Al Agnew

Hank, I think that it depends upon the stream stretch. On upper Big River the spotted bass are still increasing--FAST--and are now up to the Leadwood MDC access in large numbers. Farther down on the river, below Bonne Terre, their population seems to have perhaps decreased somewhat. Smallmouth populations are still a mere shadow of what they were before the spots showed up, but maybe there is hope that the smallies will at least hold their own. On the Meramec, spotted bass seem to be pretty stable or maybe decreasing a bit in the area above the mouth of the Bourbeuse, and there are still some smallies even below the Bourbeuse. The spots have been pretty uncommon above Meramec State Park for a number of years, and up until this year's spread with the high water, it has appeared that they are pretty well staying below there. I don't know as much about the Bourbeuse, but I'd say it's probably in the greatest potential danger of any of the streams that have not already been taken over by spots, given its habitat. Noser Mill was a good barrier to their spread for many years, but they've gotten above Noser by now, and I see nothing to halt their further spread upstream. I'm also really concerned about the middle and upper Gasconade, Osage Fork, and Big Piney. And if they ever get above Bennett Spring on the Niangua I'm really concerned about it as well.

Creek wader, just to make sure you know...if you are fishing the Meramec and any of its tributaries (Big, Bourbeuse, Huzzah, Courtois, Mineral Fork, Indian Creek, and a bunch of little creeks) there is NO length limit on spots. If fishing any south-flowing stream (Whitewater, Castor, St. Francis, Black, Bryant, James) the spots are native (though on some of those streams they are more plentiful than they used to be) and no real problem. I'm concerned that there is a 12 inch limit on the Gasconade and tribs...in my opinion, same rules should apply to the Gasconade river system as the Meramec.

Spotted bass are notorious for moving upstream in high water, so it doesn't surprise me that some have moved upstream on the Meramec. I'm not TOO concerned about it, since they've had many years to get well-established in the upper river but have not, so apparently something about the habitat is limiting them. Hopefully the ones which moved up will either die out, languish, or move back downstream. However, I hope you killed the ones you caught. I can't stress enough that spotted bass should be harvested up to the legal limit (12 fish, no length limit) anywhere on the Meramec and tributaries where they are not already the dominant species, if you care about the smallies!

As for floating from a 12 inch limit stretch into a one fish 15 inch limit stretch, for instance...the law says you can't have more than the limit for the water you are in AT THAT POINT, IN YOUR POSSESSION. So if you are in a one fish 15 inch limit stretch and you have some 12 inchers, even though you caught them upstream where it was legal, you would be illegal. That's the only way such regs can be enforced.

Trying not to offend anybody or sound preachy, but... In theory, the state conservation agency sets creel and length limits that allows maximum harvest while still maintaining the resource. In theory, they take into consideration the number of people catching and releasing as well as the number of people keeping their limits and everybody in between. In theory, some waters are managed with more restrictive regs in order to grow more larger fish. Therefore, in theory nobody should feel guilty about taking their limit of fish. In theory. In reality, each body of water is different, and each species of fish is different within that body of water. One size fits all type regs are not always the best for a given body of water. And in reality, maximizing harvest usually means minimizing trophy fish. Also in reality, some waters could stand MORE harvest, many could stand less. So... In my opinion, if you want to be a consciencious, ethical angler, the regulations are just your starting point. I think it's important to KNOW YOUR FISHING WATER. Know what the management considerations are. Know, as well as you can, what the population dynamics are. Use some common sense. And kill or release fish based upon sound reasoning, not knee-jerk reactionism. For instance, I talk to a LOT of stream bass anglers who say they NEVER keep ANY bass...either because they like bass too much, or because they don't like to eat fish or are too lazy to clean fish. Yet, it's a well-known fact that non-native spotted bass are really bad for native largemouth and smallmouth (especially smallmouth) in the streams of the Meramec Basin (and probably also the Gasconade river system). Every one that these guys catch and release means one more dinky spotted bass and one less smallmouth with better growth potential. Releasing spotted bass in these streams is, in my opinion, unethical, not to mention stupid if you care about native smallmouths. Another example is small creeks. I've seen several wading size streams and a couple of marginally floatable stretches completely messed up in the course of a month or two by just a couple of guys who discovered good fishing and pounded them to death keeping every legal fish they could. One stretch of the upper reaches of Big River, a number of years ago, had a great year class of smallmouths that had reached the 16-18 inch range. I fished it twice that year and caught (and released) 15 or more smallies that size both times, once in late spring, the other time in mid-summer, so obviously nobody had been working those fish over...this is small water, non-floatable unless you're willing to walk most of the riffles in the summer. But a couple weeks after my last trip that year, my brother talked to a couple of guys who had discovered those fish. They fished that stretch every weekend for the rest of the summer, up until October, and kept every fish that size they caught each time. Guess what? The next spring those fish were totally GONE. I didn't catch a smallie that size or bigger from that stretch for the next five years. In my opinion, those guys were within their legal rights, but were totally unethical to pound those fish like that in such small water, and common sense should have told them so. My personal ethics do not allow me to keep smallmouths from Ozark streams, because I don't know of any streams where they are so big and so plentiful that I'd feel comfortable keeping them. I have some favorite small wading creeks that are great fishing, but I don't fish any of them more than twice a year (even though I catch and release all smallmouths) because I don't want to "wear out" the fish. I keep every spotted bass I can out of the streams of the Meramec river system, but I don't keep many of them from streams where they are native, although I don't hesitate to keep a few now and then. Same with largemouths...I don't keep them in streams where I'm keeping spotted bass, but I'll keep a few occasionally where the population is good, and if I want to eat fish, I keep a lot of largemouths from a couple of private lakes that really don't get fished enough to keep the population at optimum levels. Trout? I don't much like to eat trout, and I don't fish the put-and-take areas at all. In the streams like the Current and North Fork, I can't see keeping them, since the longer they are in the stream the bigger they can get.

