Al Agnew

I'll certainly comment, but I don't expect anything much to be changed. Illegal gigging is what it is. I'm as convinced as ever that it has a significant effect on the numbers of BIG game fish, though I agree with MDC's position that it doesn't affect overall populations. Gigging 5 or 10 smallmouth over 18 inches from a wintering pool over the season is removing a tiny, tiny percentage of adult bass, so it won't matter for the next year's spawn, but it removes a far more significant percentage of smallies over 18 inches from that stream stretch. But most giggers are law-abiding, and probably nobody is going to be for punishing them for the transgressions of the few pinheads. So I don't expect to see anything like shortening the season or closing certain stream stretches. Maybe what we should be pushing for is for MDC to spend a lot more money on law enforcement. If there were two or three agents per county instead of one, that would free up one agent to concentrate on policing the stream stretches in that county during gigging season instead of having to spend most of their time on all the hunting going on during that same time period. Enforcing the law, patrolling the streams away from the public boat ramps where most illegal giggers operate, and somehow convincing county courts to get serious about fines for illegal gigging would go a long way toward solving the problem.

My buddy Tom from Missouri spent the week with me out here in Montana last week, hoping to hit the Mothers' Day caddis hatch. My other buddy Tom from Montana, former guide and one of the best fly fishermen I know, Missouri Tom, and I spent the week chasing fishable water with a chance at bugs. The Yellowstone was barely clear enough to feel like fishing wasn't a total waste of time the first day, so we floated it. Tough fishing. I caught a couple on streamers and the others caught a couple on nymphs as we took turns rowing. The bugs didn't show up, the wind did. The next day was cold and snowing when it wasn't raining, and I guess we've finally gotten old enough to be a little wiser and not so driven, because we decided to stay indoors and watch the river. The day after, we booked rods on Armstrong Spring Creek, and as usual, had a good day. Weather was beautiful, which meant there were no real hatches, but I caught several on dries anyway, plus a bunch on nymphs, plus a dozen or so on streamers late in the afternoon, so Missouri Tom said I'd done the grand slam, catching fish on all three types of flies. Then it was back to the Yellowstone again the next day, different stretch, more or less same results. The water temps were getting up around 50 degrees, and various sources say the caddis come off when it reaches the low 50s. We saw a half dozen caddis. Water was on the verge of being muddy. We always say that if it looks greenish it's going to be good, but if it looks brownish forget it. Well, it was brownish but still had more than a foot of visibility, so we had hopes. They were dashed. And the warm weather meant the rest of the low snow was melting and the river was going to be rising and getting even muddier, so we started looking for clearer water. We finally decided upon the lower Madison. A bit above normal for this time of year, but our sources said visibility was okay and the caddis should be showing up any day now. We waited in line with several other boats at the put-in. The river wasn't going to be uncrowded. But hope springs eternal. We consider ourselves good fishermen. We figured we could catch some fish. Two hours later, we were questioning that assumption. I think we'd caught two fish altogether, and they were 10 inchers. But...to make matters worse, there were several guides that passed us with obviously neophyte clients, and every time one would pass us they'd catch a fish. We watched carefully, trying to figure out what they were doing right and we weren't. They were nymphing as we were. And those clients had no clue how to mend, how to get drag-free drifts, or how to cast. They were just dangling nymphs off the side of the boat...and catching fish. Meanwhile, we were fishing hard and carefully, doing everything right, or so we thought...and nothing. The day ended with maybe 8 or 9 fish caught, none of them over 12 inches, one of the more frustrating days we'd ever had. So...we had to do it again the next day. More warm sunny weather, surely the caddis would show up. We had a few other things to try if they didn't. The parking lot at the put-in had more vehicles with boat trailers than the day before. The fishing started out a bit better...we caught four trout in the first hour. 10 inchers, but better. Then it settled in to exactly the same as the day before, fishing those troughs and depressions in the bottom between the weedbeds carefully and well, great drifts, perfect presentations...and then another neophyte without a clue would catch another nice trout right in front of us. The bugs didn't come off. I finally caught a brown that was a whole 14 inches, the biggest fish of two days on the Madison. We caught a dozen among us all day. Missouri Tom flew home the next morning. We joked that we had apparently forgotten how to catch Montana trout and we hoped he'd remember how to catch them back in Missouri. But it was really only a half-joke. Weeks like that make you question yourself. Of course, we all know that some of the biggest trout ever caught were taken on silly stuff like marshmallows and Velveeta cheese. But geez, you'd think that you'd get at least a little reward for fishing well. Still, it was a great week with great friends. We've been fishing together in Montana for more than 20 years, and always look forward to this week of getting together on the rivers. And a little humble pie is a good thing, right?

