Phil Landry

The event was a huge success. We raised over $2300, had a great turnout, and gave away a large amount of fly tying materials for contest winners. It went well enough that we are going to make it a BI-Annual event. Maybe the next one will be "Scuds and Suds"

We will have a food truck, tying games, prizes, auctions, and some really heady brews. What's not to like? All proceeds go to the Memphis VA Hospital's Project Healing Waters chapter. All tying materials will be supplied. We will have multiple stations with 3-4 vises, materials and lighting set up. Feel free to BYOV... bring your own vise, but there will be plenty on hand. Y'all come tie one on for a great cause that directly benefits our military veterans. There has been a lot of recent negative press surrounding some other "charity veteran fishing programs"... please know that Project Healing Waters is not associated with these. 100% of funds raised from this fun event will go to the Memphis VA Hospital's PHWFF program. We run 36 VA patients through three 16 week courses where they learn to tie their own flies and they even build their own rods. Then we take them fishing. We were one of the first 10 programs in Project Healing Waters. Now there are 208 chapters nationally. We have documented and witnessed accounts that our program has SAVED LIVES. Please email me with any and all questions. pblandry@hotmail.com Thanks for reading, come join us if you can. www.arkansastroutbum.com

Tywheel Y'all check this out. www.tywheel.com I'm fortunate enough to know the guys making these and got a prototype back in April. I love this thing. It's completely customizable and can be adapted in a flash. There will be new attachments and a tytower attachment organizer coming out soon. This is really the most revolutionary fly tying concept I have seen in a very long time. It puts the old Oasis organization systems to shame in my opinion. Feel free to share your thoughts or ask questions.

Now, in the past I have parked at the top of dripping, but felt like there was adequate room to get by. One thing about dipping is that the shade in the afternoon puts a premium on parking against the woods... And there is no sign that says "don't park here". If I am the offending party here, you have my apologies, but I haven't done so in quite sometime. I don't think I am guilty of any of the others, but possibly, perceptions vary. I think that I generally I use good river etiquette and always strive to do so. I don't run shoals or runs a second time if there is a wafer present. If I have an adequate space to fit behind the angler I will, but sometimes conditions dictate I go as wide as I can on the side the wader is fishing. In this case, all my boat is doing is spooking a few fish into your drift zone. Motoring upstream, I will always go behind the wader if the opportunity is there. I don't tell clients to cast over lines or in obvious drift lanes, but clients don't always listen either! This whole deal is a balancing act and I feel I try harder than most to oblige. If you see me and are nice about our passing thru, I will gladly offer to give you the flies we are using. In my opinion, there should not be any secrets, as long as folks are personable. If you have a specific beef or irritation with me, I would really like to know. I will do everything in my power to rectify said situation. I know that waders are limited in the areas they can cover, as I was once one too. Is it possible that you catch a guide on a bad or tough day... Absolutely. Sometimes the atmosphere in the boat does not lend to stopping and offering help to others. I wish it always did, but circumstances vary greatly. In closing I will say this. Please, if I have done anything to offend you, let me know. I do not strive to offend people. I'm very approachable if you call my name and Imtroduce yourself I promise to take your comments to heart and give you every effort I can in order to be less obtrusive. Nobody's perfect, but if you get to know the guides a little, you will get far more respect and I personally will use every opportunity to infringe less on your angling opportunity as a wader. Like I said, if I can't help it at the time, I will give you flies later or do what I can to make it right. Some spaces are just too tight. If you show guides some respect, they should show you some respect. If they don't try, then you know who they are. Phil Landry (901) 461-8822 www.theozarkflyguides.com pblandry@hotmail.com Hey- your voice should be heard, I'll listen, especially if I offended. Thanks.

good deal man... just wanted to make sure you were not a total greenhorn and had visions of grandeur that might lead to injury or worse! If you want an inspection done on that motor and want to pick my pahtna's brain about what he might know about a used fiberglass hulls that might be available give him a call. He is in Heber and is the only dealer in the area for "Outboard Jets" the only manufacturer of jet pumps and parts. He converts props to jets for folks and does repair work on the jets themselves, impellers, drive shafts etc etc. No matter what company makes the motor, the jets themselves are made by Outboard Jets and distributed to Mercury, Evinrude, Johnson, Yamaha etc etc. He sells boats and motors, both new and used too, so he is good at knowing what a motor is worth etc. R&R Longboats - Ebb Estes (501) 206-5765

On a positive note... longer periods of high water make fatter and stronger fish. Plus, there is far less fishing pressure and direct impact on the population. Good things come to those who wait.