The MO Smallmouth Alliance has set up a blue ribbon panel to brainstorm about what is needed to increase the size of stream smallies in MO, and work with MDC to further the special management areas, along with perhaps trying some different regulations. In my opinion, the current statewide regs are pretty good at insuring we have a lot of 10-12 inch smallies. They maximize harvest of (barely) legal fish but they do nothing to promote the availability of big fish. The special management areas (and there are quite a few of them) either have a one fish 15 inch limit or a 1 fish 18 inch limit on smallies. The 15 inch limit tends to produce a lot of fish under 15 inches, and according to the studies, a significant increase in the population of bigger fish. The 18 inch limit does even better. However, in my opinion, we are not maximizing the potential for big fish. Most of the special management areas are either on stream stretches that are too small and infertile to give the fish really good growth rates, or are on stretches that are being taken over by spotted bass. We need to put some of the best big fish stream sections under the 18 inch limit, such as the lower Niangua, more of the middle Gasconade, the Meramec below Steelville down to Meramec Caverns, the Current below Two Rivers, and the lower James. Perhaps the biggest impediment to doing this would come from tournament anglers, who would probably be against the curtailment of weighing in a limit of smallmouths. However, I also think there are lots of limitations to growing big fish that wouldn't be affected by creel and length limits. They would help, but wouldn't be the whole answer. As for the statewide limit, I too would like to see it at 14 inches, and no more than 4 fish. While some of the larger streams can handle a 6-fish limit, it's far too liberal for most of the smaller creeks.

Gotta say that...if you want something to fail or otherwise screw up, either let the government run it, OR deregulate it. There is no monopoly on failing programs and businesses. Unchecked greed and lack of scruples is as destructive as government beaurocracies.

Just a couple other notes... At that time of year the river is likely to be as low as it gets, and may be some work to get down in canoes loaded with camping gear, even in the lower section. It's well worth the work, but don't expect it to be easy floating. You'll probably have to drag the canoe down some of the riffles. Early autumn is a transition period for the fish, and a lot depends upon the weather. Assuming normal fall water conditions (low and clear), water temps and weather conditions will make a big difference on where you find the most fish. So you just gotta try everything from surface flies to bottom draggers, and try them everywhere from deep pools to shallow runs, until you get some sort of pattern worked out.

Overharvest could be a significant factor, but I suspect another factor is simply the White River. Basically the Buffalo is a closed system for warmwater fish since the dams on the White. As catfish declined from overharvest or maybe some other factor, there have been no catfish replenishing the river from the White, since it's too cold for catfish.

Smallies...don't know for sure, but I would think it would depend upon the character of the lake. Smallmouths need reasonably clear water, and they need a lot of gravel and rock substrate to spawn. And windswept banks should not silt up from wave action. And probably the thing about the deeper water in smaller lakes at this latitude being likely to have depleted oxygen levels. There's probably a reason why the only lakes at this latitude that have a lot of smallmouths are big, rocky reservoirs fed by good-sized streams.

