ColdWaterFshr

The Y cabins are the way to go! They have one that sleeps up to 8 and is only $55/night!! Very friendly folks. Cheap and clean, and you can get a little rowdy w/ a bachelor party and no one will get all uptight on you as long as you don't break anything. http://www.ycabinresort.com/rates.htm

Tough call. I've been to them all except Barren, which I do want to check out sometime - driven by it many times. Each is its own little gem and beautiful in their own right, but I guess with the North Fork or the Little Piney having the bigger flows, I hate to say I might admire them slightly less than the others just because of their proportional advantage. I'm amazed that we have wild trout living in some of these small places. Go visit Blue Springs in late August and tell me how trout can do that. Don't get me wrong, I love the NF and LP!

Chief - your 4th boat in 30 years?? You don't need our opinion man! My brother had a Wenonah fiberglass canoe for several years and it was a great boat. Very light, quick, tracked well. He just had to patch it fairly often, which caused him to be overly cautious with it, and then the final hole he put in it was its death nail - just unrepairable. Had he bought a Royalex boat instead of the fiberglass, I'm sure he would still be using it.

Chief, Don't do the Ram-X or even fiberglass. You're setting yourself up for disappointment. I'm sure there are plenty of happy Ram-X owners out there, or fiberglass canoe owners. But they don't use their boats regularly, at least not on Ozark streams. I've seen both in action, and it isn't pretty. Ram-X is the Huffy of mountain bikes. Yes, you can peddle it up a moderate paved hill. Fiberglass boats are just fine as lake or flat-water boats, but rocks will destroy them very quickly. Ness and Gavin offer good advice.

Well, I've got two words for all of you as far as privilege of fishing with such and such, just two words . . . 1. Paul 2. Dallas So put that chicken in your ziploc, shake it up a lil, and then bake it. Shake and Bake.

I would suggest to increase your pre-fish time whenever approaching any new water. Call the boys at Febreeze or M & M's, or Midol PMS . . . whoever your sponsors are, tell 'em you need an extra nights stay and an extra days guide service, too, and to loosen the purse strings . . . this is afterall the most difficult professional sport ever created.

I don't mean any disrespect, I really don't, but I can't help myself. A dude in a $40,000 glitter boat, with the latest in high tech sonagraphs/fish-finders equipment, sponsorship and endorsement deals, paying huge entry fees and running up and down the lakes (all over the country) to fish the "circuit". TV boats to follow the action . . . the suits, the patches, the weigh-ins and award ceremonies, the fame, the glory, its all too much. Even the phrase "pre-fishing a tourney" cracks me up. Its an odd mix of geekiness, NASCAR, and hoosier, and its begging to be made into a movie like Talladega Nights. Shake and Bake, baby. If there exists a more severe perversion of an otherwise relaxing past-time, I'd like to know what it is.

Hey, watch it. I resemble that average weenie fisherman, and I can't even manage to get broke off. Just tone down the glow is all I'm saying. I'd like to see the river kept as cruel as possible. Save the advertisements for bigger waters already overrun with weenie fisherman.

maybe you're a victim of your own glowing reports and your favorite hole is now 179 other peoples favorite as well.

I can't get excited about that river any more. Its okay fishing about 1/3rd of the times I go, but usually it sucks. Its okay for an afternoon fix, but if you drive an hour further, there are a LOT better options.

eat lots of carrots

I'm fine with the bait fishing restrictions as they currently exist - keep it in the White Ribbon area and manage it and enforce it as is. The Blue Ribbon area just needs more enforcement. But I will say it has improved in the last couple years -- it seems like I've seen a game warden down there on almost every trip in recent memory. But I've also witnessed poaching on every trip in recent memory. The problem with enforcement down there is its a lot of river to cover and I don't think the agents venture much further than the area around Hwy 19 bridge down to the first island downstream, or the other accesses. My last trip, about 3 weeks ago kind've confirmed this -- yes, we saw an agent up in the woods near the 1st island, but at the end of the trip we saw a couple hiking out with a couple fish 12-14 inches on a stringer just upstream about 1/4 mile from Turners. I think the locals know what areas are patrolled and to some extent when. And I think certain baitfishin locals with jetboats also know this, and the jetboat allows them to do their damage relatively quickly away from the Hwy 19 area. And I'm pretty sure a few nice trout get "accidentally" gigged whenever someone wants a taste of trout. Lots of nice folks with jetboats that use the river, and I don't mean to generalize them all as poachers, but as others have said -- in keeping with a wild and scenic river, it would be nice to have an area off limits to jetboats.

I'd like to see the jetboats gone in the Blue Ribbon section.

I agree with most of the others. A buddy of mine and I once attempted to fish the spring branch (illegally) and it proved very difficult. We made it down about a third of a mile before giving up, exhausted. The speed of the water, the boulders everywhere, and the steepness of the banks, thick cover left little room to cast -even with short spinning rods. Its just not terrain or water for the general public. All that watercress and ferns would surely take a beating. I wouldn't mind a lottery type deal to get permission to fish it or kayak it, but it would I would keep the number so low (20 per year?) that it would have little impact.

