Al Agnew

Thanks, Jd, you did a good job of describing the Old Lead Belt and surrounding areas. Indeed, even in the "New" Lead Belt out around Bixby and Viburnum, there were a lot of bad practices. I have little faith in the lead companies even today. Those bore holes sure make floating Big River more interesting. Some come up right in the middle of the river, although with most of those the pipes are almost completely rusted away. However, there are many just off the river in the bottoms. When the mines were abandoned, they gradually filled with ground water, and now the water is coming up out of those bore holes just like they were springs. When the mines were operating, most of the real springs along the river dried up, since the water was being continually pumped out of the mines and kept ground water levels low. The pumped water entered the river in several places, and actually made up at least a third of the volume of the river in low summer water levels. When the mines stopped pumping, the river lost that one third of low water flow for about 10-15 years, and was MUCH lower in the summer. But once the mines finally filled and the water started coming out of the old bore holes, the river regained PART of its historic volume, though not all of it. As I understand my geology, it is usually Pennsylvanian or younger rock formations which produce oil and gas, and most of the Missouri Ozarks consists of older rocks than that. However, there is some Pennsylvanian formations along the northern Ozark border and western regions of the state. I would be surprised if there is any appreciable gas in the Brewer area, given the geology.

The whole methane issue is questionable, in my opinion. Like Quillback mentioned, the bison put out a lot of methane, and there were a lot of bison. As did all the grazing animals on the African and Asian plains. You could probably consider that to be the "background" amount of methane going into atmosphere, or maybe the "natural" amount of methane. I haven't researched how the livestock population in the U.S. today compares with the methane-producing wild animal population in prehistoric times, but I'd suspect that the livestock, due to diet and numbers, put out more methane, but probably not a huge amount more. There's no doubt that CAFOs produce the vast majority of our grocery store meat, and provide it cheaper. As long as there are as many of US as there are, and we continue to eat a lot of meat, CAFOs ain't going away. I don't think that farm-raised, organically grown beef can supply all the demand, and if it did, it would still take a LOT of land to do so. In the final analysis, it's our numbers that will continue to be the final cause of a lot of ills. All we can do is try to figure out better, cleaner ways to feed ourselves (and provide energy, etc.)

I am glad that things seem to be going "well" (pun intended) with the well drilling. While I knew that there had been some wells drilled since the 1980s, it's just been in the last few years that the fracting process has been used extensively, with consequent great increase in drilling activity. As I said, I'm not against drilling if done properly, and, I might add, neither is the Ozark Society and other environmental organizations. Their concern is the potential for harm if the regulators get lax. At any rate, I'm resting easier after hearing from Terry and Poke 'Em. As for the Buffalo, it would surprise me if the majority of landowners "would have rather lost their land for dams than to the Park Service". And, I would submit that has little or no bearing on the final outcome. Can ANYBODY who has spent time on the Buffalo say that they'd rather it was underwater? If you can say that, you have no appreciation for beauty or uniqueness. The Buffalo is far and away the most gorgeous of all Ozark streams, and it would have been a real crime to have dammed it to make a couple of reservoirs similar (though smaller) to a bunch of other Ozark lakes. In a perfect world, the landowners wouldn't have had to sell their land to anybody, but given the beauty and popularity of the Buffalo, the choice was probably lakes, the National River, or a river gradually taken over by real estate developments. The National River concept was probably the best thing for the river.

The maps of the potential gas fields that I got off the internet from the AR Geological Survey covered the southern side of the Boston Mountains all the way across. While it appears that the best and easiest to drill areas are being exploited right now, which probably includes mainly the flatter land of the Arkansas Valley, it appears there is potential in the watershed of the Mulberry and Big Piney, as well as the South Fork of the Little Red above Greers Ferry. This is almost all steep land, where roads and drill pad/reserve pit construction would be pretty problematical and damaging. I got the initial information from the Ozark Society article, but spent a couple hours researching it on the net as well. There are a lot of questions that I did not find answers for. What IS the likelihood of drilling taking place in the Bostons? How much water will a given well require over its life, or even per year? There was considerable mention of working multiple wells from a single pad, as Poke 'em mentioned, but I was unable to find any estimates of total number of wells per square mile expected. He is also correct, as far as I could tell, about re-using up to 20% of the water again. That still leaves a lot of water to dispose of. I'm not advocating no drilling. But I'm worried about the potential lack of enforcement of regulations, and in some cases weak or non-existent regs to begin with. Yep, the industry is better at environmental protection than it once was, but in a boom town culture where the gas extraction companies are bringing in a lot of money to an area, it has been fairly easy to cut corners in the past. Some things are inherently not good, like putting roads and drilling pads on steeper slopes, having a high density of drilling pads. Some are potentially bad, like the possibility of taking too much water from streams, and some are probably okay but REALLY bad if they are not, like contaminating groundwater. You gotta hope that the various regulatory agencies are willing and able to apply the resources necessary to protecting the land and water.