I'm betting the lake trout died out the first summer. A lake of that size in this latitude gets too warm in the upper levels, and gets too depleted of oxygen anywhere that's deep enough to stay cool enough for lake trout. As for the pike, if you can't catch one every now and then while fishing for bass or even crappie, chances are they aren't there anymore either.

You can't always depend upon the store people to put the line on right. If they are using a device that rotates the reel spool to put the line on, if the line is coming off the bottom of the line spool and going onto the top of the reel spool as they turn, it is twisting like crazy. I prefer doing it myself rather than trusting somebody else. It's also cheaper, since I'm sure the BPS guys are filling the spool entirely with the new line, when if you use a filler line (some old junk line you have from before) to fill it halfway, you're getting two or three fillings out of one spool of new line. Not all reels rotate the same way (though most do) and not even all filler spools rotate the same way. To make sure you're filling your reel correctly, sight down the rod from the butt end, and turn your reel handle. Note which way the bail turns. Most reels will be turning counterclockwise. Now lay your filler spool of line flat on the floor so that the line is coming off it the same way, and reel it on with some tension, holding it between your fingers. Line twist is inherent to spinning reels. You can do things to minimize it, but you can't eliminate it. Even putting the line on as I described above, you will get some twist simply because the filler spool is a different diameter than your reel spool. Closing the bail by hand doesn't minimize twist, but if done right it can minimize the one effect of twist that really screws things up, closing the bail on a loose loop of line, the loop being caused by line twist. But you have to close the bail by hand AND give the line a tug before starting to reel. Then, don't EVER reel while the drag is slippng, either while playing a fish or while snagged. That's a sure way to get lots of twist. A freely rotating line pickup on your bail doesn't stop twist either, but one that doesn't rotate freely tends to gradually push the existing twist farther toward the front of the line, concentrating it. Yes, you can get the twist out by letting out a long cast length of line, with nothing attached to it, in a strong current if you're wading or canoeing, as well as letting it out behind the boat while motoring. Line twist is one of the biggest reasons I use braided line like Power Pro exclusively on spinning reels. The braided line will still twist just as bad, but the twist has MUCH less effect on the line than it does with mono.

Dano, the canoe pictured is an old Oscoda Coda fiberglass, 14 ft. long, weighs in the neighborhood of 44 pounds. I've had it since the mid-1980s. It's a fast, great-tracking little boat, not real easy to turn and maneuver. I used to use it a lot on slow rivers where I knew I'd be paddling through a lot of dead water, such as the Bourbeuse and the lower Gasconade. Fiberglass isn't as bad on Ozark streams as one would think, but it's noisy. I recently bought a couple more Oscodas just to take out here and leave at the cabin, but one of them was in better shape than the one pictured, so I kept it at home for my wife to use there. My preferred solo canoe for Ozark streams these days is a Wenonah Vagabond, Royalex, 14'3", 43 pounds. Jim, I have an anchor set-up, but seldom use it except in the winter. I tend to use the eddies a lot, and also use any obstructions like rocks and logs to stop myself to fish. I stick my leg out and hold myself in shallow water or against logs or rocks. Also, with all the experience I've had in canoes, I can slow myself down enough to fish just with a few one-handed paddle strokes as I'm drifting downstream in moderate current.