Nope, pure spotted bass don't have spots on their bellies, but ROWS of spots on their lower sides, below the dark band of blotches running horizontally down the middle of their sides. This one shows that dark band of blotches very clearly. Hybrids CAN have dark belly spots, and they CAN have the dark band of blotches. They can also have red eyes. But so can pure spotted bass, though rarely. Even smallmouths don't very often have red eyes. The red pigment is always there in both smallies and spots (more of it in smallies), but it is usually obscured by dark pigment. Usually the red shows up only when the rest of the fish is light in color. Smallies caught over a clean gravel bottom in sunlight are most often red-eyed. They can change color rapidly, and they will lighten up over a clean, light-colored bottom to blend in. When they lighten up, the chromatophores (cells with dark pigment) change and the dark pigment almost disappears. This happens in the eyes, too, and when the dark pigment almost disappears, the red beneath it shows up.

Well, there is some maintenance of accesses besides cutting the grass. Most of them are in the floodplain, and with the floods we've been having in recent years, they get damaged a LOT. Merrill Horse Access on Big River has had the road washed out several times, and there is a thick layer of mud on many of the accesses including Merrill Horse after floods--I had to check out three different accesses on Big River last year before finding one where I could actually launch my boat after a flood, the others were covered in wet, slick mud. Wouldn't be long, if they were ignored, before they were unusable. If the sales tax was dumped, MDC would lose something like 60% of their funding. Think you could still operate in anything like your present circumstances if your pay was cut 60%? They would have to quadruple fishing and hunting license fees to come anywhere close to making up the difference. They do use science to make their decisions. You might not agree with the science. It might turn out to be wrong. But they don't make decisions willy nilly. And they have to keep a very diverse bunch of people happy at the same time. I think that they do a fair job of it. Is there some wasted money? Of course, there is in any large organization, whether a part of the government or the private sector. But overall they do a pretty good job.

River smallmouth don't all spawn at the same time. Usually, if it's normal spring weather, they start spawning around the April full moon, but can spawn as late as early June. Since this spring was far from normal weather, the water wasn't warm enough in April--needs to be a bit above 62 degrees consistently. But if it doesn't get above 62 degrees by early May, they'll start spawning anyway by then. Should be beginning by now. High water also postpones the spawn, and high water while the fish are on the beds messes things up, but they still get some "re-spawning" done when the water goes down, as not all females dump all their eggs at the same time. Also, the April full moon came late in the month, so they aren't that far off schedule--if it had been warm, they might have started spawning very early in April.

Maybe they shouldn't bother with the fishing reports. But it's not like they are spending a ton of man-hours on it. Probably takes one person about a half day at most per week to do it. Doesn't cost much of anything to put it out there these days. Whoever is giving them the information is probably doing it for little or nothing. So, even if the one person doing it made $25 an hour, it''s probably costing us taxpayers and permit buyers collectively about $100 a week for it. Geez, guys, reserve your outrage against MDC for a worthwhile battle. I ain't always happy with what they do, but overall you'd be a lot less happy with about 40 or more other states' fish and game departments.

Yep, red eyes mean nothing. Spotted bass can have red in their eyes. Hard to tell from the picture, but looks like a hybrid. Which is pretty cool, too.