I'm a lifetime member of the Ozark Society, the conservation organization that was originally formed to fight dams on the Buffalo River before it became a National River. I usually try to keep up with potential environmental problems in the Ozarks, but today I received my Ozark Society newsletter, and there was a big article about the Fayetteville Shale. I hadn't heard anything about this before. In the last five years, a boom has begun in the Fayetteville Shale "unconventional" Gas Field, or "Play". Formerly, it was known that the shale holds gas, but conventional wells drilled in it were always marginally productive at best. But with the jump in the price of natural gas and the Bush administration energy policies, "fracting", which is injecting liquids in the well to fracture the shale layers and release the gas, has become economical, and a bunch of major players, big oil and gas companies, are buying up mineral rights and doing exploration. The Fayetteville shale gas potential is found in Washington County, AR, in the Fayetteville area, upper White River and upper Illinois River; around Huntsville in Madison County near the War Eagle; and all the way across the Arkansas Valley, including the adjacent parts of the Boston Mountains. This would include the Mulberry, the Big Piney Creek, Illinois Bayou, Cadron Creek, the South Fork of the Little Red above Greers Ferry, the west side of Greers Ferry itself, and the lower Little Red. At present, most of the activity is in the Greers Ferry area. The shale is from 50 to 550 feet thick, and is found mostly at depths of 1500-6000 feet. To get to it requires new roads leading to new drill pads, the drill pads themselves, and wastewater lagoons called reserve pits to hold the waste water. You drill down to the right depth, then pump vast amounts of water, sand, and chemicals into the well. The mixture breaks up the tight, thin layers of shale, releasing the gas so it can travel to the well and be pumped out. The wells are required to be cased in concrete for at least the first 500 feet to protect shallow ground water from contamination. However, hydraulic fracting is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, Superfund laws, and the Toxic Release Inventory that requires disclosure of hazardous wastes. According to the AR Dept. of Environmental Quality, it is impossible to find out what chemicals are used, because they are considered proprietary formulas, and Halliburton, who pioneered the process, won't reveal them because it might compromise their competitive advantage. However, where fracting has been used before, benzene, toxic to humans, has shown up in nearby wells. The water and chemicals that are pumped back up out of the well are considered waste, and held in the reserve pits until they are full. Then it's supposed to be trucked to disposal wells--and it seems that most of these wells are found out in Oklahoma, where the rock layers are supposed to keep them from migrating into aquifers. In fact, there is a confusing mess of regulations and regulatory agencies when it comes to gas drilling. The AR Natural Resources Commission is in charge of groundwater protection. The Corps of Engineers oversees roads and pipelines crossing rivers and wetlands. The Forest Service is supposed to inspect drilling sites on public land, okay the placement of pads and roads, and do an environmental impact analysis of drilling activity. As for private lands, there is really no agency charged with doing the same thing, however. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is supposed to govern pipeline construction. The Oil and Gas Commission regulates water disposal. Fracting takes a lot of water. Any single well can use up to a million gallons of water for each episode of fracting--I was unable to find just how much water is used during the lifetime of a given well. However, wells can be sited as close as one every 40 acres or less. The industry acknowledges that water availability can be a problem. In areas in other parts of the country with lots of groundwater, groundwater is used, and the wells can account for up to 20% of the total groundwater use in some counties. However, this part of Arkansas does not have enough groundwater available. Some companies are planning on building a lot of small reservoirs on private lands for water suppies, but at least one company, Chesapeake Energy, is proposing a dam on the Little Red River to furnish water. I assume, though I was unable to find out for sure, that would entail a dam that would certainly affect the trout water on the lower Little Red. At least 80% of all water used comes back up out of the well, to be stored on site and then disposed of, either in the wells I mentioned before, or else, if determined to be safe, by spreading on fields. There is always the potential for accidents, either from casing failure contaminating groundwater, or leaks and failures of the reserve pits. In addition, other threats to water resources include siltation from road and well-head building and from tree clearing for seismic surveys. Other problems are habitat fragmentation from thick siting of pads and roads leading to them, or from ponds and creeks drying up. In addition, a lot of drilling activity will put great strain on the roads and bridges of the counties affected. There is a lot of room for doubt that the environment will be adequately protected. The AR Dept. of Environmental Quality, which comes the closest to being the chief inspection agency, doesn't have the budget or the number of inspectors required to monitor all wells. There is no requirement for Environmental Assessments except for wells on federal lands. Nobody is sure what will happen to any deep groundwater in the vicinity of these wells, or whether the waste water that stays down there will migrate to where it could pose a problem to usable groundwater supplies. Nobody really knows for sure where all the necessary water will come from. It seems to me, while researching this a bit on the net, that there is a lot of excitement in the area about what kind of money there is to be made, but almost no questioning of what the potential downsides are, especially with water resources. It's like a classic boom town mentality--everybody's gonna get rich and forget about anything else. I hope that's not true. I hope that this can be done with adequate protection. I guess we'll have to wait and see, and watch closely.