Further adventures... Last Sunday, Mary and I floated the lower Madison with our friends Tom and Theresa, their daughter Emilie, and their two dogs, Wilson, a chocolate lab, and Grace, a boston terrier...all of us in our raft. We took the fly rods, but didn't expect to fish very seriously. The water in the lower Madison comes off the top of Ennis Lake, so it's warmer than most other streams around here in the summer, so warm that at times the trout get stressed. On Sunday it was in the mid-60s. What this means is that the lower Madison, while still furnishing some good trout fishing at times, is warm enough for the party floaters. It wasn't quite like Current River, but the river was pretty crowded with college and high school kids floating in various rubber duckies and tubes and kayaks, most of them drunk. An enterprising soul was shuttling the crowd the seven miles or so from put-in to take-out in a big van at 5 bucks a person (cheap compared to the shuttle services that the guides use, which charge $20-30 for the same shuttle. So we had planned to do our own shuttle, but instead just moved the cars down to the take-out after unloading and had the shuttle guy drive the two of us who drove them back to the put-in. So we fished some...and the sum total for four hour's float (did I say the river was still high and really moving?) was one 8 inch brown. Still, it was a nice day and the river felt good. Yesterday morning, I had to take an ATV that my brother-in-law borrowed back to our friend who lives in Pocatello, ID. He was to meet me at West Yellowstone, where the Madison comes out of the park. So after transferring the ATV to him, I planned to drive down the Madison toward Ennis and stop to wade and fish at the first inviting access. I drove along Hebgen Lake (man-made) and then Earthquake Lake (which was formed by a huge landslide that dammed up the canyon and made a pretty deep, narrow lake out of the Madison. Then I came out onto the wide open spaces of the Madison toward Ennis and Ennis Lake. And every access I stopped at was jammed with anglers. It was unbelievable, 50 or more cars in the parking lots, boat trailers everywhere, nimrods lining the banks. Nowhere looked inviting. I finally drove into Ennis and to an access just a few miles above Ennis Lake. You're not allowed to fish the river from a boat in those last few miles between the bridge at Ennis and the lake, so I didn't expect there to be QUITE so many people at that access...but I was shocked to see only ONE car that looked like an angler, and no fishermen in sight. I'd never fished there before, and I had to wonder what the deal was. Was it such poor fishing that nobody bothered? Did the fish vacate that stretch to drop down into the lake. Curious, I drove back into Ennis and stopped at one of the fly shops, and asked them what the story was for that access. "Oh, everybody is fishing farther upstream because that's where the salmon flies are hatching. There was a bit of a hatch down there a few days ago, but it ain't happening now. Actually, the fish might be getting hungry, since the hatch was a few days ago. If you want to try it, don't miss fishing the shallow water in the riffles." Better advice was never given. I got back to the access and started fishing with a big Prince nymph with a Copper John dropper. Wading was difficult and there was a LOT of river I couldn't fish, even though it's a shallow stretch--the current was just too strong and the bottom composed of basketball-sized, SLICK boulders. But where I could, I fished the subtle drop-offs in the faster water and caught some average-sized browns. And then I figured out where the bigger fish were. There were some braids, and where they left the river and came back into it there were shallow riffles with somewhat deeper drop-offs at their bases. I'm talking riffles 6 inches deep and drop-offs down to maybe 18 inches before slowing down in 2-3 feet of water. In those drop-offs right up against the riffles, I caught a 20 inch, a 19 inch, and an 18 inch brown, along with several more browns and a couple of rainbows over 15 inches. And I also caught some little 5 inchers that I jerked over my head when I'd set up on them! It was the best fishing I've had out here this stay. It also beat me up...slipped on the rocks twice, went in over my waders once. But I caught fish, and didn't see another angler until I was taking my waders off to leave, when a car pulled up with a guy and his son. Who needs salmon fly hatches?