Holy smokes... a 40/30 on a 14 foot will absolutely fly upstream... you aint got no boat in the water hardly when you are up on plain. Please let me revise my advise here... and please don't take this as all negative. At 14', with that many horses behind you, and the dead drift weight with a motor that big.... you are losing all the advantages of having a jet. A 20' boat with a prop will be more effective than you can be. At that short a length, and all the weight on the butt end, the only speed you can run in lower water conditions (and no, i aint talkin about anything near dead low) is full throttle. Shallow drive is useless in this scenario. Due to traffic, waders etc... you can't run full throttle all the time. i am not trying to rain on your parade, but you will have severe limitations and safety hazards in a rig of this sort. That is more motor than I run on a 20 and half foot fiberglass Supreme. You have a lot to consider before launching this thing: You have to have an easy, quick, and effective bow mounted anchor system... and be smart about where and when you drop it. if you are not able to securely control the force of an anchor catching to a fixed upstream position that will not falter on the grip and angle... you are going to put yourself in the instant of terror followed by wet, cold, problems... especially in a shorter craft. You have to have some form of drift control. Chains are unsafe and damaging to the river bed. A trolling motor limits your clearance going through shoals and is a hazard. Don't think you're just gonna use this to shoal hop and wade... thats an enormous waste of a jet outboard and then you still have to combat fish with the other waders that got there. Aluminum and short... you won't even be able to push this boat through shoals with that much weight concentrated and the ridges, rivets etc... its gonna stick to everything. I don't know a dang thing about suzukis... but if you want an inspection and assessment of the motor, shaft, and jet pump unit, I know the guy. He could also fix that shifter issue and possibly match you up with a used fiberglass hull. Bottom line... be careful. I know you have fished the river and seen it. Until you have run a power boat in all kinds of different water conditions, hit every rock once, learned the channels, know what your boat can and can't do plus know what your craft can take punishment wise... you are simply rolling dice. Again... not trying to be negative nancy, but you have a lot to consider before dropping this rig in on the Little Red. Sure, on the one constant unit running these days you shouldn't hit anything, but current magnifies implications DRASTICALLY. Be safe.

I would shed the 16' and get a longer boat. not that you will need it in the foreseeable near future, but you need to float higher. In lower water you won't get enough clearance to run as shallow as you would like without hitting every shoal full speed, then ripping up the bottom even worse. More length means the motor weight, and your weight is dispersed better, crucial if drift fishing. Aluminum will not slide off rocks like you want it to and produces a louder "wave slap" than fiberglass. The grooved and riveted bottom hampers you as well. Did you get the drive shaft inspected on that motor? That's one of the more expensive things to replace. Use 2-4-C on that thing after EVERY use. Just my 2 cents, your milage may vary!

very nice pheesh

no clarification needed ... I did the same thing for my "bachelor party", but went to the San Juan in NM

locking mechanism is a hell of a lot faster.... which can be safer!

The water flows are gonna tell you where and when you can wade. Thats something you can't really plan for since it can change at the drop of a hat. If you are not interested in getting in a guide boat or renting a boat I would suggest going by a couple of the shops and seeing what they say when you get there.

Lobo Landing closed as well recently and is going up for auction.... I don't think these are coincidences. Fact is, the larger resort game plan isn't working well anymore for a lot of folks. The maintenance on the property and rental boats is a a strain given the market. With things like VRBO and many other web based rental properties, a lot of potential clients prefer to have their "own" space, rather than be in a compound of sorts. Just for example, only because it's mentioned in this thread, you could wind up in a unit next to a bachelor party. Resorts can not operate on rental boats, guide trips and sundry sales. I think you will continue to see dominoes fall along these lines on some of the other rivers. The guide business is also WAY different than it used to be when places like Lindseys were in their heyday. Guides do not want to be "tied" to a resort all the time anymore. The resorts are not bringing the volume to to outweigh the cuts taken from trips. Bottom line, the game has been changing for quite sometime. As the crowds that "always went there" get older and dwindle, more will fold. What's strange to me is that the one real resort left on the LRR is the dumpiest one. I know Lobo spent ALOT of money building and upgrading, maybe too much to fast. Lindseys has a lot of family politics involved, so the water is muddy there. Either way, apples and oranges, but expect more to fall from whatever tree they are on in the near future. Also- the timing of 2 of the big 3 on the Little Red River going down works against each other. The two will be shopped against each other. Not trying to be negative nancy about all of it, times were good at these places for many. I just think the landscape has changed. Just my two cents, which won't buy you or me ^%&%(&^.