It's a lot different in the winter, but fish can be caught. I fished the Meramec on the day after Thanksgiving; water temp about 43 degrees, air temp in the upper 40s, mostly cloudy, river very low and VERY clear, visibility at least 7 or 8 feet. Caught 10 smallmouths, 8 largemouths, 3 spotted bass, and 2 crappie, all on suspending jerkbaits. Biggest fish were an 18 inch largemouth, 18.5 inch smallmouth, and a deformed 17 inch smallmouth with a 20 incher's body but a very short, crooked tail. The cold weather we've had since then will only make the fishing a lot tougher. Once water temps drop into the 30s it gets very difficult.

Yep, I've been having the same problems...have to log in every time I get on, and occasionally if I try to use the fast reply to post, it will kick me off when I hit "add reply".

I'm just not sure what the answer is. This may sound a bit off the wall, but the real problem is that among most casual river users, there is no reverence for the rivers. They don't realize what a precious resource our rivers are. This morning, while suffering from some kind of flu bug that has kept me from doing much of anything productive for the last couple of days, I got out my collection of topographic maps. I have topo maps of Table Rock and Beaver lakes before the lakes were built. As I do now and then, I traced the White River from the upper end of Beaver to Table Rock Dam, along with the lower Kings River and the James below Galena. You can see all the bluffs and gravel bars and you can tell where a lot of the pools and riffles were. I don't know how many miles of spectacular Ozark rivers are involved--certainly hundreds, buried under hundreds of feet of slack reservoir water, but as always I lamented the loss of this greatest of all Ozark waterways, along with the lower North Fork. Environmental awareness and the realization of the uniqueness of these rivers came too late. Sure, the dams brought prosperity to a region that was sorely lacking in it, but I suspect that prosperity would have come eventually anyway, and maybe it would have been a different and less venal form of prosperity than the Branson tourist traps. Or maybe not. And maybe without the lakes we would have had much more pressure put on the rivers. Maybe the biggest problem is simply too many people, and too many people with no ties whatsoever to the land. Laws in this case are stopgap measures. They don't solve the problem, but maybe they control some of its worst aspects. People like myself who are fortunate enough to be able to float and fish the rivers on weekdays when the crowds of idiots aren't so bad can still experience a little bit of what they once were. And there are still streams that don't have the hordes of idiots, and those I treasure. But I never get on an Ozark river without feeling profoundly grateful for being there.

I'm not sure, but according to the owner's manual... Regenerative braking The motor generator converts kinetic energy to electric energy when: The accelerator pedal is released. The brake pedal is depressed with the shift lever in "D" or "B". When stopped/during take-off The gasoline engine stops when the vehicle is stopped. During take-off, the electric motor (traction motor) drives the vehicle. At slow speeds or when traveling down a gentle slope, the engine is stopped and the motor is used. During normal driving The gasoline engine is predominantly used. The electric motor (traction motor) charges the hybrid battery (traction battery) as necessary. When accelerating sharply The power of the hybrid battery is added via electric motor to that of the gasoline engine. When braking (Regenerative brake) The electric motor (traction motor) charges the hybrid battery. Owner's manual also says that to keep the battery from being discharged, the vehicle must be driven for 30 minutes or 10 miles "at least once every several months".