RSBreth saw the post I made on this subject on another board, and suggested I repeat it here... The solo canoe, in my opinion, is the best solo paddlecraft for fishing Ozark streams. But canoes do have their drawbacks. Having fished from canoes for close to 50 years, I've encountered all the problems, and being an inveterate tinkerer who is always looking for a better mousetrap, I've given a lot of thought and effort to designing tackle systems and ways of carrying rods in the canoe. After a lot of evolution, I think I've come up with something as close to perfect as I'm probably going to get for myself. It may work for others, or at least give them ideas on how to figure out their own set-up. I'm still out here in Montana, and I don't have my usual solo out here, nor do I have all my rods, but I do have one of my old solo canoes that works the same way, so I took photos of the various things I've figured out on it the other day. Here is the basic set-up. It includes the seat and back, the two tackle containers, and three rods. I usually carry five rods in the canoe, and I'll have a small cooler that goes ahead of the thwart in front of me, although sometimes I'll put it just behind my seat. The cooler will hold all my food and beverages for the day. I don't carry much else on day trips--a small, waterproof camera goes in my pocket along with a small set of binoculars. My life jacket, if not being worn, drapes over the seat back. Here is a better view of the way the rods lie in the canoe, along with the tackle containers. You want the rods to be within easy reach, quick to get into action, but you also want them to have their tips inside the gunwales of the canoe so you don't snag them on brush or tangle your line around the end of a protruding rod. My canoes are 14 footers, and my rods are all 6 feet long or less, so I can lay them on the bench seat supports, and the tips will either be under the rear end cap on the rods pointing backwards, or under the front end cap or alongside the gunwales near the front. As I said, I carry five rods...two with tips pointing rearwards, two on the bench seat support with tips pointing forward, and usually one with rod handle lying on the thwart in front of me, and the tip beneath the front end cap. That one will be a short rod, 5 feet long. I like the short rod for playing walk-the-dog type topwater lures--the shortness allows you to get the rod at the right angle to the water while sitting in the canoe. Here's a close-up of the rods lying on the bench seat supports. You could strap them down to the bench seat, but I don't do that. I do make sure the reels are hanging downwards inside the gunwales, because I've accidentally knocked rods overboard by bumping the reel when it was up above the gunwales. Here's a close-up of one of my two tackle containers. This is a cheap, plastic auto battery box from the discount store. Just by pure luck, it snugly holds five Plano 3701 boxes full of lures. It straps beneath my seat, and as you can see I added a velcro strap from the bottom of the box up to a buckle on the front of the seat, which holds the Plano boxes in when I'm dragging the canoe over a downed tree or something. Otherwise I keep it unstrapped. I cut little slits in the "bottom" of the box, and ran double sided velcro straps through them and out the front of the box, as shown here. Here is the other container. This one was the most difficult to come up with. I tried to find a rigid plastic box that held 3600 Planos, but the only thing I could find was the soft bag shown. So I made a rigid liner out of an old cutting board from my wife's sewing room and lined the bag with it. The container straps to the thwart in front of me as shown. The beauty of these containers, besides the fact that they are close to hand, is that they keep the Plano boxes off the bottom of the canoe, and also keep them lying flat. Anybody who has ever fished from a canoe knows that it'll get some water in the bottom during the day, and if your tackle is lying on the bottom of the canoe it'll probably get wet. Also, if you have any container that holds the Plano boxes on edge, rain or even just drips from the paddle will trickle into them and get stuff wet. This is the only way I've found to keep my tackle dry. Finally, I added a carrying strap to the battery box as shown. The other container has handles already. So there you have it. Space for five 3701 boxes and four 3600 boxes, keeping them flat and off the bottom of the canoe. Room for five rods, all easy to hand like the tackle containers. The seat is a Sit-backer, which is pretty comfortable--you really NEED something with a good backrest. Of course, you must have a bench seat in your canoe for the battery box idea. Rotomolded seats won't work, obviously. But I hate rotomolded seats anyway, and would replace them with bench seats on any canoe I owned. You can get bench seats from Piragis Northwoods. I also had to raise the seat an inch or so on one of my canoes in order for the battery box to fit under it. Raising the seat makes the canoe feel a bit less stable, but I quickly got used to it. You can do the same tackle system on a tandem canoe. I made a short, removable thwart for my tandems that goes in front of the front seat, to strap the thwart container onto. If you're in the back of the canoe, you can strap it to the thwart in front of you. Rod placement is a bit more problematical, and takes some experimentation to figure out the best way to stow rods for both front and back angler without them getting tangled. You might not be able to carry five rods APIECE!

I'll take the liberty of answering for siu...Amidon is not Johnson Shut-ins, which is on the East Fork of Black River, it's a shut-in on the upper Castor River. Similar geology but different-colored rocks. The traditional name for Amidon is Pink Rocks Shut-in, and it's an apt name...the rocks are a bright salmon pink and positively glow in bright sun. It's a beautiful area but the stream is small and cannot stand much fishing pressure. The upper Castor rivals the upper Black River in normal water clarity, and is probably one of the two clearest streams in the Ozarks.

Basically, for me it starts out being good just being able to go. Everything else adds to. or occasionally subtracts from, that basic good. A lot of it is the destination. Lakes don't do much for me, so figure if it's a lake or pond, it doesn't add to the good. Rivers add to it. The prettier the river, the more it adds. The more wild and remote the river, the more it adds. Interesting riffles or rapids in a canoe or raft or driftboat, more points. Lots of people, subtract some. Obnoxious people, subtract. Nice weather--especially not a lot of wind, add. Otherwise, as long as I'm prepared for it, even bad weather can be an addition--I've fished in the snow and loved it. Little things, peripheral things, can add. Wildlife seen. Wildflowers. Fall colors. Spring colors. Bird song. Eagle nests. Even the droning of insects. Of course, some things like that subtract. I hate mosquitoes. I don't like getting into stinging nettles. But there aren't a lot of things like that which can subtract. Good company adds. Occasionally, bad company has subtracted. Being solo definitely adds. Camping on the river adds. Being able to see a sunrise miles away from the nearest access. Mist on the water. Stars reflected in the water at night. A nice scotch just before bedtime while staring at the fire. Night sounds...though occasionally, bullfrogs or whippoorwills that are too close can subtract. Having to do too many camp chores can subtract, but good food adds. But what about the fishing itself? Partly it depends upon expectations. Fishing that is poorer than I expect it to be can be a subtraction. Fishing as good as I expect is an addition, however, and fishing better than I expect is a BIG addition. Solving a challenge is an addition. One big fish is a definite addition. A surprise catch is an addition. That's just a very partial and limited list of what can add to a trip. I could spend days thinking of all the good stuff. Funny how the bad stuff seems a lot more limited!