I think you will note that it usually says, "fishing HAS BEEN...". Not "fishing WILL BE...". Geez, guys, it's a report of what anglers have been telling marinas and other reporters about their fishing. Sure it's more or less useless. I haven't read one in many years. Long ago, I used to read the ones about the various streams, because they sometimes gave you a bit about water conditions. But that was before the internet and real time river gauges, and sites like this one. They always came out on Thursdays, so they still weren't accurate even with water conditions after a day or so. Which meant the weekend angler had a slight chance of the report being relevant if the weather was stable. Now, I see no reason for them to even put out reports. They aren't going to come up with anything that rivals what you can get on the various internet sites, unless they just compile their reports from those sites. Wrench, I think you're being a little unfair about them being the ones with their fingers on the pulse. Maybe if there was an agent for every body of water, out there every day checking anglers throughout the season not only for their licenses but getting creel censuses done on a continuing basis, they'd have that finger on the pulse. But we know that ain't the way it works. Heck, agents work, they don't fish every day themselves, and I doubt that many of them are as good at catching fish as the average tournament bass fisherman. MDC's job is to provide the best fisheries possible...it ain't their job to show us all how to fish.

I'm glad you realize what a special fish that is. As you say, you may never catch another that big from an Ozark stream the rest of your life. (And I recognize that spot in the photos--I've fished that hole religiously for 40 years and have never caught one there that made four pounds, let alone more than 5!)

Yep, Crooked Creek is a losing stream. During dry weather the entire flow sinks underground just downstream from Yellville, and it's mostly dry with a few permanent pools from there until the last few miles before it reached the White River, and even in those last couple miles is will have very little flow. It can get very skinny above Pyatt, too, though it's sometimes floatable a lot farther upstream.

I recently acquired a 30-70X Swarovski spotting scope, and I love it. But where I'm getting the most use out of it out here in Montana is digiscoping with my Iphone. I got an adapter that you put the phone into and then it attaches to the eyepiece of the scope. The thing is a little tricky, because focusing the scope by looking at the screen on the phone isn't as easy as it would seem, and you absolutely need a tripod, while a remote shutter button for the phone is a big help, too. But I have those things, and Mary and I spent a day in Yellowstone Park this week, trying it all out. We had a great day of wildlife viewing, with wolves and bears, both black and grizzlies. A bison had just died, and was about 100 yards off the road, and there was a pregnant, collared wolf on it. This is a picture I got with the scope and Iphone: Compare that to a pic I took with my SLR and 500 mm lens with 1.4 extender (so 700 mm): However, the phone optics aren't nearly as good...here is an enlargement of the same picture taken with the SLR and big lens...note the better detail: On the other hand, the phone really handles low light situations better. This bear photo couldn't have been taken with the SLR and big lens; the bear was under a big evergreen tree and it was late in a cloudy afternoon, so it was very dark. The bear was about 200 yards away, so not only would it have been very small in the frame, but it would have been very dark or would have required a very slow shutter speed, which doesn't work well with animals that are probably in motion. But the phone compensated for the lighting very well. This was not even at full zoom on the spotting scope, but was zoomed in on the phone itself: So while the stuff I've taken with the phone and scope has not been publishing quality, for my purposes of getting reference for paintings, it's been pretty amazing.

Brits and other Europeans call elk deer because the European elk is the red deer. They call moose elk because the European moose was always known as an elk.

I've done it from 185. Not a bad put-in on the county road just upstream from the bridge. Skinny water until Mine a Breton Creek joins to make the Mineral Fork, then it's about a mile on down to F. But there weren't any big log jams or barbed wire fences when I did it several years ago, and no landowners came to run me off. Your experience may vary!

Yeah, I didn't see it on the website, either, though I didn't look past the Vagabond page. Probably somewhere around 400 pounds, comparable to other solo canoes of the same length.