Jd, the Prius is not a plug-in hybrid. The battery bank recharges as the vehicle is driven...I don't know exactly how it works but applying the brakes does a lot to recharge the batteries. So you're not using any electricity other than what the vehicle itself produces. We bought a Toyota Highlander hybrid SUV about three years ago, and really like it, so we went with the Prius. Supposedly, these vehicles get their best gas mileage in stop and go city traffic. The braking continually recharges the batteries, and if you don't accelerate heavily between stops the gas engine seldom turns on. However, I've found that under the mixed driving you do in a city like St. Louis, it's too far between stoplights and you do too much freeway driving, so we don't get any better mileage when we go to St. Louis than we do on average. We get the best mileage when driving curvy paved country roads where you don't go much over 50 mph. The Highlander was rated (under the old EPA guidelines) for 27 highway, 31 city. When driving on country roads we've gotten as much as 35 mpg, but on the interstate we get a pretty constant 25 mpg. With the Prius, which was rated something like 41 highway and 51 city, we average about 45 mpg, and get better than 41 even on steady interstate driving. Toyota warranties the electrical system in their hybrids for 8 years or 100,000 miles, and every indication is that the batteries will last for at least 150,000 miles. The batteries are not your typical lead, but nickel metal hydride. When they finally go bad, they are recycled.

$1.33 at the Costco in St. Louis today. We just bought a Prius a couple months ago, when gas was close to $4 a gallon. At that price it would pay for itself pretty quickly. At less than a buck fifty, we only get the satisfaction of knowing that we're not enriching the Arabs and oil companies quite as much. But I don't expect it to stay low. In fact, if it DOES stay low, it'll probably mean the whole economy is still in the toilet. Good news bad news.

Bobber, excellent advice! I learned many years ago about the dangers of foot entrapment. I was watching the whitewater races on the St. Francis River one year. It was in March as always, pretty cold, water temps probably in the low 40s, air temps not any better. This couple came floating down the Tieman Shut-in in an aluminum canoe--they were not part of the race. It was either very fortunate or the only smart thing they did that they picked that day to float that stretch, because they flipped the canoe at the first bad spot in the shut-in. The woman was wearing a life jacket and a sleeveless wetsuit top, but not wetsuit bottoms. She put her feet down as she went over the next drop, and one foot got hung in the rocks. There she was with tons of water pouring into her back. The race people were available to rescue her, but it was far from easy. They started out by throwing her rescue ropes, but although she was able to brace her back against the water pouring over the drop for a while and was able to grab the ropes, she couldn't get her foot loose so they couldn't pull her out that way. So they stretched a long rope tautly all the way across the river, so that a rescuer could go out holding the rope and get to her. He snapped himself onto the rope and went under water to try to free her foot. It was wedged tightly. She was beginning to suffer badly from hypothermia by this time, and could no longer hold herself above water. Another guy came out on the rope and tried to hold her head above water while the first guy continued to work to free her. But finally the choice came down to getting her out in any way possible before she drowned or died from hypothermia, so they ended up tying another rope onto her ankle, and getting a dozen or so people on shore to simply pull on it as hard as possible! They got her out--with a badly crushed ankle and foot and barely alive. Obviously, had it not been race day with PLENTY of rescuers available, she wouldn't have survived.