Way to go, Hank! You're right...a 20 inch smallmouth is a REALLY impressive fish when you first see them up close at the end of your line. I've caught a lot of them over the years, but it still just about takes my breath away when I get that first good look.

JS, I've fished Armstrongs, De Puys, and Nelsons a number of times. Armstrongs is actually the upper half of the same spring creek that continues as De Puys--same creek, different owners. Nelsons is on the opposite side of the river in the same reach. They flow about 40-50 cfs (at least that's my estimate...about the size of an Ozark creek that's very marginally canoeable). They are absolutely full of wild rainbows and browns with the occasional cutthroat or cut-bow. Sizes range from 10 to 20 inches, with most of them around 15 inches, and a few bigger ones. The water is very clear and there's a whole lot of varied habitat, from riffles and shallow runs to deeper pools. Some of the pools are big enough to be pretty slack water with a lot of aquatic growth. Pretty creeks, gorgeous setting, and of course fishable when everything else is flooded. They have the reputation of being very tough fishing, requiring 7X or even lighter tippet and very small flies. That reputation is partially true--the fish can be very selective and you may need the very light tippet to fish the very small flies. However, I usually spend part of the day there fishing the little flies, especially if they are rising to dries, but sometime during the day I'll put on some 4X fluorocarbon, tie on a pretty decent size woolybugger, and catch a bunch of browns in those slower pools. If it's a cloudy, windy day, I'll spend the whole day fishing streamers, and have caught more than 50 fish a day on them. Is it worth the $100 a day? Well, if everything else is blown out, it definitely is! Otherwise, if I'm there for a week, I might fish a spring creek one day just for the heck of it, but I don't feel like I HAVE to fish them to have the complete Montana experience. Yesterday was a different Montana experience. I had scouted out these public ponds in the town of Three Forks when I first got out here...the De Lorme atlas said they held largemouths. So I loaded up the solo canoe and drove over there with my bass fishing tackle. There are three ponds. The first one I fished was quite clear, and I spent some time just paddling around and looking for fish. It had quite a few carp, but while paddling I only saw a couple of bass. So I figured they must be deeper than I could see. No idea exactly how deep the pond was, but there was a lot of water too deep to see the bottom, with hardly any of it structurally obvious. There was quite a bit of aquatic plant growth. So I started out by trying topwaters, making long casts and bringing them from the shallows over the areas where the bottom dropped off and disappeared. I caught on small largemouth. Then I tried some tubes and jigs, nothing. The sun was high and bright and there was almost no wind. When I got to a point where I could just drag the canoe over a narrow spit of land to the second pond, I climbed up on the bank and looked at it. It was muddy, visibility no more than 6 inches. Hmmm....that could be interesting on this bright day. I slid the canoe into it, and immediately started seeing carp. That pond was absolutely FULL of big carp...maybe that's why it was muddy! Anyway, I started fishing a big spinnerbait along the bank in the shallows. I came to a spot where a willow shaded the water--shade was VERY scarce on this pond. I made a nice cast under the overhanging willow branches and got a nice strike. It turned out to be a fat 19 inch largemouth, maybe 4.5 pounds. Cool. I fished all the way around that pond and only caught one more, about 15 inches. By this time it was early afternoon and the sun was getting hotter and brighter all the time, so I decided to skip the third pond, which was also clear, and drive up the Madison River to see if I could find some trout fishing, since I had a fly rod and my waders and fly vest along. On the part of the lower Madison I have fished many times before, I found the river to still be high and murky, but clear enough to fish. Since everything else around here is still muddy, the guides were out in force with their clients in drift boats, and also the river was almost clogged with tubers and college kids floating in every conceivable craft drinking beer. They were surprisingly subdued, however. I stopped along the road where there was a long stretch of nice bank I could fish with streamers. I fished downstream for a quarter of a mile, getting only one strike that I missed. So I put on a couple of big nymphs (there were a lot of small caddis flying around, but few on the water and nothing rising) to fish back up to the truck and ended up catching a couple of 14 inch trout, one brown and one rainbow. All in all a nice day.