You simply won't find scenery comparable to the upper Jacks Fork or lower end of the Buffalo. Even the other parts of the Jacks Fork and Buffalo don't compare to it, except the upper Buffalo downstream from Ponca for 10 or 12 miles is better yet, though different. Even if you've floated the middle Buffalo, you won't be prepared for what the lower end is like. And there's a huge difference between the Jacks Fork above Alley Spring and the JF below Alley. The two stream sections are quite different in some ways but very similar in others. Both the lower end of the Buffalo and the upper Jacks Fork have NO flat bottomland, they are nearly canyons, wooded all the way from the top of the ridges to the edge of the river, nothing but bluffs, trees, and gravel bars. The lower Buffalo is almost wilderness, with little or no human settlement for a long way from the river, so you won't hear anything manmade except for jet airplanes passing over. The upper JF is a narrow canyon with gently rolling uplands adjacent to it, so human activities are not more than a mile from the river in many places and you'll hear the occasional lawn mower, tractor, or automobile in the distance. Plus, the upper JF has several accesses, while the lower Buffalo doesn't have any real accesses between Rush and the White River. But still, you won't see many signs of people on the JF. However, in that time period, you probably will encounter at least a few other floaters on the Buffalo, and if there is enough water, quite a few on the JF. As for your other rivers you listed, some of them are more likely to furnish solitude...especially if you're willing to put up with low water levels by going higher up on the stream. If solitude is what you're seeking, hope for low water levels and do one like the upper Kings River, upper half of Bryant Creek, Eleven Point from Thomasville to Greer, Osage Fork, upper Gasconade (well above the stretch that Gasconade Hills services), or the St. Francis. I'd rate the scenery fairly similar on all those except the St. Francis, which is unique among floatable Ozark streams. I wouldn't recommend floating the whitewater sections, but you could start at Silvermines and float downstream as far as you wished to cover. There are a lot of difficult passages on the St. Francis above the Highway C-N bridge, rocky rapids and willow jungles, but the landscape is scenic, interesting, and very different from most Ozark streams (and the fishing can be quite good).

I guess different people paddle in different ways. I find the Vagabond to handle well with a good load--although I'm 5'8" and 170 pounds...but I load the thing with enough stuff for three days on the river and it handles as well as it does on a day trip. Love Gavin's description, though...tandem equals barge, solo equals Ferrari, kayak equals lipstick on a pig. I paddled a 15 ft. Grumman for more than 15 years as my only canoe. My first solo was an Old Town Pack, and I knew right then I'd never be without a solo canoe, even though the Pack leaves a bit to be desired. I now own 6 solos, all of which are sweeter paddling than that old Pack. If you have good balance, you can pole some solos, but it's not comfortable like poling many tandems. That is the only drawback to a solo canoe. Yeah, you can paddle a tandem upstream. I can do it quicker and easier. I can also paddle downstream quicker and easier, stop the canoe in current more easily, move it sideways in current more easily, take far fewer paddle strokes to turn it around, in fact just about anything you can do in three or four strokes with a tandem paddled solo, I can do in one or two in a real solo. At the end of the day, I'll be a lot less tired. Not to mention, even less tired after loading the thing onto the vehicle at the end of that day.

I agree with Gavin that the smaller rainbows are followers and tail nippers, but when you put it in front of a big one that's in the mood... If I'm wading, I tend to fish nymphs or dries wading upstream, and then when I go back down I try streamers. I like fishing them downstream, letting them swing. I also tend to concentrate more in slower water with the streamers. I don't enjoy trying to fish nymphs in slow water, even though there are fish in it. You can fish a streamer in any kind of water.

As Tim said, as long as you're talking just Ozark streams and similar, the less rocker the better. And he's right in everything else he said, too. High sides just catch wind, high ends catch it even more. You seldom encounter waves big enough to make a high sided canoe desirable. I always say that the difference between a good solo canoe and any tandem canoe is simply that paddling a tandem canoe by yourself is simply a means to an end...you paddle it in order to fish or just get down the river. Paddling a good solo canoe is FUN. The paddling itself is far more enjoyable (and less work). The Wenonah Wilderness is a great canoe, but unless you are a big guy and/or you do a lot of canoe camping and like to carry a lot of gear, it probably isn't as good a choice as some of the slightly smaller canoes. My all-purpose solo is the Wenonah Vagabond, but in Royalex, which is no longer made. I haven't paddled the tuff-weave Vagabond, but it should be a pretty nice canoe. I also have an old Oscoda Coda glass canoe (well, actually I have three of them), which is better tracking and faster than the Vagabond, and gets used when I'm floating a slow river like the Bourbeuse or middle Big and I'm covering a lot of water, since I can get down the long, dead pools faster and easier with it.