I don't fish the trout parks, preferring to fish the rivers instead. But I'm somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to nymphs and streamers. I carry relatively few patterns in a couple of different sizes, and usually do okay on them. Nymphs grayish scuds, size 14-16 Hare's Ears--I like the flashback hare's ears but the plain ones or the beadhead ones work about as well, size 12 and 16 Prince Nymphs, size 12-16 Copper Johns, size 14-18 Soft Hackles, size 10-14 I have a big fly box crammed full of various nymphs that I've acquired over the years in visits to other locales--you know, you go into the local fly shop and buy whatever they tell you is working (or better yet, buy whatever it is that there's only a few left in the bin--that is usually a good indicator of what's working). And I often use some of them when the spirit moves me. But most of the time I'll be using one or two of those few above, and as long as they are presented well they catch fish. Streamers I figure they only imitate two or three things--a big aquatic bug, a crawdad, or a small fish. So I tie my own both for smallmouths and trout, and they all imitate either minnows or crustaceans. If they are light colored with a little flashabou they imitate minnows, if dark colored the bottom organisms. It's a lot more in how you fish them than it is exactly what they look like. I've seen so many beautiful crayfish imitations that were basically impossible to make them MOVE like a crayfish. If you are buying them, just get a bunch of Wooly Buggers in various sizes and colors, especially black, olive, brown, and white. With dry flies it seems like you have to be a lot more careful about matching the hatch, so you need more sizes and shapes to match the various flying floating insects. But with the nymphs and streamers, you oughta be able to catch fish regularly on relatively few patterns. At least that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it! Doesn't mean I still don't drop some big bills at the fly shop regularly with only those little plastic cups full of flies to show for it--it's an addiction.

Yep, light baitcasting is definitely more accurate, more efficient, and more pleasant to use when casting hard baits on streams. If you did an ergonomic study, you'd find that you use fewer movements and the movements are shorter and quicker. When fishing from a canoe, as you've found, every little bit of added efficiency helps, because you're fishing while moving and in between controlling the canoe. Of course, this pre-supposes that you are competent with baitcasting tackle! But all other things being equal, you can get in more casts and fish more efficiently with baitcasting. I have yet to find anybody fishing with spinning tackle who can match me for accuracy and efficiency under the conditions of floating a stream. However, spinning tackle has its advantages as well. I use it almost exclusively for fishing with soft plastics and jigs, because I seem to be able to feel what the bait is doing better and it just feels more comfortable. And you can skip soft plastics like tubes and soft jerkbaits underneath overhanging limbs with spinning tackle. The problem most people have in selecting equipment for stream fishing is that their spinning rods are often too light and their casting rods are too heavy. If you're using ultralight spinning rods on Ozark streams for smallmouths, you're very limited on which lures you can fish effectively, and you're either missing out on a lot of the better fish because your lures are too small, or you're fishing lures that are too big and heavy for the equipment and thus not casting them well or setting hooks well. On the other hand, if you're using typical baitcasting tackle, you are probably going to be having trouble fishing lighter lures and getting enough distance on your casts in clear water. My canoe fishing casting rods are all 5.5 feet long or less (my topwater rod is 5 feet), and all medium to medium light in power (and medium light rods are not easy to find commercially). My reels are the small, light baitcasters, spooled with 8 pound mono. My spinning rods are all medium power 5.5 and 6 footers, with reels big enough to have larger diameter spools, and have 2/10 or 4/15 Power Pro braided line on them.

Just keep in mind that late fall fishing will almost always be very tough on the smaller, very clear streams that aren't heavily spring fed. Once water temps start dropping, the fish in those streams SEEM to disappear. We've been having an interesting discussion on Riversmallies.com about just what happens to them. I THINK that some may move out of them, into the Meramec in this case, but most of the fish just find very good hiding places under rocks, logs, root systems, and cut banks. They seldom come out, so they aren't really fishable. The fish seem to instinctively know that in low, clear, cold water they are very vulnerable to predators, so security is more important to them than feeding. Float those same creeks in late spring and you'll find lots of fish, even in places that look like poor habitat, and you'll wonder where they all were back in the fall. And with the higher water levels of spring, the habitat looks better, too. Streams like Huzzah and Courtois look like different creeks in the spring compared to autumn and winter. The Meramec between Onondaga and Meramec State Park is probably about as good fishing as it is up above Onondaga, and certainly just as beautiful. But it's also crowded in the summer!

No floating available ABOVE the park...it's the beginning of Current River. Although there is a small creek flowing into the park, Pigeon Creek, it's too small to float. Below the park, Tan Vat is the first access. It's 2 miles or so from there to Baptist Camp. 6.5 miles from Baptist Camp to Parker Hollow. 1.5 miles from Parker to Cedargrove. Baptist Camp to Parker is a nice float.

That's interesting...I wonder exactly why the AR/OK commission didn't get involved with the Illinois River dispute. It's also interesting that the only watersheds of any significance where Missouri could suffer from Arkansas problems are the White River and the Elk River (since Little Sugar Creek comes out of AR). Everything else flows from Missouri into Arkansas--Spring, Eleven Point, Current, Black, St. Francis. However, the upper White and Little Sugar flow out of the part of AR that probably has the biggest potential and actual pollution problems from both urban development and CAFOs.