Guess we'll just have to disagree on this one, Trav. Everything I've heard and read about Iraq says that the al Queda terrorist types are a VERY small component of the problem we're having there. Mostly it's home-grown Iraqis that are either fighting each other as much as us, or trying to blow us up simply because we're in their country, with the Iranians egging them on and smuggling them weapons. Those people would never have attacked us at home. Like I said, I tend to see the point in invading Iraq geopolitically, but I don't think we're accomplishing a darn thing on the war on terror with our presence there now, instead making more enemies and wasting a lot of time, effort, money, and blood that could have been better used in concentrating on the real enemies. Afghanistan is getting to be more and more of a problem while we're concentrating on Iraq. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we'd done things a lot better in the initial aftermath of the invasion, we probably wouldn't be having the problems there we have now. I have no problem either with using our power, but I think we also have to realize its limitations. Every time we've fought a "limited" war or tried to do nation building, it hasn't worked out well. And like it or not, we do have to live with a hundred and some odd other nations because we can't bulldoze them all. The "war on terror", which is a really stupid title for what is actually a war on Islamic radicals bent on hurting us any way they can with the eventual dream of making the whole world follow their medieval religion (with them in control), will not be won until so-called moderate Muslims all over the world get really serious about ostracizing and even actively fighting against those idiots. That ain't the way things are going now...we're making more of them radicals than there were before with our adventure in Iraq. We can't beat them all by ourselves, because we can't go in and bomb the heck out of every Islamic nation on earth--even though I wish we could. Make no mistake about it, this is largely a religious war. Unless we're willing to declare war on Islam, in the end it's a war of ideas. Being a bully doesn't win that kind of war. Don't get me wrong, I think we should seek out the radicals that are threatening us and kill them wherever we find them, but it has to be attacks specifically on THEM, or maybe on the leaders of nations that actively support them if we can show strong enough evidence that is the case.

Geez, Trav, you gotta get a camera that can take close-ups! No way anybody can ID from those photos. Baby gar look just like big gar except they usually have a dark stripe running down their sides. No idea what kind of fish looks like a baby flathead without whiskers, since baby catfish have whiskers just like the big ones. Your fish that you said might be a gar is probably a brook silverside. Long thin silvery colored (almost translucent) fish with a fairly long snout and big mouth. If you look closely, if it has a small spiny fin rather far forward on its back, that's what it is. Your first pictures, although too blurry to tell, kinda made me think of Ozark minnows (yes there is a species called an Ozark minnow). One of the most common minnows on Ozark streams, and probably do well in the lakes as well.

Nope, I wouldn't do it on the White, either. On a normal Ozark river that isn't dam-controlled, you can get by with it if you are cautious. I use an anchor occasionally in the winter, but in the winter I'm fishing in slow water anyway. Anchoring in fast water, dragging a chain in fast water, or using either on a river that might come up 5 feet at any short period of time is a recipe for disaster.

The part of your argument that I don't buy is that by "fighting them there" we are precluding them from coming over here. If our enemy was and is Islamic radicals who are terrorists, there weren't any of them with any sort of ability to do harm to the U.S. in Iraq before we got rid of Saddam. Iraq was not "home territory". Yep, our government (and not just the Bush administration) believed Saddam to be a threat two ways--to Israel in the immediate future and thus a destabilizing force in the Middle East, and as a possible source of WMDs to terrorists. At least that's the original rationale for invading. If the intelligence was pretty solid, and not just a convenient rationalization for invading when the real reason was what I stated before (gaining a stable oil source for the future), I could support the invasion. When it was getting ready to happen, I thought, and hoped, that our government knew stuff we didn't and had good reasons for invading. I even think that, geopolitically, the oil justification made some sense. But we all know what has happened since. The thing I'm most disappointed in the Bush administration in this matter was the way they bungled the aftermath of the invasion and caused most of the problems we've had ever since. I think we did the right thing invading Afghanistan. I'm not advocating staying home and burying our heads in the sand. I'm not even sure that getting everybody out of Iraq at this point is a good idea. But I'm pretty pessimistic that we're going to have a good outcome in Iraq. And I'm pretty sure that we're not keeping them from attacking us here by fighting them over there, given that the al Queda types are still a very minor part of the problem in Iraq. I simply don't buy that. Your equating this attitude to the 1930s doesn't hold water. We are not facing a country that we can fight face to face. We are, in effect, facing a bunch of very loosely united multi-national groups. We aren't fighting those groups in Iraq, we're trying to fix a mess that, in large part, we made ourselves there, and getting little or nothing accomplished to fight the terrorists that threaten the U.S. In fact, it could easily be argued that we are making things worse. Our presence in Iraq is probably one of the best recruiting tools we could give the radicals, and I think we're making more committed enemies than we're killing, giving them a heck of a propaganda tool--not to mention replacing a government that was a pretty good counterbalance to Iran with one that is developing close ties to Iran.

