wondering in awe of it. I find it interesting that trout are that deep in it - 30 feet did you say? - and what available food source is down that deep.

Park at the gate at Lane and throw your stuff in a backpack and hike in. Probably not legal to camp in the campground, but I think you'd be okay on a gravel bar across the river. Might check with the rangers office in Rolla to see if its okay to leave a car at the gate overnight there.

I agree, OB. Considering the # of wade-fishing anglers on the upper end of Taney, I think it offers significant bang for the buck. Of course it remains to be seen how it all works out, but I think its a step in the right direction.

Read something on here that they don't want back-pressure on their turbines. Any kind of wing-dam structure or dike that might cause water to pool up, even slightly, they would probably put the kibosh on.

The Corps probably nixed that idea

Phil, Its not jealousy. And I don't fish down there often enough to where my comments should hold much weight. But I have in the past and I'll say this at the risk of sounding hoity-toity -- its about solitude. If you're bank fishing, wade fishing or whatever, and a boat comes ripping up -- on plane or off plane, big wake, or almost no wake, makes no difference -- its a peace disturbance. Multiple times during a fishing trip, and it gets annoying. Here comes another one, and another. Would be nice to have a half mile of none of that nonsense. I know its a semi-urban environment, and that concrete dam isn't exactly natural, but at least create the illusion. Out of those 80/100 days of generation, how many of those are borderline wadeable up there at some point in the day or night, if not multiple times? And how long does it take the water to fall out even if it pulses on/off several times a day. Thats a LOT of overlap between wading and boating. A 1/2 mile section of motor-boat free water out of 20 some-odd miles isn't a lot to ask, and you drift out of there in 5-10 minutes anyway, do you really need that half mile. Put in big sharp pointy 12 foot high boulders I say, and I don't think I would be alone in that sentiment.

Pretty funny picture of those guys fishing the outlet while that big ole piece of equipment is out there doing its thing just feet from them. Good to see these habitat improvements made, but would actually prefer they were bigger rocks to further discourage the 200 hp bass boats ripping all the way up to the cable. And the final piece of the puzzle would be to get a restricted no-fishing zone in the immediate area of those outlets, at least in critical times of the year like the fall.

Indeed. I am one saxy lutellen.

He went back after a couple giggles and a quick picture -- all fiesty and lively.

Good work. Still the flowers at the end, but the pink shirts are gone at least. Better luck next time on the toothy bastards.