I agree, 80 acres is too excessive. 5 acres is too little. I'd say minimum 20 acres, 40 acres would probably be better. There should be 2 agents per county in the counties that have a lot of public fishing water and public hunting opportunities, which would include most of the Ozark counties. We've hashed out the whole enforcement thing before. MDC will tell you that although you may not be checked, you don't know how many times the agent is watching you, and as long as you're not obviously doing anything wrong they don't reveal themselves. But if the goal is to protect the resource, rather than arrest lawbreakers (after they've screwed up the resource), then the agents should be more visible and obvious more of the time.

Okay...a visit to the MDC annual report for 2006-2007, budget for fiscal year 2007: Total receipts: $171,676,000 Permit sales: $30,953,000 Federal reimbursements: $23,211,000 Sales tax: $103,333,000 Sales and rentals: $8,948,000 Other sources: $3,965,000 Interest: $1,267,000 So...60% of the total MDC budget comes from the sales tax. Which obviously tells you that if the sales tax was repealed, MDC would either have to cut their entire budget by that amount and dump a lot of their land, or else raise permit fees VERY substantially to make up even a small part of the shortfall. Keep in mind that MDC gets zero money from the state legislature, unlike most other state fish and wildlife agencies. Permit costs are held down in MO because of the sales tax. In most other states they are held down because the agency gets money from the legislature (which of course comes from taxes). Expenditures, 2007: County assistance payments 0.85% (this is payments in lieu of taxes and road construction cost sharing) Capital improvements 13.86% (this includes both land acquisition and infrastructure improvements, and totaled a bit under $23 million) Fisheries 7.23% (this is actual management of MDC lakes and river management areas) Forestry 9.35% (includes management of forest lands, tree seedlings to landowners, aid in development of state's timber industry, etc.) Wildlife 9.76% (wildlife management of public land, natural areas, etc.) Outreach and education 9.34% (includes the Conservationist magazine, website, educational materials to schools, books and videos, etc.) Private land services 5.33% (includes cost sharing with landowners developing wildlife management and resource plans, direct consultation and assistance to landowners, controlling nuisance wildlife) Protection 8.61% (includes everything having to do with agents, including hunter education programs and share the harvest programs) Resource science 7.33% (this basically includes everything the biologists do) Regional public contact offices 2.00% (basic running of regional offices) Administrative services and human resources 17.39% (this paid for the permit point of sale system, along with all the vehicles and equipment owned by MDC, etc.) Design and development 7.40% (engineering, achitectural, surveying, and construction design) Administration 1.5% You'd have to go into a lot more detail in order to figure out exactly how much went to things like salaries. However, nothing really jumps out at me as being questionable about the percentages. One thing to note--the capital improvements figure equals a total of $22,855,000, and that includes not only land acquisition but developing infrastructure on the lands owned. I don't see that as "buying up all the land in the state" exactly. A few other tidbits...the total number of landowners obtaining deer and turkey permits is probably about right at 75,000. Fifteen counties have more than 10,000 acres of MDC land--nearly all of them in the deep Ozarks of southeast MO (Current River area), but also St. Louis and St. Charles County. Carter County is the leader with over 24,000 acres. Another 35 counties or so have between 5000 and 10,000 acres. Does that sound like MDC owns a lot of land percentage-wise? I don't think so.

Probably doesn't much matter which stretch you float--any of them are good. However, I wouldn't float any more than 5-6 miles per day. For one thing, in cold water periods the best lures are those you fish fairly slowly. For another thing, the days are short and you don't want nor need to get a real early start each day--the fish don't seem to get active until the sun hits the water--so you'll probably only be on the water 7 hours or so at most. It's a different ball game from spring and summer fishing. Some lures to try: jerkbaits like Rogues, Lucky Craft Pointers, and Rapala X-Raps; deep-diving crankbaits; jigs, and tubes. If you've got other favorite soft plastics, try them. Don't expect to catch fish on anything fast moving or near the surface...unless we get a lot of unseasonably warm weather between now and then.