Sorry, can't quite agree. We're getting far off the topic here, but if you were a terrorist and your ultimate goal was the destruction of the United States, would you rather fight the U.S. military in the Middle East, or blow up unprotected civilians in the U.S.? If your answer was to fight the military, then you're giving the terrorists more honor than I think they deserve. How in the world can you think that giving them a hard target in Iraq is keeping them from attacking a soft target here? The only thing in that vein that putting U.S. soldiers in Iraq has accomplished is to give the radicals a target that the average Islamist can admire them for attacking. They get more support from the Islamic "street" for fighting us in Iraq than they would if they did another 9/11. If they had the means and the will, I think they would have already attacked the U.S. again, regardless of whether we were in Iraq or not. You simply CANNOT equate Iraq with 9/11. The links are very tenuous at best. There wasn't an al Queda presence in Iraq until we got rid of Saddam. There still isn't all that much of one. I will never believe that the main reason for going into Iraq was because it was a threat to the U.S. I think it was done mainly to mold one Middle Eastern country with a lot of oil into a Western style democracy that would be friendly to the U.S., so that in the future there would be at least one stable and friendly country over there with oil, in case Saudi Arabia fell to the radicals that infest it.

HC, I thought I'd posted an answer to you a couple days ago, but somehow I must not have... The Yellowstone is just starting to drop from its high water mark for the year, and is still above flood stage in Livingston. I think it may be at least two weeks yet until it gets fishable. Nearly all the other streams in the area are in the same situation. The only rivers I know of that are really fishable right now are the Firehole, Gibbon, and Madison in the park, and the lower Madison is marginally fishable, but could be in decent shape by then. According to my other guide friend who has been guiding on the Bighorn, it's been pretty uncrowded and is fishing well. However, I did catch a bunch of fish yesterday. My brother-in-law and his wife were staying with us, scouting out the bowhunting possibilities in the area, since she drew a tag for this fall. We decided yesterday to hike up to Thompson Lake. It's a small lake up in the mountains, and getting to it involved a 6 mile hike (one way) and a 1300 feet elevation gain. We knew nothing of the fishing possibilities on it, and I didn't even pack a fly rod, but Jeff decided to carry a little telescoping spinning rod and reel. Really cheesy little outfit. The hike up was nice until the last mile, where we had to cross a very raging little torrent of a creek (by walking across it on a log) and then clambering over and under a lot of downed timber. The lake was gorgeous when we got there. We relaxed and ate lunch. There were two guys on the other side fishing, and we watched them catch a few fish, so far away we couldn't tell much about the fish. They had a pile of camping gear lying on a beautiful grassy spot, and we were envying them for such a great campsite, when a group of backpackers came by us...and kept coming by us. Ended up being about 12 people, and they proceeded to go over to the grassy spot and start pitching tents all around where the two anglers had staked out their camp. I bet those guys were really bummed. After lunch, Jeff got out his fishing pole. He dug around in his pack and came up with some little white crappie jigs, and tied one on. Where we were, it was shallow for a long way out, and it was obvious there were no fish there, but he made a few casts, enough to establish that he couldn't cast far enough to reach any good water from there. So we walked over to a spot where we could reach a bit deeper water. I stood high on the mountainside over that spot where I could see if there were any fish, while he casted. After about five casts, I saw a flash as one struck at his jig, but he didn't feel it. It struck several more times as he retrieved, and finally he felt it, but missed the strike. He cast again, and this time I saw a bit bigger flash and he hooked the fish. It was a colorful 10 inch Yellowstone cutthroat. He caught another, a bit bigger, and then told me to come down and try it. For the next hour, we proceeded to catch fish after fish, trading the little rod after each fish caught. They ranged from 9 inches to 15 inches, and each was a jewel--and obviously pretty dumb. Finally we decided we'd better quit and start back...Sheila, who didn't have a fishing license, had been sitting up on the trail napping and feeling sorry for herself that she couldn't fish, and we had a long trek back to the truck. I nearly fell off the log over the creek on the way back, but otherwise it was uneventful. Beautiful country, nice exercise, fun fishing.