I wasn't trying to start a fight or complain. During the course of an otherwise boring work day, I poke around on this website probably too much and I'll admit it can be fun to stir the pot a little, even on a subject like this where I have no horse in the race. Just showing a different viewpoint, I hope no offense was taken about anything I stated. I enjoyed the discussion. Cheers!

Interesting indeed. Interesting in terms of the grandeur of the rationalizations in your post I must say. The docks you shot footage on certainly didn't appear to be in any state of desrepair, or in jeopardy of losing permits. For the most part, they appeared well-maintained, if not downright modern, with boats elevated on lifts and what not. Cleaning fish, you were, right there on the spic and span, clean boardwalk that granny may have swept off earlier in the afternoon. If she had been there 2 hrs ago or 20 years ago, so what? Winter or summer. So? This doesn't have a to do with how many bajillion docks there are on Lake of the Oz, how many are half-sunk, or Ameren UE, or even why baitfish like algae that grow on horizontal mooring cables. Go up on those same docks and fish the same way during the summer and see how well you're received, and theres your answer. Regardless of what signs you got posted, or failed to post, I can't imagine either you or Phil would want strangers on your docks fishing anytime they danged pleased. It isn't law as much as it is courtesy and respect for others property.

Interesting info from the legal eagle. Thanks for sharing that Bill. Still, even if a dock is NOT posted, I think most of us city folks (non-locals) would feel very uncomfortable tying up to someone's dock and geting out, walking around and amongst their various lake toys, and fishing right there. If you wouldn't have the nerve to do it during the summer, why should you have the nerve to do it in the winter? -- just because you know no one's home? Or is it because you know that you'd be asked to leave more often than not during the summer (when people are there)? It may not be trespassing, and it may be the norm among good ole boys during the winter months on certain parts of LOZ, but I dont think I would ever feel completely at ease fishing that way unless I had permission. But I gotta say, it has a certain edginess to it that is appealing. Especially cleaning the fish on the dock.

I was gonna say the same thing . . . . The back patio of my house doesn't have a no trespassing sign, but that doesn't mean the general public is welcome, and I sure wouldn't want strangers cleaning fish on it. No harm done, but still. Unless Bill personally knows the owners of those docks, I would say it was definitely trespassing and you got lucky. Nice fish though!

You should try to get ahold of Dave Whitlock. His "Near Nuff Sculpin would be a good one to add.

Just another reason that jetboats are the devil. Glad you are all okay. As you said, it could have been a lot worse. A friend of mine witnessed the aftermath of a jetboat accident on the Big R this past summer. As he was putting his canoe in at Hwy 21 near WSP, so was a guy in a jetboat who was headed upstream. Later in the day as he returned to the put-in, there was an air-evac helicopter in the parking lot. The same guy he had seen in the jetboat had run up on something, got thrown from the boat and shattered his leg.

I've been a big fan of Hans chicken (#4) for at least 20 years now. Everytime I go to Springpatch I have to order it, but I get it medium. Is Kim's Korean BBQ still around. They used to be in old downtown, and then moved to south Campbell. Had some outstanding bulgogi and veggie pancakes.

NOOO! Thats not what we need more of. We need LESS Tito. less. Tito like sunburn. Getting one is no problem, next day, Tito make you suffer.

Sorry to ruffle feathers guys. I'm sure you're decent fellers and not hoosiers or idiots. Its just that I've seen these places left trashed before. Established campfire pits doesn't make it right. I don't think it is legal to camp anywhere at Tan Vat, but as you say, people do it all the time. There aren't any trash cans at either location, so what do people do? They make a bonfire and attempt to burn their trash and usually don't succeed. Or they just chuck it in the woods. As for Cedargrove and ATV's, the last time I was there, I saw an ATV rally, several of them racing around the campground area going WAY too fast. To improve the ambience of their little event even further, they had an impressive car stereo blaring at peak volume, presumably so they could hear it OVER the noise of their ATVs. I wanted to join them, but I was afraid my mullet haircut wouldn't be good enough.

Please don't camp at Tan Vat offseason or not, or Baptist or Parker. I believe it is posted, and if you camp there, well, you're a hoosier. Sleeping in your car is one thing, but throwing down a tent and building a fire in the middle of what amounts to a parking lot/access, I'm sorry, thats lame.

We floated it yesterday from 47 down to the Big and then paddled upstream to Wash SP. Fishing wasn't all that good, And the float turned out to be a lot of work. Recent floods have really changed some things around. There were at least 4 massive deadfalls we had to portage around. Above 47 I would imagine there would be even more deadfalls which would make a long day trip even longer. As it was, we were paddling the last mile and half up to WSP in the dark, which wasn't much fun.