Funny thing is, even the smallest streams can surprise you with some outsize fish if you try streamers when they are up and murky. Streamers are always hit or miss for me, but I always give them a try.

The biggest reason I'd still go to the Devils is just because I haven't been there before, and it's excellent if challenging fishing, great scenery, and some interesting rapids and falls. Like I said, I would go in a minute if somebody wanted to set up a trip, but I think I'd pay the money to have a guided or outfitted trip, rather than trying to jump through all the hoops of doing it on your own. Some places I'd recommend: John Day River, Oregon--the best trip is 65 miles of wilderness in a high desert canyon that's just spectacular. I've done that trip twice, first time was the best smallmouth fishing I'd ever had up to that point, second was mediocre fishing but water conditions weren't great. I may do this trip again this summer, since I have a friend who is planning it. This is the trip to do if you're looking for probably good to great smallmouth fishing in a long, wild river trip. Lower Salmon River, Idaho--has to be a guided trip because of major whitewater rapids. I haven't done it yet but will this summer, though the trip is mostly just river running and not concentrating on fishing. But I know the fishing can be very good and the river is spectacular. Maine--any of three rivers, the Kennebec, Androscoggin, or Penobscot. Not sure what the opportunities are for long floats and camping on the rivers, but the smallmouth fishing is terrific, with lots of 17-20 inch fish. Scenery is nice.

Yeah, I agree with Gavin in that I always expect to catch browns and not so much rainbows with streamers, but if the conditions are right the bigger rainbows will eat them, too.

I haven't been but know several people who have been, and have seen videos. It's a unique experience, and as you said, not easy. It also isn't an easy river to paddle. I used to really want to do it, but now I'm not quite so gung ho about it...if somebody else set up a trip and invited me I'd go for sure, but there are other rivers in other parts of the country that are friendlier to visiting anglers and have better fishing.

Somebody who fishes the North Fork a lot will hopefully chime in, but in general, if the water is a little high and murky streamers can be terrific. Low and clear, not so much unless it's a dark day...at least that's been my experience both on Missouri trout streams and Western ones. Since the water is often a little high and murky in the spring, I'd not hesitate to fling streamers on the North Fork in those conditions.

Yep, the Wacom Cintiq tablet I use is touch and pressure sensitive. The stylus (they call it a pen) acts as a mouse, even has a clicker on it to do functions like right-clicking, and the tablet also reads the amount of pressure and even the tilt you are applying with it. The tablet is my computer monitor on my desktop, functions just as a regular monitor with a regular mouse, but as an art tablet with the pen. And I also have a smaller Cintiq that hooks up to my laptop. So I can work as I'm sitting around in the living room in the evening, or take it with me when traveling.

Tim, depends upon water clarity. Certainly red doesn't show up in water that deep unless it's SUPER clear. But other colors may in reasonably clear water. Basically, though, few colors are very obvious in water that is more than twice the depth the water clarity is. For instance, if visibility to us is 5 feet (you can see the bottom in 5 feet of water but not much deeper), then most colors turn to greens, grays, and blacks in water that is more than 10 feet deep. Green and blue are the last colors to lose their hue, so they may still show at water 10 feet or deeper in that case. Red loses first, then orange and yellow, then violet, finally blue and green. Keep in mind these colors don't "disappear", they just turn some shade of greenish gray. A light color like yellow will turn to light greenish gray, a dark color like violet will turn very dark greenish gray. That also means that PATTERNS don't disappear. They just turn to something like a black and white photograph with a greenish or blueish tint. Also, fluorescent colors retain their actual color significantly deeper. Yellow might turn to light greenish gray at a certain depth but fluorescent yellow will still look yellow past that depth.