Are you kidding me? In every issue I've worked on and dealt with MDC, it seemed to me they were pretty much scared to death of what the hunting and fishing community would say and do. I've always had the gripe that they are much too conservative when considering new or different regulations. I've had MDC people tell me that the worst fear they have is people contacting the commissioners directly. When the commissioners get complaints they don't like it one bit, and let the MDC people know they aren't happy in no uncertain terms. You might think you're not being heard, but consider this...on most issues, there are always a lot of people on the other side who are being just as vocal as you are. How much public land would be enough? That's a hard question to answer. Again, I ask you, as long as people are willingly selling their land to MDC, what is the harm in it? Unless you're a real estate developer or otherwise wanting to buy the same land and being unable to compete with MDC, I just don't see what the gripe is. Tax revenue? MDC makes payments in lieu of taxes on every parcel of land they own. So, since I'm really sure that Missouri is in absolutely no danger of becoming a state that's owned by MDC, I guess my answer is, all they can buy. The more land they have, the fewer people will be using any particular piece of it, including the piece I happen to be wanting to use at the time. However, I will say this...the original plan was to buy a lot of land in the early years of the sales tax, then switch over to improving infrastructure on that land--everything from building small lakes to roads and parking lots and restrooms. I've seen a lot less land buying in recent years, but I'm not seeing the amount of infrastructure improvement I expected. I'd also like to see some of the money spent on more agents and better enforcement. So no, I'm not completely happy with MDC on several fronts. But compared to other state agencies that depend upon license sales and government tax money or else legislative appropriations, MDC is terrific. And IF you got the sales tax repealed, it wouldn't make MDC more responsive, just a whole lot poorer, so poor that they'd probably have to sell off a lot of the land they own simply because they couldn't pay for the upkeep. Or else...they'd have to raise permit fees a WHOLE lot more. That's what I mean by cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I'm not a veteran, and grew up during the Vietnam era. The unpopularity of that war and attitude of SOME of those opposing it was purely poisonous, and affected the country for many years afterward. But it is really nice to see that most in this country have "grown up" and even if they oppose the Iraq war, are able to separate a war that is unpopular to them from the very courageous and honorable soldiers who are serving and paying with their limbs and lives. I would be surprised, and very dismayed, if anybody on here had anything negative to say about that story, and they could eat my shorts, too.

Come on, guys, I just ain't buying this "fixed income" stuff. If you can't afford $20 you can't afford to buy ammunition or the electricity to run the freezer or the gas to go to town or drive to your land. As for the landowner stuff, I agree that 80 acres as the cut-off point is probably too much, but I also agree that 5 acres or 10 acres is too little. I own 40 acres, and I'd say that two hunters could safely hunt with rifles on it, but it all depends upon a lot of factors from topography to food plots to proximity to houses, etc. so I'm not sure what the arbitrary cut-off point should be. I just simply don't understand bad-mouthing MDC for buying land. For crying out loud, just where do you think people would be able to go if there wasn't a lot of public land? And why is it better to have more land in private ownership, from a hunting or fishing standpoint? It ain't like MDC is holding a gun to your head and making you sell them the land. If you own a piece of hunting property, it should make NO difference to you whether MDC buys land or not, and if you don't, you probably are gonna be happy they do. MDC is far from perfect, and if you have gripes with them, by all means let them know in no uncertain terms. But to advocate repealing the sales tax is quite simply cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The other dog problem that we who live out in the country face is people dropping off their unwanted dogs (and cats), I guess figuring either that somebody will take them in or that they'll be able to fend for themselves. Cats really CAN fend for themselves, although they play havoc with birds and small mammals and get so wild that you seldom see them. But the dogs, of course, show up on our doorstep. Then you're faced with the choice of adopting them, which I don't want to do because I have wildlife attractions all around the house from food plots to corn feeders, etc. and I don't want a dog in the yard to chase off wildlife, or call what passes for the county animal control person, which means they might come out and take the dog and eventually kill it, or kill it yourself. We know all the neighbors and know who owns dogs and what the dogs look like, so if a strange dog shows up we know how it happened. I've killed several over the years, and it's not pleasant but necessary. I just wish people would take responsibility for dealing with unwanted pets, instead of expecting somebody else to do it.

Motors are allowed up to Carver or Erbie, can't remember which, but are supposed to be limited to 10 hp or less, at least that what the National River website says.